Marx on Ordinary Language

[ChrisK]

This quote has been posted numerous times, but I never see anyone actually engage on the quote itself. So I wanted to know what people thought about Marx saying:



One of the most difficult tasks confronting philosophers is to descend from the world of thought to the actual world. Language is the immediate actuality of thought. Just as philosophers have given thought an independent existence, so they were bound to make language into an independent realm. This is the secret of philosophical language, in which thoughts in the form of words have their own content. The problem of descending from the world of thoughts to the actual world is turned into the problem of descending from language to life.

We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. 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.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03p.htm

This quote seems to run in a Wittgensteinian vein due to its definate attack on how philosophers misuse language.

What are the implications of this statement to Marxist philosophy? Does this perhaps argue that there is no good philosophy?

[Zanthorus]

It should probably be noted here that in 1840's germany "philosophy" meant Hegelian philosophy. That being said there are interesting parrallels between Marx and Wittgenstein. However the former towers above the latter as a social thinker.

[JazzRemington]

It should probably be noted here that in 1840's germany "philosophy" meant Hegelian philosophy. That being said there are interesting parrallels between Marx and Wittgenstein. However the former towers above the latter as a social thinker.

I don't think Wittgenstein had much to say about social matters (in his published works, anyway), he was more concerned with philosophy, or undermining it as it were.

[A.R.Amistad]

I hate to sound inept since I know I will, but I don't see how simply "simplifying language" is going to help answer burning everyday questions that face human individuals. I'm going to be open here, what dies everyone here mean by "misuse of language?" It seems that i am going to have the same questions no matter what language I use.

[ChrisK]

Take the question of Being as an example. The question of Being started by taking the verb to be and they change it from an action to an abstract noun. Thus, being is no longer a type of action, but it is rather a thing in it of itself. This is a self created question, created through changing the meaning of the word. The question of being goes away when it becomes a verb once more.

For a more detailed expression of this process, check out Rosa's essay 3 part 1 section 4 here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_01.htm#DM-Epistemology). Its written about dialectical materialism, but it describes the process of how philosophers misuse language.

[cenv]

Basically, Marx is describing how our language becomes reified. Under capitalism's division of labor and compartmentalization of life, words acquire a life of their own -- the result is that human activity becomes shaped by words, and people are objectified.

Words are mere representations of life, but today we treat them like absolute categories in the media and even in everyday speech. This quote by Marx is especially relevant to revolutionaries today: we write pamphlets and papers full of rhetoric, slogans, and Marxian vocabulary without considering the "independent existence" the language we use has acquired. Thus, when people (non-communists and communists alike) read these words, they only perceive the preconceived associations of this language, the representations these words already contain, and the meaning these symbols acquired long ago. The result is that we are unable to communicate the reality of the social relations around us, because the link between language and this reality has been broken, so we can only communicate in terms of representations that diverge from the reality we are actually perceiving. Language becomes a system of its own, and all other systems become isolated and incommunicable.

So when Marx asks us to dissolve our language and understand that language is a manifestation of life, not an independent reality, I don't think he's just asking us to use really simple vocabulary. He's suggesting that we need to find new forms of expression in order to actually communicate our experiences. We need to express ourselves in ways that shatter the preconceived representations encased in the shell of a language that has acquired a mind of its own. We need to make language do what we want and use it to capture life instead of grasping desperately to express our experiences using the separate reality of isolated language. In short, we need to build a bridge between language and life.

[ChrisK]

Basically, Marx is describing how our language becomes reified. Under capitalism's division of labor and compartmentalization of life, words acquire a life of their own -- the result is that human activity becomes shaped by words, and people are objectified.

Where did you get that from? He's writing in a context of critiquing philosophers. The book is a critique specifically of the young hegelians.


Words are mere representations of life, but today we treat them like absolute categories in the media and even in everyday speech. This quote by Marx is especially relevant to revolutionaries today: we write pamphlets and papers full of rhetoric, slogans, and Marxian vocabulary without considering the "independent existence" the language we use has acquired. Thus, when people (non-communists and communists alike) read these words, they only perceive the preconceived associations of this language, the representations these words already contain, and the meaning these symbols acquired long ago. The result is that we are unable to communicate the reality of the social relations around us, because the link between language and this reality has been broken, so we can only communicate in terms of representations that diverge from the reality we are actually perceiving. Language becomes a system of its own, and all other systems become isolated and incommunicable.

But Marx in this quote specifically calls it the philosophical language. Philosophical language indicates that this is talking about how philosophers use language, not ordinary people.


So when Marx asks us to dissolve our language and understand that language is a manifestation of life, not an independent reality, I don't think he's just asking us to use really simple vocabulary. He's suggesting that we need to find new forms of expression in order to actually communicate our experiences. We need to express ourselves in ways that shatter the preconceived representations encased in the shell of a language that has acquired a mind of its own. We need to make language do what we want and use it to capture life instead of grasping desperately to express our experiences using the separate reality of isolated language. In short, we need to build a bridge between language and life.

He doesn't ask us to disolve our langauage. He says that philosophers (key here) need to disolve the language they use into ordinary language. Ordinary language has nothing to do with a simple vocabulary. It is language as it is used by ordinary people (ie workers) and not distorting it.

[Zanthorus]

I don't think Wittgenstein had much to say about social matters (in his published works, anyway), he was more concerned with philosophy, or undermining it as it were.

That's part of the problem though. He only goes halfway. Marx doesn't just chuck philosophy overboard, he uses it as a starting point to analyse the inverted inhuman world which philosophy grew from.

[Meridian]

I agree with ChristoferKoch above, and it needs to be stressed, that neither Marx nor Wittgenstein was against use of advanced language. Technical language can be useful. It's not the same as philosophical language, based on metaphysical questions and assertions.


I hate to sound inept since I know I will, but I don't see how simply "simplifying language" is going to help answer burning everyday questions that face human individuals. I'm going to be open here, what dies everyone here mean by "misuse of language?" It seems that i am going to have the same questions no matter what language I use.
It is not about "simplifying language". It is about recognizing what we ordinarily mean by the words we have, and not to distort this meaning.

For example, if we look at the language of the ancient Greeks, we can in many instances easily see what lead them to philosophical misconceptions. Say, Plato's idea of 'recollection of knowledge' is one such instance, where the language for 'knowing something' was like that of 'knowing someone' ("acquaintance"). In other words, as a relationship between a 'Knower' and an object called 'Knowledge' or, these, days, a 'Fact'. This lead to the idea of people 'recalling what they already know' (they have previously 'met' the acquaintance in the Ideal World), when it comes to propositional knowledge. To put it simply, propositional knowledge was confused with personal knowledge, spawning an array of philosophical pseudo-problems.

All credit goes to Rosa for pointing out the above to me. :thumbup1:

[cenv]

Where did you get that from? He's writing in a context of critiquing philosophers. The book is a critique specifically of the young hegelians.
When he pinpoints the cause of what he calls the "misuse of language" as the division of labor, he's suggesting that this problem isn't limited to philosophy as an isolated field. Sure, he's a philosopher, so he's applying this analysis specifically to philosophy, but by tying this issue to the organization of the economy, he's implying that it has to do more generally with how we produce culture and the way capitalism shapes communication on a universal scale.


But Marx in this quote specifically calls it the philosophical language. Philosophical language indicates that this is talking about how philosophers use language, not ordinary people.
You don't have to be a philosopher to misuse language in the way Marx describes. In Marx's historical context, his description of language as an independent reality may have been most relevant to philosophy, but today, in an era where the division of labor has reinvented the manipulation of language, it would be a mistake not to explore the more universal applications of his analysis. After all, if we don't try to establish a connection between Marx and our lives, we're doing exactly what he warned against by considering his philosophy, ideas, and writings as existing independently in a historical vacuum.


He doesn't ask us to disolve our langauage. He says that philosophers (key here) need to disolve the language they use into ordinary language. Ordinary language has nothing to do with a simple vocabulary. It is language as it is used by ordinary people (ie workers) and not distorting it.
In today's context, this presupposes a dichotomy that no longer exists. There is no such thing as "ordinary language." Modern capitalism's cultural apparatus has distorted all language. Communication today tends to occur by means of words that have acquired an independent existence much like what Marx calls "philosophical language." The specific form of this language may be different, but its essence and fundamental causes are the same.

[Meridian]

In today's context, this presupposes a dichotomy that no longer exists. There is no such thing as "ordinary language." Modern capitalism's cultural apparatus has distorted all language. Communication today tends to occur by means of words that have acquired an independent existence much like what Marx calls "philosophical language." The specific form of this language may be different, but its essence and fundamental causes are the same.
But, if capitalism has distorted all language, then your language must be distorted as well. Depending on what exactly you mean by "distorted" (either false or misused) we should then either choose to believe you to be wrong or know that we misconstrue you in any case. Since it applies to all language, then my own text here is also either false or incomprehensible.

[cenv]

But, if capitalism has distorted all language, then your language must be distorted as well. Depending on what exactly you mean by "distorted" (either false or misused) we should then either choose to believe you to be wrong or know that we misconstrue you in any case. Since it applies to all language, then my own text here is also either false or incomprehensible.
Touche :p

Actually, I think the distortion that takes place isn't necessarily as simple as language being false or misused. Rather, I think it has to do with the implicit associations of different words, and the way different words tend to contain representations that are part of a larger system of alienated thought and ideas.

Besides, I don't think it's as black and white as saying "oh, all language must be incomprehensible." Of course, no language is ever completely accurate (and yeah, of course my attempts to communicate suffer from some of the problems described above), but words do carry with them certain representations detached from life, and different types of language exhibit this distortion to varying degrees. For instance, more specialized language is more likely to acquire an independent existence.

This probably isn't the best example out there, but look at the way communists, anarchists, etc. obsess over terms like "dictatorship of the proletariat," arguing over and reinterpreting them in different ways, and look at the way most working-class people react when Marxists explain that they are for a dictatorship of the proletariat. Of course, most terms aren't so charged, but the point is that words are part of a larger representation of reality and thus contain implicit associations to varying degrees.

[ChrisK]

When he pinpoints the cause of what he calls the "misuse of language" as the division of labor, he's suggesting that this problem isn't limited to philosophy as an isolated field. Sure, he's a philosopher, so he's applying this analysis specifically to philosophy, but by tying this issue to the organization of the economy, he's implying that it has to do more generally with how we produce culture and the way capitalism shapes communication on a universal scale.

Right, he's using a common argument that the division of labor created a class of people who philosophize, and that class of people distorts ordinary language. In the instance of German Idealism, he's arguing that its the petit-bougeoisie.

Besides, he is speaking of something that has been happening long before capitalism, finding its roots in Ancient Greek society.


You don't have to be a philosopher to misuse language in the way Marx describes. In Marx's historical context, his description of language as an independent reality may have been most relevant to philosophy, but today, in an era where the division of labor has reinvented the manipulation of language, it would be a mistake not to explore the more universal applications of his analysis. After all, if we don't try to establish a connection between Marx and our lives, we're doing exactly what he warned against by considering his philosophy, ideas, and writings as existing independently in a historical vacuum.

Ah, I see what you mean. I misunderstood before.


In today's context, this presupposes a dichotomy that no longer exists. There is no such thing as "ordinary language." Modern capitalism's cultural apparatus has distorted all language. Communication today tends to occur by means of words that have acquired an independent existence much like what Marx calls "philosophical language." The specific form of this language may be different, but its essence and fundamental causes are the same.

Ordinary language simply means language as it is used in a social context. In what way have words obtained indepedent existance outside of a social context? I still expect when someone tells me they've already eaten that they mean that they consumed food, not that they had taken a shit.

[S.Artesian]

Perhaps we should keep in mind how little time and effort Marx put into this question; how he doesn't follow up on it; how his investigations immediately move to and concentrate upon the labor process, not the language process.

[ChrisK]

Perhaps we should keep in mind how little time and effort Marx put into this question; how he doesn't follow up on it; how his investigations immediately move to and concentrate upon the labor process, not the language process.

So basically you don't have a response and just want to pretend that he never wrote it. Of course you forget that he also wrote about how language develops in a social context in the Grundrisse. So he continued to have thoughts about this subject that paralleled Wittgenstein until at least the mid 1850's.

[S.Artesian]

So basically you don't have a response and just want to pretend that he never wrote it. Of course you forget that he also wrote about how language develops in a social context in the Grundrisse. So he continued to have thoughts about this subject that paralleled Wittgenstein until at least the mid 1850's.

Nope, I don't want to pretend that he never wrote it. I just think we need to recognize how little time and effort he put into this particular issue. As for pretending Marx didn't write things... I think it's hilarious that you would cite the Grundrisse, given the tendency of some to pretend as if Marx never wrote that, or at least the parts that don't conform to one's particular "philosophical" bent. I'm sure you know what I mean.

I am curious as to why you, or anyone, would think Marx's meager remarks about language are a fruitful area for inquiry while at the same time never going anywhere near the area where he devoted himself for 35 years--the social organization of labor; the relation between wage-labor and capital.

Perspective. It's about perspective and proportion.

[gilhyle]

What Marx is suggesting is that what Feuerbach tried to do to religious language should be done to philosophical language, i.e. that it should be seen as vitiated by a thorough-going metphorical inversion of a truth (or set of truths) which lie within it and which can be uncovered by unwinding the metaphor.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


What Marx is suggesting is that what Feuerbach tried to do to religious language should be done to philosophical language, i.e. that it should be seen as vitiated by a thorough-going metaphorical inversion of a truth (or set of truths) which lie within it and which can be uncovered by unwinding the metaphor.

This is correct, but does not go far enough, since Marx, like Wittgenstein, argued that philosophical language is a distorted language -- and Wittgenstein drew the logical conclusion from this: that such language is non-sensical.

Moreover, if this is also correct:


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.

Bold added.

If that is correct, the philosophy, as it has been practiced since Anaximander put pen to misuse, is an expression of a ruling-class view of reality -- as I have explained here several times before (this was in answer to the question: Why is Dialectical Materialism a World View?):


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", administrators, 'intellectuals' and theorists, 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 before they became revolutionaries to believe there was just such a hidden world that governed everything. Hence, when they became revolutionaries they would naturally look 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 their reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history has predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for the rest of us, which means that they must be our 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also Teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could 'legitimately' substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand. This is because the masses are too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why Dialectical Materialism is a world-view.

I have gone into more detail on this, here:

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

So, although the context suggests that Marx only had the German Idealists in mind, it is quite clear that his comments apply far more widely, and take in all forms of traditional philosophy.

A R Amistad:


I hate to sound inept since I know I will, but I don't see how simply "simplifying language" is going to help answer burning everyday questions that face human individuals. I'm going to be open here, what dies everyone here mean by "misuse of language?" It seems that i am going to have the same questions no matter what language I use.

In fact, when we pose philosophical questions, language has already 'gone on holiday' (to quote Wittgenstein). Chris has illustrated this in relation to 'being', but this also applies to 'philosophical concepts' like 'mind', 'consciousness', 'cause', 'concept', 'idea', 'identity', 'difference', 'reality', 'existence', 'essence', 'appearance', 'determine', 'free will', and a host of other familiar terms-of-art.

To use an analogy I have employed several times before: consider chess. The pieces can be made of wood, metal, plastic or even pixels on your screen. They can be any shape you like. Such details are irrelevant since the rules are what define the nature of the pieces used and the way they can move.

Now, imagine someone who thinks that chess pieces have lives of their own and begins to ask questions about them. For example: "Who performed the marriage ceremony between the King and the Queen?" Or, "I wonder who built the castle -- and did they get planning permission?" Or, "Can there be off-side in chess, perhaps in a different reality?"

Alternatively, disputes might arise over the 'real' meaning of the sorts of 'philosophical concepts' I mentioned above, which is also a empty pursuit. So, imagine someone saying something like this:

"Since I use pawns to prop open my door, that is their real use", or "The real meaning of the King is to frighten my little sister, since I throw it at her...".

Of course, the absurdity of the above examples is easy to see -- which is why I used them. With empty philosophical questions this is much harder to appreciate (for reasons I won't go into right now). That is why this thought-form has dominated intellectual life for 2400+ years (and still dominates, and not just many who post here), and was only exposed recently. [Why this is so I will also leave to one side for now.] It takes hard work to reveal where the problems lie, how they have arisen and why they continue to fascinate, mesmerise and puzzle. This work was begun by Wittgenstein and has been extended and developed by Wittgensteinians since. [For the very first time, I have for example applied this method to the bogus questions dialecticians have dreamt up.]

It's when ordinary language is misapplied like this, and empty questions such as these are asked that philosophy gets off the ground. Of course, bright sparks come along and try to 'solve' such empty questions, which, naturally, have no solution since they are precisely that, empty. This is, of course, why philosophy has got absolutely nowhere in 2400+ years.

I have tried to illustrate such empty uses of language many times here in relation, not just to dialectical materialism, but in relation to questions about 'determinism', 'consciousness', 'time', the nature of mathematics, and a host of other 'philosophical' pseudo-problems.

[ChrisK]

Nope, I don't want to pretend that he never wrote it. I just think we need to recognize how little time and effort he put into this particular issue. As for pretending Marx didn't write things... I think it's hilarious that you would cite the Grundrisse, given the tendency of some to pretend as if Marx never wrote that, or at least the parts that don't conform to one's particular "philosophical" bent. I'm sure you know what I mean.

The time and effort has little to do with it. The point is is that this seems to represent Marx's final view on this subject and I think its worth discussing its philosophical implications, especially considering that he anticipated Wittgenstein, which is interesting in it of itself.

Certainly your not stupid enough to believe that people ignore the Grundrisse. Besides, I use the Grundrisse to show that Marx considered this idea important enough to write about further, not just in 1845.


I am curious as to why you, or anyone, would think Marx's meager remarks about language are a fruitful area for inquiry while at the same time never going anywhere near the area where he devoted himself for 35 years--the social organization of labor; the relation between wage-labor and capital.

Perspective. It's about perspective and proportion.

Why would I go into his social organization of labor or the relation between wage-labor and capital? There is no real controversy there. Having a circle jerk about it won't do anything. I prefer to discuss things that aren't generally agreed upon.

[S.Artesian]

The time and effort has little to do with it. The point is is that this seems to represent Marx's final view on this subject and I think its worth discussing its philosophical implications, especially considering that he anticipated Wittgenstein, which is interesting in it of itself. .

That's a very interesting take. I agree that the entire work, The German Ideology, represents Marx's final "dispossession" of German idealist philosophy. However, you cite two paragraphs of that unpublished work to make an argument that, IMO, says the ultimate issue for Marx is the use or misuse of language. In fact, Marx is stating that the distorted language is a distorted representation of history and the distortion is based on the immaturity, the lack of material development, the distorted and impaired development of capitalism in Germany.

So for Marx the last words are that it's not an issue of the distortion of words or of language but the real content of history.


Certainly your not stupid enough to believe that people ignore the Grundrisse. Besides, I use the Grundrisse to show that Marx considered this idea important enough to write about further, not just in 1845.

Nope, I'm not that stupid. But are you stupid enough to think I, or anybody else is stupid enough to not realize that Marx's remarks on language in the Grundrisse are completely unrelated to those paragraphs in The German Ideology? That Marx's remarks in the Grundrisse on language focus on language as a social product, a social mediation, not a "natural" one, which Marx specifically uses to make the same point about property?




Why would I go into his social organization of labor or the relation between wage-labor and capital? There is no real controversy there. Having a circle jerk about it won't do anything. I prefer to discuss things that aren't generally agreed upon.

Another interesting view. No controversy? No controversy about accumulation? Expanded reproduction? Sources of surplus value? Real vs. formal domination of capital? Means and relations of production? Productive vs. unproductive labor? Productive vs. unproductive capital? Equal exchange vs. unequal exchange? Reform vs. revolution?

All those controversies are derived from the issue of the relations of wage-labor and capital; on how each becomes, and passes into the other... No real controversy? That indicates to me that you haven't been paying much attention to the real history, and the real "language" of Marx.

But yeah, I have no intention of spending any more effort in your circle jerks, and your circle of jerks.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


In fact, Marx is stating that the distorted language is a distorted representation of history and the distortion is based on the immaturity, the lack of material development, the distorted and impaired development of capitalism in Germany.

In fact he also says this:


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.

Hence, such ideas are a representation of a ruling-class view of reality.

Moreover, it is possible to show that Marx's judgement of the philosophical ideas of his day (that they are, among other things, based on a distortion of language) also applies to philosophy in general.


So for Marx the last words are that it's not an issue of the distortion of words or of language but the real content of history.

You are right, but this expresses itself in philosophical thought via just such a distortion.


That Marx's remarks in the Grundrisse on language focus on language as a social product, a social mediation, not a "natural" one, which Marx specifically uses to make the same point about property?

Those remarks too are thoroughly Wittgensteinian:


"Individuals producing in Society -- hence socially determined individual production -- is, of course, the point of departure. The individual and isolated hunter and fisherman, with whom Smith and Ricardo begin, belongs among the unimaginative conceits of the eighteenth-century Robinsonades, which in no way express merely a reaction against over-sophistication and a return to a misunderstood natural life, as cultural historians imagine. As little as Rousseau's contrat social, which brings naturally independent, autonomous subjects into relation and connection by contract, rests on such naturalism. This is the semblance, the merely aesthetic semblance, of the Robinsonades, great and small. It is, rather, the anticipation of 'civil society', in preparation since the sixteenth century and making giant strides towards maturity in the eighteenth. In this society of free competition, the individual appears detached from the natural bonds etc. which in earlier historical periods make him the accessory of a definite and limited human conglomerate. Smith and Ricardo still stand with both feet on the shoulders of the eighteenth-century prophets, in whose imaginations this eighteenth-century individual -- the product on one side of the dissolution of the feudal forms of society, on the other side of the new forces of production developed since the sixteenth century -- appears as an ideal, whose existence they project into the past. Not as a historic result but as history's point of departure. As the Natural Individual appropriate to their notion of human nature, not arising historically, but posited by nature. This illusion has been common to each new epoch to this day. Steuart avoided this simple-mindedness because as an aristocrat and in antithesis to the eighteenth century, he had in some respects a more historical footing.

"The more deeply we go back into history, the more does the individual, and hence also the producing individual, appear as dependent, as belonging to a greater whole: in a still quite natural way in the family and in the family expanded into the clan [Stamm]; then later in the various forms of communal society arising out of the antitheses and fusions of the clan. Only in the eighteenth century, in 'civil society', do the various forms of social connectedness confront the individual as a mere means towards his private purposes, as external necessity. But the epoch which produces this standpoint, that of the isolated individual, is also precisely that of the hitherto most developed social (from this standpoint, general) relations. The human being is in the most literal sense a Zwon politikon not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society. Production by an isolated individual outside society -- a rare exception which may well occur when a civilized person in whom the social forces are already dynamically present is cast by accident into the wilderness -- is as much of an absurdity as is the development of language without individuals living together and talking to each other. There is no point in dwelling on this any longer. The point could go entirely unmentioned if this twaddle, which had sense and reason for the eighteenth-century characters, had not been earnestly pulled back into the centre of the most modern economics by Bastiat, Carey, Proudhon etc. Of course it is a convenience for Proudhon et al. to be able to give a historico-philosophic account of the source of an economic relation, of whose historic origins he is ignorant, by inventing the myth that Adam or Prometheus stumbled on the idea ready-made, and then it was adopted, etc. Nothing is more dry and boring than the fantasies of a locus communis." [Marx (1973) Grundrisse, pp.83-85 (Penguin edition). Bold emphasis added.]

"The main point here is this: In all these forms -- in which landed property and agriculture form the basis of the economic order, and where the economic aim is hence the production of use values, i.e., the reproduction of the individual within the specific relation to the commune in which he is its basis -- there is to be found: (1) Appropriation not through labour, but presupposed to labour; appropriation of the natural conditions of labour, of the earth as the original instrument of labour as well as its workshop and repository of raw materials. The individual relates simply to the objective conditions of labour as being his; [relates] to them as the inorganic nature of his subjectivity, in which the latter realizes itself; the chief objective condition of labour does not itself appear as a product of labour, but is already there as nature; on one side the living individual, on the other the earth, as the objective condition of his reproduction; (2) but this relation to land and soil, to the earth, as the property of the labouring individual -- who thus appears from the outset not merely as labouring individual, in this abstraction, but who has an objective mode of existence in his ownership of the land, an existence presupposed to his activity, and not merely as a result of it, a presupposition of his activity just like his skin, his sense organs, which of course he also reproduces and develops etc. in the life process, but which are nevertheless presuppositions of this process of his reproduction -- is instantly mediated by the naturally arisen, spontaneous, more or less historically developed and modified presence of the individual as member of a commune -- his naturally arisen presence as member of a tribe etc. An isolated individual could no more have property in land and soil than he could speak. He could, of course, live off it as substance, as do the animals. The relation to the earth as property is always mediated through the occupation of the land and soil, peacefully or violently, by the tribe, the commune, in some more or less naturally arisen or already historically developed form. The individual can never appear here in the dot-like isolation...in which he appears as mere free worker." [Ibid., p.485. Bold emphasis added.]

You:


But yeah, I have no intention of spending any more effort in your circle jerks, and your circle of jerks.

And we've heard that before too...:rolleyes:

[S.Artesian]

What's "Wittgensteinian" about those remarks as they speak to concrete, historical development of property through the labor process?

It's been awhile since I read Wittgenstein, like some 43 years, but I don't recall reading anything that approaches actual historical analysis of the social relations of production.

And besides, Rosa, you're missing the points of Marx's words. The points are:


Production by an isolated individual outside society -- a rare exception which may well occur when a civilized person in whom the social forces are already dynamically present is cast by accident into the wilderness -- is as much of an absurdity as is the development of language without individuals living together and talking to each other. There is no point in dwelling on this any longer. The point could go entirely unmentioned if this twaddle, which had sense and reason for the eighteenth-century characters, had not been earnestly pulled back into the centre of the most modern economics by Bastiat, Carey, Proudhon etc. [emphasis added] Of course it is a convenience for Proudhon et al. to be able to give a historico-philosophic account of the source of an economic relation, of whose historic origins he is ignorant, by inventing the myth that Adam or Prometheus stumbled on the idea ready-made, and then it was adopted, etc. Nothing is more dry and boring than the fantasies of a locus communis."

and:


"The main point here is this: In all these forms -- in which landed property and agriculture form the basis of the economic order, and where the economic aim is hence the production of use values, i.e., the reproduction of the individual within the specific relation to the commune in which he is its basis -- there is to be found: (1) Appropriation not through labour, but presupposed to labour; appropriation of the natural conditions of labour, of the earth as the original instrument of labour as well as its workshop and repository of raw materials. The individual relates simply to the objective conditions of labour as being his; [relates] to them as the inorganic nature of his subjectivity, in which the latter realizes itself; the chief objective condition of labour does not itself appear as a product of labour, but is already there as nature; on one side the living individual, on the other the earth, as the objective condition of his reproduction; (2) but this relation to land and soil, to the earth, as the property of the labouring individual -- who thus appears from the outset not merely as labouring individual, in this abstraction, but who has an objective mode of existence in his ownership of the land, an existence presupposed to his activity, and not merely as a result of it, a presupposition of his activity just like his skin, his sense organs, which of course he also reproduces and develops etc. in the life process, but which are nevertheless presuppositions of this process of his reproduction -- is instantly mediated by the naturally arisen, spontaneous, more or less historically developed and modified presence of the individual as member of a commune -- his naturally arisen presence as member of a tribe etc. .

The "issue" for Marx is one of labor and its social mediations; labor, social labor, as the appropriation, and mediation, of natural conditions, not how language expresses that.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


What's "Wittgensteinian" about those remarks as they speak to concrete, historical development of property through the labor process?

The parts I highlighted.


It's been awhile since I read Wittgenstein, like some 43 years, but I don't recall reading anything that approaches actual historical analysis of the social relations of production.

Where did I say he had?


The "issue" for Marx is one of labor and its social mediations; labor, social labor, as the appropriation, and mediation, of natural conditions, not how language expresses that.

I agree, as I said before:


You are right, but this expresses itself in philosophical thought via just such a distortion.

Me:


And we've heard that before too...

Told you so...

[S.Artesian]

Fine job, once again Rosa, avoiding the real substance of what Marx is analyzing. Do you get frequent-flyer miles for every evasion you manage to pull off?

As Marx said, there is no point on dwelling on this any longer. The point could go entirely unmentioned except for the twaddle introduced by..............Rosa.

[ChrisK]

.

That's a very interesting take. I agree that the entire work, The German Ideology, represents Marx's final "dispossession" of German idealist philosophy. However, you cite two paragraphs of that unpublished work to make an argument that, IMO, says the ultimate issue for Marx is the use or misuse of language. In fact, Marx is stating that the distorted language is a distorted representation of history and the distortion is based on the immaturity, the lack of material development, the distorted and impaired development of capitalism in Germany.

So for Marx the last words are that it's not an issue of the distortion of words or of language but the real content of history.

Where do I say that this is the ultimate issue for Marx? That is clearly not true. You have this annoying habit of putting words in others mouths, you should stop.
Where do you get your interpretation of what Marx is saying in this passage?

Nope, I'm not that stupid. But are you stupid enough to think I, or anybody else is stupid enough to not realize that Marx's remarks on language in the Grundrisse are completely unrelated to those paragraphs in The German Ideology? That Marx's remarks in the Grundrisse on language focus on language as a social product, a social mediation, not a "natural" one, which Marx specifically uses to make the same point about property?

Right, except that Wittgenstein also viewed language as a social product, thus it is another parallel.


Another interesting view. No controversy? No controversy about accumulation? Expanded reproduction? Sources of surplus value? Real vs. formal domination of capital? Means and relations of production? Productive vs. unproductive labor? Productive vs. unproductive capital? Equal exchange vs. unequal exchange? Reform vs. revolution?

All those controversies are derived from the issue of the relations of wage-labor and capital; on how each becomes, and passes into the other... No real controversy? That indicates to me that you haven't been paying much attention to the real history, and the real "language" of Marx.

But yeah, I have no intention of spending any more effort in your circle jerks, and your circle of jerks.

Right, but as I said, I don't see these controversies. Do you see them on revleft? Usually, someone asks a question a few people respond and thats that. There is rarely actual debate on this subject matter because people generally agree on it. Why then, would I debate on it?

Also, if there is a debate, my position is that of the ISO. I agree completely with their politics if not their philosophy.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Fine job, once again Rosa, avoiding the real substance of what Marx is analyzing. Do you get frequent-flyer miles for every evasion you manage to pull off?

Nice abuse, but misdirected, as usual.

In fact, my aim wasn't to cover/analyse what you alleged, but to relate what Marx said to the topic of this thread. And I mangaed to do that as far as I can see. Since you failed to raise a single substantive objection to what I posted, I can only conclude that either 1) you did not disagree with it, or 2) you are out of your depth in philosophy -- or 3) both.


As Marx said, there is no point on dwelling on this any longer. The point could go entirely unmentioned except for the twaddle introduced by..............Rosa

But, and once more, you have failed to show it is 'twaddle' -- and that is probably because of 2) above.

Hence, you prefer abuse to argument, like all the other mystics here.

And we've seen this cri de coeur from you many times before, and not just in this thread:


there is no point on dwelling on this any longer

You'll be back...:lol:

[S.Artesian]

Where do I say that this is the ultimate issue for Marx? That is clearly not true. You have this annoying habit of putting words in others mouths, you should stop.
Where do you get your interpretation of what Marx is saying in this passage?


Right, except that Wittgenstein also viewed language as a social product, thus it is another parallel.

OK, I asked Rosa and got no answer, so maybe you can. What does Wittgenstein write that approaches history the way Marx does? It's an easy thing, [no?], to say language has a social basis; language would not have developed if human beings were not social, etc. etc. As Marx himself says, it's hardly worth mentioning.

What counts, IMO, for Marx, is the shift away from things hardly worth mentioning and into the actual material of human, social reproduction, into property, into the labor process.

As for where I get my interpretation-- it comes from the reading the entirety, the "totality, of The German Ideology, from Marx's and Engel's writings on Feuerbach, including the theses.

I think I've tried to make the point that you can't just abstract one or two paragraphs from a volume of Marx, or the preface to a volume of Marx and decide that those paragraphs have superior "weight" vs. the body of what Marx has written.

What Marx wrote about language in The Grundrisse has very little in common with what he wrote in The German Ideology. All that is in common is that language is a historical product, and history itself is produced socially.

Yes you are right, you did not say it's the ultimate issue for Marx. Point taken. But exactly what is the "ordinary language" that Wittgenstein uses that you think converges with Marx's analysis of the material reproduction of human society [which is the place Marx is going in everything he writes once he undertakes his critique of Hegel]?

That's what I truly don't understand



Also, if there is a debate, my position is that of the ISO. I agree completely with their politics if not their philosophy.

I don't think the ISO has any official position on expanded reproduction, unproductive vs. productive labor, accumulation, equal vs. unequal exchange, etc. etc. I certainly hope they don't.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Me:


You'll be back...

Told you:

S Artesian:


OK, I asked Rosa and got no answer, so maybe you can. What does Wittgenstein write that approaches history the way Marx does? It's an easy thing, [no?], to say language has a social basis; language would not have developed if human beings were not social, etc. etc. As Marx himself says, it's hardly worth mentioning.

So, you have given up trying to attribute to me ideas I do not hold, nor which can reasonably be inferred from what I have said -- for now. But you'll be back, making stuff up once more in order to defend your mystical beliefs.

Anyway, back to the main feature:


OK, I asked Rosa and got no answer, so maybe you can. What does Wittgenstein write that approaches history the way Marx does? It's an easy thing, [no?], to say language has a social basis; language would not have developed if human beings were not social, etc. etc. As Marx himself says, it's hardly worth mentioning.

Re-read the Philosophical Investigations and you'll see what Wittgenstein means by his 'anthropological' interpretation of language. As I have pointed out in one of my essays on Wittgenstein:


[1] Although Wittgenstein's later work was anthropologically-motivated, it has in fact no detectable historical or social content, which makes the direct appropriation of his ideas by Marxists problematic.

However, this is not an insurmountable obstacle.

More here:

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


What counts, IMO, for Marx, is the shift away from things hardly worth mentioning and into the actual material of human, social reproduction, into property, into the labor process.

As for where I get my interpretation-- it comes from the reading the entirety, the "totality, of The German Ideology, from Marx's and Engel's writings on Feuerbach, including the theses.

Aaaannnd...


I think I've tried to make the point that you can't just abstract one or two paragraphs from a volume of Marx, or the preface to a volume of Marx and decide that those paragraphs have superior "weight" vs. the body of what Marx has written.

So, which part of the following passage are you trying to re-write/ignore?


We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. 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.

You:


What Marx wrote about language in The Grundrisse has very little in common with what he wrote in The German Ideology. All that is in common is that language is a historical product, and history itself is produced socially.

I agree. What on earth makes you think I/Chris do not?


Yes you are right, you did not say it's the ultimate issue for Marx. Point taken. But exactly what is the "ordinary language" that Wittgenstein uses that you think converges with Marx's analysis of the material reproduction of human society [which is the place Marx is going in everything he writes once he undertakes his critique of Hegel]?

That's what I truly don't understand

The ordinary language of the working class (in which it is impossible to spin Hegel's odd ideas).

[ChrisK]

OK, I asked Rosa and got no answer, so maybe you can. What does Wittgenstein write that approaches history the way Marx does? It's an easy thing, [no?], to say language has a social basis; language would not have developed if human beings were not social, etc. etc. As Marx himself says, it's hardly worth mentioning.

As Rosa said, he doesn't. Nor does he need to, what he does do is take the fact that language develops in a social context and show how philosophy is based on a misuse of that language.


What counts, IMO, for Marx, is the shift away from things hardly worth mentioning and into the actual material of human, social reproduction, into property, into the labor process.

Marx was wrong in this case. The decimatation of 2500 years of ruling class thought is important.


As for where I get my interpretation-- it comes from the reading the entirety, the "totality, of The German Ideology, from Marx's and Engel's writings on Feuerbach, including the theses.

I think I've tried to make the point that you can't just abstract one or two paragraphs from a volume of Marx, or the preface to a volume of Marx and decide that those paragraphs have superior "weight" vs. the body of what Marx has written.

Because it seems to me that Marx is saying that philosophers are absracting language and that they shouldn't. Rather, they should be looking at the world in reality, not in abstraction.


What Marx wrote about language in The Grundrisse has very little in common with what he wrote in The German Ideology. All that is in common is that language is a historical product, and history itself is produced socially.

Right. Completely agree. But now you are contradicting what you said earlier about Marx's comments on language. You said that they were limited to the German Ideology, while I say that he also spoke of language in the Grundrisse. I also pointed out that he also anticipated Wittgenstein here. I do not believe they are related.


Yes you are right, you did not say it's the ultimate issue for Marx. Point taken. But exactly what is the "ordinary language" that Wittgenstein uses that you think converges with Marx's analysis of the material reproduction of human society [which is the place Marx is going in everything he writes once he undertakes his critique of Hegel]?

That's what I truly don't understand

Language as it is spoken in a social context by ordinary people.



I don't think the ISO has any official position on expanded reproduction, unproductive vs. productive labor, accumulation, equal vs. unequal exchange, etc. etc. I certainly hope they don't.

I was thinking more along the lines of the reform vs revolution you mentioned in your laundry list when I was talking about the ISO. Sorry for not being more clear.

[S.Artesian]

As Rosa said, he doesn't. Nor does he need to, what he does do is take the fact that language develops in a social context and show how philosophy is based on a misuse of that language.

Marx in the body of his writings shows something other than that philosophy is based on a misuse of language. He shows how philosophy is an estrangement from the actual determinants of human, material, existence. The philosophical language reflects that.




Marx was wrong in this case. The decimatation of 2500 years of ruling class thought is important.Now that's hilarious. Marx was wrong in making the critical transition that allows him pierce the veil on "2500 years of ruling class" [es'] not thought, but rule, according to what you're suggesting. That is truly hilarious. You ought to take a trip to Highgate and let him know.



Because it seems to me that Marx is saying that philosophers are absracting language and that they shouldn't. Rather, they should be looking at the world in reality, not in abstraction. He's saying quite a bit more than that, since Marx himself certainly utilized abstraction and abstract language [although I don't know what you mean by "abstracting language]. He's saying philosophy can't apprehend the world in reality, not because it uses abstract language, but because it's very existence as philosophy is an abstraction, an alienation of and from the concrete material of human existence, which is social. This becomes clear if you read the entire volume.



Right. Completely agree. But now you are contradicting what you said earlier about Marx's comments on language. You said that they were limited to the German Ideology, while I say that he also spoke of language in the Grundrisse. I also pointed out that he also anticipated Wittgenstein here. I do not believe they are related.Huh? I said of your take on the remarks in The German Ideology to keep in mind how little effort Marx expended on the issue of distortion of language. You offered the remarks in the Grundrisse as further evidence of Marx's interest in this issue of language and philosophical abstraction. I replied that Marx's comments on language in the Grundrisse are not concerned with the issues you originally raised.



I was thinking more along the lines of the reform vs revolution you mentioned in your laundry list when I was talking about the ISO. Sorry for not being more clear.OK, that's what happens when you cherry-pick-- you miss the point, kind of like what happens when you select 2 paragraphs out of a volume.

PS: Speaking of hilarious, this absolutely takes the cake:

Rosa:




[1] Although Wittgenstein's later work was anthropologically-motivated, it has in fact no detectable historical or social content, which makes the direct appropriation of his ideas by Marxists problematic.

However, this is not an insurmountable obstacle..

Side-splitting. No detectable historical or social content-- but that's no problem for "Marxists." Isn't this where, to save bandwidth, you're supposed to type: ROTFLMAO?

Let me add a few letters. I was L [literally] ROTFLMA & H [head] O, WTRDMC [with tears rolling down my cheeks]

[ChrisK]

Marx in the body of his writings shows something other than that philosophy is based on a misuse of language. He shows how philosophy is an estrangement from the actual determinants of human, material, existence. The philosophical language reflects that.

Cool, and how does this disprove anything that I've argued?


Now that's hilarious. Marx was wrong in making the critical transition that allows him pierce the veil on "2500 years of ruling class" [es'] not thought, but rule, according to what you're suggesting. That is truly hilarious. You ought to take a trip to Highgate and let him know.

Eh? I do find that discrediting ruling class ideas could be an important. I think Marx was wrong in saying that we don't need to look into that more. What did I say thats controversial?


He's saying quite a bit more than that, since Marx himself certainly utilized abstraction and abstract language [although I don't know what you mean by "abstracting language]. He's saying philosophy can't apprehend the world in reality, not because it uses abstract language, but because it's very existence as philosophy is an abstraction, an alienation of and from the concrete material of human existence, which is social. This becomes clear if you read the entire volume.

I've explained what abstracting language is earlier, using the example of being.

How do you explain the passage then? He makes it quite clear that philosophers are abstracting language and need to dissolve it into ordinary language in order to realize what they are doing. He also makes it clear that abstraction just by itself is a waste of time.


Huh? I said of your take on the remarks in The German Ideology to keep in mind how little effort Marx expended on the issue of distortion of language. You offered the remarks in the Grundrisse as further evidence of Marx's interest in this issue of language and philosophical abstraction. I replied that Marx's comments on language in the Grundrisse are not concerned with the issues you originally raised.


Perhaps we should keep in mind how little time and effort Marx put into this question; how he doesn't follow up on it; how his investigations immediately move to and concentrate upon the labor process, not the language process.

Boy, it seems to be that you claimed that Marx ignored the langauge process. But I claimed he didn't, he wrote more on the subject.


OK, that's what happens when you cherry-pick-- you miss the point, kind of like what happens when you select 2 paragraphs out of a volume.

I wasn't cherry picking. I wrote more than what you responded too. That one sentence was unclear.


PS: Speaking of hilarious, this absolutely takes the cake:

Rosa:
.

Side-splitting. No detectable historical or social content-- but that's no problem for "Marxists." Isn't this where, to save bandwidth, you're supposed to type: ROTFLMAO?

Let me add a few letters. I was L [literally] ROTFLMA & H [head] O, WTRDMC [with tears rolling down my cheeks]

Would you like your whiny-little-prick of the year trophy now? Or would you like to wait until your crying about Rosa on a different thread that she isn't even replying on?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Not-so-Smartesian:


Side-splitting. No detectable historical or social content-- but that's no problem for "Marxists." Isn't this where, to save bandwidth, you're supposed to type: ROTFLMAO?

Still incapable or reading ordinary language, I see. Here is what I actually said (I have highlighted the words which your selective blindness made you miss)


[1] Although Wittgenstein's later work was anthropologically-motivated, it has in fact no detectable historical or social content, which makes the direct appropriation of his ideas by Marxists problematic.

However, this is not an insurmountable obstacle.

So, nothing there even remotely like this:


but that's no problem for "Marxists."

In fact, I specifically say this is "problematic" for Marxists!

You are now getting so hot under the collar and desperate in the defence of your mystical beliefs that you find you have to attribute to me the exact opposite of what I in fact say!

I'm not sure who you think you are impressing by blatantly lying like this (and it's not as if such lies are well hidden, they are right there in the open, for all to see) -- except other mystics (like GrayMouser, or BAM, if he/she ever returns) desperate to defend their source of opiates.

Out of your depth, as I said...:lol:

[S.Artesian]

Eh? I do find that discrediting ruling class ideas could be an important. I think Marx was wrong in saying that we don't need to look into that more. What did I say thats controversial?

You said that Marx was wrong in moving away from the analysis of the language process and into his analysis of the labor process:


Marx was wrong in this case. The decimatation of 2500 years of ruling class thought is important. The decimation of 2500 years of ruling class thought is not going to occur through an analysis of the language process and the distortion of language. That's the point. That's the point of Marxism which you seem to be unable to comprehend. The decimation of ruling class rule requires class struggle, and analysis of the real material determinants of social organization. The issue is NOT "philosophers should give up abstract language," but that abstract language is the reflection of philosopher's estrangement from the actual engagement with history.






How do you explain the passage then? He makes it quite clear that philosophers are abstracting language and need to dissolve it into ordinary language in order to realize what they are doing. He also makes it clear that abstraction just by itself is a waste of time..

How do I explain it? Simply by what it is-- 2 paragraphs in a volume [actually volumes] of Marx settling accounts with German idealist philosophy and regrounding the method and subject of analysis in the social relations of production, i.e. the labor process.


Boy, it seems to be that you claimed that Marx ignored the langauge process. But I claimed he didn't, he wrote more on the subject..

He didn't write more on the "distortion of language" and what he did write on language was quite casual, offhand, and used as an analogy for the relations of property and labor which is the subject of all of Marx's work [OK, almost all] once Marx begins his critique Hegel.

His references in the Grundrisse are not "follow ups," extensions to his remarks in The German Ideology. Just because the word "language" appears in the Grundrisse... or anywhere else... that doesn't mean that Marx is conducting an analysis of the language process. Read what he says in the Grundrisse, FCOL.



Would you like your whiny-little-prick of the year trophy now? Or would you like to wait until your crying about Rosa on a different thread that she isn't even replying on?
Now that depends what the trophy looks like, and when you accept your asshole-sycophant plaque for clearly not even bothering to completely read those works of Marx from which you excise "important" paragraphs.

Rosa did reply, using those words, on this thread, that's why I added it as PS to the post, because it sums up the inanity of her "crossing" of Marx and Wittgenstein, and the inanity of your tailing that crossing.

And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

[S.Artesian]

N

In fact, I specifically say this is "problematic" for Marxists!



Yeah, you said it's problematic but not insurmountable, which means its a problem that can be overcome. I took that and made it "no problem" because that's where you clearly are going with it. I deliberately took it to its extreme which is the opposite of what you appear to say, but is exactly the real meaning of what you are saying.

No social or historical content is more than "problematic" for Marxism, it's exclusionary. Unlike Hegel, or Feuerbach, or the physiocrats, Jones, or Smith, or Ferguson-- it's not worth engaging precisely because it has no historical or social content.


And leave Graymouser and BAM out of this, they are not on this thread, are they? Chris might get upset.

[ChrisK]

You said that Marx was wrong in moving away from the analysis of the language process and into his analysis of the labor process:

The decimation of 2500 years of ruling class thought is not going to occur through an analysis of the language process and the distortion of language. That's the point. That's the point of Marxism which you seem to be unable to comprehend. The decimation of ruling class rule requires class struggle, and analysis of the real material determinants of social organization. The issue is NOT "philosophers should give up abstract language," but that abstract language is the reflection of philosopher's estrangement from the actual engagement with history.

Having trouble with context and reading comprehesion still? I'm pretty clearly writing about philosophy, not the actual rule of the ruling class.

Also, how does any passage of Marx say that. When you read the German ideology it is pretty explicity that Marx is criticizing philosophers as generating ruling class thought and doing so through abstracting language. The language is the reflection of the philosopher's estrangement from reality, but Marx is giving us a cure; ordinary language.


How do I explain it? Simply by what it is-- 2 paragraphs in a volume [actually volumes] of Marx settling accounts with German idealist philosophy and regrounding the method and subject of analysis in the social relations of production, i.e. the labor process.

Sure, and how does that take away from Marx criticizing the language of philosopers? I'm not disagreeing with what you say, but I am adding in something more that Marx explicitly states.


He didn't write more on the "distortion of language" and what he did write on language was quite casual, offhand, and used as an analogy for the relations of property and labor which is the subject of all of Marx's work [OK, almost all] once Marx begins his critique Hegel.

So? I still proved that Marx wrote more on language and that he anticipated Wittgenstein even more than I first indicated. Thats what I tried to do and nothing more.


His references in the Grundrisse are not "follow ups," extensions to his remarks in The German Ideology. Just because the word "language" appears in the Grundrisse... or anywhere else... that doesn't mean that Marx is conducting an analysis of the language process. Read what he says in the Grundrisse, FCOL.

Where the fuck did I say that the Grundrisse's passages on language are related to those of the German Ideology. Stop putting words in my mouth.

I have read what he says. He pointed out (in something that isn't an analogy so much as a statement) that language only develops in a social context through labor.


Now that depends what the trophy looks like, and when you accept your asshole-sycophant plaque for clearly not even bothering to completely read those works of Marx from which you excise "important" paragraphs.

Rosa did reply, using those words, on this thread, that's why I added it as PS to the post, because it sums up the inanity of her "crossing" of Marx and Wittgenstein, and the inanity of your tailing that crossing.

And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Maybe you should read what she actually wrote. Read it slowly, I know you have trouble reading and understanding.

By the way, whats your obsession with Rosa? Seriously its starting to look like an immature school boy crush. Do you have a crush on Rosa?

[S.Artesian]

Having trouble with context and reading comprehesion still? I'm pretty clearly writing about philosophy, not the actual rule of the ruling class.

You're the one with the impaired reading comprehension skills, as I wrote that the decimation of ruling class thought is not going to occur through language analysis, language process, or philosophers not using abstract language.

It's kind of fundamental to Marx's materialism that the thought can't be overthrown or decimated without the coincident, or even preliminary overthrow of the class [although I guess a condition analogous to dual power can exist in the "thought world," too].

Marx is writing about an end to philosophy; not as an end because it's impractical, because it doesn't make any money; but because it is an expression of alienated, expropriated human history-- the end is then in the emancipation of human beings from expropriation, and that entails analysis of the social relations of labor and the immanent prospects for labor's emancipation and the move away from philosophical analysis, language analysis.

Merely technical points, I'm sure, materialism itself being a merely technical point.




Also, how does any passage of Marx say that. When you read the German ideology it is pretty explicity that Marx is criticizing philosophers as generating ruling class thought and doing so through abstracting language. The language is the reflection of the philosopher's estrangement from reality, but Marx is giving us a cure; ordinary language.More hilarity. When you read [and I really recommend you do read the entire volume, including the addenda, and Theses on Feuerbach which actually precedes TGI chronologically], it's clear that Marx and Engels are doing much, much, much more than criticizing philosophers as generating ruling class thought through abstract language. And... doing something else other than giving us a "cure" through proper doses of "ordinary language."

They are working out through critique their basis for the materialist conception of history, the basis for the particular laws of social development, the critical, historical revolutionary role to be played by the proletariat, the conflicts between city and countryside, the correlation between specific forms of property and the level of development of the means of production, and, IMO, most importantly, the internal logic that drives social revolution-- the contradiction between the relations and forces of production.

They are criticizing philosophy on the basis of materialism, the actual social relations of production-- which is why the volume opens with the essay on Feuerbach.



So? I still proved that Marx wrote more on language and that he anticipated Wittgenstein even more than I first indicated. Thats what I tried to do and nothing more.
Where the fuck did I say that the Grundrisse's passages on language are related to those of the German Ideology. Stop putting words in my mouth.I'm not putting any words in your mouth, believe me I wouldn't want to get that close. You put the words in your mouth. You stated in your posts, and have restated here, that Marx thinks the distortion of language is the, or an, impairment of philosophy, or to philosophy. I stated that we need to keep in mind how little time and effort Marx spent on this and how quickly he moves to analysis of the labor process, and that analysis is the basis for his critiques.

You wrote:
The time and effort has little to do with it. The point is is that this seems to represent Marx's final view on this subject and I think its worth discussing its philosophical implications, especially considering that he anticipated Wittgenstein, which is interesting in it of itself. You then wrote:
Besides, I use the Grundrisse to show that Marx considered this idea important enough to write about further, not just in 1845. Except Marx's "idea" on language in the Grundrisse have no direct connection to his criticism of philosophy, of philosopher's language. He is not analyzing language to critique philosophers' use of language. He is simply citing it as something which, like property, does not develop out of isolation, from an individual, from "nature." The "idea" Marx has of language in the Grundrisse, is that of language as derivative not causal as you, IMO, apparently think is Marx's idea in TGI. [And if it, abstract language is not causal, then why do you refer to ordinary language as the "cure"? You cure causes, not symptoms].


By the way, whats your obsession with Rosa? Seriously its starting to look like an immature school boy crush. Do you have a crush on Rosa?You're the school boy around here, school boy. We all know that. The crush is yours. Enjoy it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Not-so-Smartesian before he was rumbled:


No detectable historical or social content-- but that's no problem for "Marxists."

After he was rumbled:


Yeah, you said it's problematic but not insurmountable, which means it's a problem that can be overcome.

In other words, you now admit I did say it was a problem for Marxists.

And now we have the grovelling excuse:


Yeah, you said it's problematic but not insurmountable, which means its a problem that can be overcome. I took that and made it "no problem" because that's where you clearly are going with it. I deliberately took it to its extreme which is the opposite of what you appear to say, but is exactly the real meaning of what you are saying.

You have no idea 'where I am going with it'. I might find out that this problem is insurmountable; I might not. I might find it easy. I might not. Either way, this is a problem for Marxists right now.

You seem to think that all problems are and should remain insurmountable. In that case, any problems left by Marx's incomplete work -- well, we'd better not try to solve them had we?:lol:

What an odd person you are...


I deliberately took it to its extreme which is the opposite of what you appear to say, but is exactly the real meaning of what you are saying

And, in like spirit, the 'real meaning' of what you are trying to say is this:


I agree with everything Rosa says and regret picking a fight with her.

If you can make stuff up about my 'real meanings', so can I about yours.


No social or historical content is more than "problematic" for Marxism, it's exclusionary. Unlike Hegel, or Feuerbach, or the physiocrats, Jones, or Smith, or Ferguson-- it's not worth engaging precisely because it has no historical or social content.

Not at all, since I reckon it will be very easy to graft Wittgenstein's work onto a historical account of capitalism and how to get rid of it (I might be wrong, here, but we'll see) -- indeed, something similar has already been done in the history and sociology of science for example (with the work of Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and Norwood Russell Hanson, extended by the likes of David Bloor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_programme), Barry Barnes, Henry Collins, Jan Golinski, Daniel Henry, Donald Mackenzie, Andrew Pickering, Trevor Pinch, Simon Schaffer, Steven Shapin, among others). Whether this can be done to completion, we'll just have to see. But, right now this is still a problem.

But, in view of the fact that we now know Marx waved Hegel 'goodbye' in Das Kapital, you have no room to point any fingers at me with comments like this:


No social or historical content is more than "problematic" for Marxism, it's exclusionary. Unlike Hegel,

And, it's not 'exclusionary', since Wittgenstein left the door open to just such an extension of his work. It's only 'exclusionary' for you since you know very little about it, and seem to think that no problem should be tackled.


And leave Graymouser and BAM out of this, they are not on this thread, are they? Chris might get upset.

But, I thought that, according to you mystics, everything is inter-connected?

Don't tell me it isn't!:(

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Not-so-Smartesian:


You're the one with the impaired reading comprehension skills, as I wrote that the decimation of ruling class thought is not going to occur through language analysis, language process, or philosophers not using abstract language.

It's kind of fundamental to Marx's materialism that the thought can't be overthrown or decimated without the coincident, or even preliminary overthrow of the class [although I guess a condition analogous to dual power can exist in the "thought world," too].

Which is, of course, why I posted this (in relation to the mystical ideas that now hold you in their thrall):


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 their reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history has predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for the rest of us, which means that they must be our 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also Teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could 'legitimately' substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand. This is because the masses are too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why Dialectical Materialism 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 OK, 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; it tells such comrades that reality 'contradicts' outward appearances. Hence, even if Dialectical Marxism appears to be a long-term failure, those with the equivalent of a dialectical 'third eye' can see that the opposite is in fact the case: Dialectical Marxism is a ringing success!

In that case, awkward facts can either be ignored or they can be re-configured into their opposites.

Hence:

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.

I stand no chance...

No one supposes (least of all Chris) that ruling-class ideas can be defeated by linguistic analysis -- but it is important to locate the poison in our own theory, and such analysis soon yields clear results.

If you doubt me, check these out:

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

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

Of course, you can always choose to remain ignorant -- that condition seems to have served you well for some time...

[S.Artesian]

Rosa,

We know where you're going with it Rosa. No historical or social content, an obstacle, not insurmountable, which obstacle will be resolved... how? by explaining any relationship between wage-labor and capital?

We already know you're incapable of doing this... that whenever there's a questions regarding actual social relations of production, the actual issues in expanded reproduction, accumulation.. you bug out, stating that "Marx already did tht for us;" "it's already been done;" "no need to do that..."

What we'll get is one more attempt to empty Marx's work of its historical and social content-- to make it an analysis of language, of what language means, rather than "what is," "how what is has come to be," and what are the concrete immanent forces for the transformation of "what is."

The foregoing discussion of The German Ideology and the Grundrisse proves that.

That anyone can read TGI and the Grundrisse and take from that that Marx sees in philosophers using ordinary language a "cure" is a sign of deliberate incomprehension

Your entire project is just such an attempt a deliberate incomprehension-- to produce a Marxism devoid, not of Hegel really, but Hegel as a stand-in for history, for social analysis-- a Marxism in which the "language" of capital and labor never appears, except by accident when quoting someone else.

Oh, and before you go there, all your claims about the paragraphs in the preface/afterword to the second edition of vol 1. have been refuted numerous times by numerous people.

Indeed all your claims regarding that article are the object lesson in your deliberate incomprehension of Marx.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Not-so-Smartesian (still 'feeding' the alleged troll, I see!):


Rosa,

We know where you're going with it Rosa. No historical or social content, an obstacle, not insurmountable, which obstacle will be resolved... how? by explaining any relationship between wage-labor and capital?

We'll see.


We already know you're incapable of doing this... that whenever there's a questions regarding actual social relations of production, the actual issues in expanded reproduction, accumulation.. you bug out, stating that "Marx already did that for us;" "it's already been done;" "no need to do that..."

Indeed, he did; what's your problem?

Er..., you don't believe in problems do you, sorry.


What we'll get is one more attempt to empty Marx's work of its historical and social content-- to make it an analysis of language, of what language means, rather than "what is," "how what is has come to be," and what are the concrete immanent forces for the transformation of "what is."

Well, you seem to be able to read the future -- but not too well, since that is not how I would do things. You might, but we already know you are odd, don't we?


The foregoing discussion of The German Ideology and the Grundrisse proves that.

I beg to differ.


That anyone can read TGI and the Grundrisse and take from that Marx sees in philosophers using ordinary language a "cure" is a sign of deliberate incomprehension

Who said it was a 'cure'?

Do you write fiction? You should, you are rather good at making stuff up.


Your entire project is just such an attempt a deliberate incomprehension-- to produce a Marxism devoid, not of Hegel really, but Hegel as a stand in for history, for social analysis-- a Marxism in which the "language" of capital and labor never appears, except by accident when quoting someone else.

But, we already know Marx kicked that mystical incompetent out of his thought when he came to write Das Kapital -- unless, of course, you have a source published by Marx, contemporaneous with or subsequent to Das Kapital, which supports your mystical reading of his work.

Oh wait -- you don't.


Oh, and before you go there, all your claims about the paragraphs in the preface/afterword to the second edition of vol 1. have been refuted numerous times by numerous people.

But, by no one here -- so who else has done this?

I notice you omitted the references/links.

Wonder why? :rolleyes:


Indeed all your claims regarding that article are the object lesson in your deliberate incomprehension of Marx.

So you say, but we already know you are odd -- and a fantasist, to boot.

[ChrisK]

You're the one with the impaired reading comprehension skills, as I wrote that the decimation of ruling class thought is not going to occur through language analysis, language process, or philosophers not using abstract language.

And who said it will? I am saying that using ordinary language we can attack these ideas and work to deligitimize them. If we dissolve the abstracted language we can see the philosophy of the ruling class as nonsense. Why is that wrong?


It's kind of fundamental to Marx's materialism that the thought can't be overthrown or decimated without the coincident, or even preliminary overthrow of the class [although I guess a condition analogous to dual power can exist in the "thought world," too].

Besides, my argument was that Marx felt the same way about philosophy as Wittgenstein did; that it is created through a misuse of language.


Marx is writing about an end to philosophy; not as an end because it's impractical, because it doesn't make any money; but because it is an expression of alienated, expropriated human history-- the end is then in the emancipation of human beings from expropriation, and that entails analysis of the social relations of labor and the immanent prospects for labor's emancipation and the move away from philosophical analysis, language analysis.

I don't disagree at all.


More hilarity. When you read [and I really recommend you do read the entire volume, including the addenda, and Theses on Feuerbach which actually precedes TGI chronologically], it's clear that Marx and Engels are doing much, much, much more than criticizing philosophers as generating ruling class thought through abstract language. And... doing something else other than giving us a "cure" through proper doses of "ordinary language."

Where did I say they didn't? In fact, I agreed with you. I am also saying that they did this as well. And yes, cure was poor phrasing, I should have gone with tool. Marx gave us a tool to see the philosophy of the ruling class as nonsense.


They are working out through critique their basis for the materialist conception of history, the basis for the particular laws of social development, the critical, historical revolutionary role to be played by the proletariat, the conflicts between city and countryside, the correlation between specific forms of property and the level of development of the means of production, and, IMO, most importantly, the internal logic that drives social revolution-- the contradiction between the relations and forces of production.

They are criticizing philosophy on the basis of materialism, the actual social relations of production-- which is why the volume opens with the essay on Feuerbach.

I have read it before, I don't need you stating the obvious. But I'll do just that for you; I was commenting on a facet of Marx's philosophy, not the whole of the German Ideology.


I'm not putting any words in your mouth, believe me I wouldn't want to get that close. You put the words in your mouth. You stated in your posts, and have restated here, that Marx thinks the distortion of language is the, or an, impairment of philosophy, or to philosophy. I stated that we need to keep in mind how little time and effort Marx spent on this and how quickly he moves to analysis of the labor process, and that analysis is the basis for his critiques.

You wrote: You then wrote: Except Marx's "idea" on language in the Grundrisse have no direct connection to his criticism of philosophy, of philosopher's language. He is not analyzing language to critique philosophers' use of language. He is simply citing it as something which, like property, does not develop out of isolation, from an individual, from "nature." The "idea" Marx has of language in the Grundrisse, is that of language as derivative not causal as you, IMO, apparently think is Marx's idea in TGI. [And if it, abstract language is not causal, then why do you refer to ordinary language as the "cure"? You cure causes, not symptoms].

Can you read? Or do you need some help here? I keep on telling you that the passages are not linked, but that Marx wrote more on language.

Your opinion is wrong. I believe it is derivative or social conditions. I also believe that philosophy came about as a method for the ruling class to justify not working like the laborers. To do this they distorted language and created philosophical ideas.

Since you apparantly know so much about me by reading so poorly, I guess you should tell me my politics, interests and favorite color.


You're the school boy around here, school boy. We all know that. The crush is yours. Enjoy it.

Enjoy pulling her hair in hopes that she looks at you.

[S.Artesian]

And who said it will? I am saying that using ordinary language we can attack these ideas and work to deligitimize them. If we dissolve the abstracted language we can see the philosophy of the ruling class as nonsense. Why is that wrong?

You just said it again, that's who. Can't you read what you write? Would you like some help. First you say-- here, open up, let me put your own words back in your own mouth-- "Philosophy is derived from distorted language. The distorted language spreads ruling class ideas. We'll attack the distorted language and that will check the spread of ruling class ideas, of ruling class philosophy."

I respond-- and I'll put some words in my mouth "That's idealist nonsense. That's a waste of time. Ruling class ideas depend the economic domination of that ruling class. You're not going to demolish ruling class ideas by examining their language. Marx put an end to philosophy not by shifting the language, but shifting the methodology and subject, the methodology of the subject to history, to the labor process. There's no need for Marxism to engage with logical atomism, logical positivism, etc etc. etc."

Then you say, "Where did I say different?" And right after you say that you repeat "If we dissolve the abstracted language we can see the philosophy of the ruling class as nonsense. Why is that wrong?"


Why is it wrong? Because a] what exactly is the "philosophy of the ruling class"? other than making money? other than preserving private property? other than maintaining themselves as the ruling class? Who says they, the ruling class, even has a philosophy; that the academic philosophers aren't maintained in their chairs simply as an affectation, a distraction, a diversion?

Because b] arguing about the abstracted language rather than engaging in the concrete analysis of that ruling class and how it makes its money, preserves its property, maintains its class rule essentially guts, not the philosophy, but Marxism. It makes of Marxism an estranged vocabulary.

Because c] what is different, important, unique about the "abstract" language of philosophy and showing that to be nonsense as opposed to say the abstract language of religion; the abstract language of political economy; the abstract language of sociology; the abstract language of law? Is it simply based on your particular academic preference?

What makes you think "philosophy" has the slightest bit of influence on the reproduction of capital, on the thoughts, needs, actions of the bourgeoisie, who are nothing but capital personified?

What makes you think "philosophy" has the slightest bit of influence even on Marxists, who even when they use its language, its distorted language of "dialectical materialism," use it as an ideology, a justification after the fact for an already determined position?



Besides, my argument was that Marx felt the same way about philosophy as Wittgenstein did; that it is created through a misuse of language.Marx never said that. He never said philosophy is created through a misuse of language. Nothing in the Grundrisse indicates that. And nothing in The German Ideology says philosophy is created through a misuse of language. That claim too is just abject, impoverished idealism.





I have read it before, I don't need you stating the obvious. But I'll do just that for you; I was commenting on a facet of Marx's philosophy, not the whole of the German Ideology.

You say you've read it but when you say "I was commenting on a facet of Marx's philosophy..." it's really hard to believe-- since Marx in that volume, in the Theses on Feuerbach etc. is breaking with philosophy in its entirety-- that's what critique does. Marx no more has a philosophy than he has a political economy. From the critique of the former he moves to the analysis of the latter, and from the critique of that latter he moves to the explanation of the accumulation, and limits to the accumulation of capital-- to the conflict between the means and relations of production, and to socialist revolution and the end to "pre-history."




Your opinion is wrong. I believe it is derivative or social conditions. I also believe that philosophy came about as a method for the ruling class to justify not working like the laborers. To do this they distorted language and created philosophical ideas.The above is about as self-deluding and pathetic a bit of idealist nonsense as I've ever read. As if the ruling classes ever had to justify what work they do or don't do to others. As if the ruling classes relied on philosophers to justify that work/not work. That justification is/was the task not of philosophy but of political economy. That's the "school" that Marx demolishes, not on the basis of their "abstract language, but on the basis of their explanations for the source of capitalist accumulation.

[automattick]

@S.Artesian: That was one of the best responses I've seen on this forum.

[S.Artesian]

Thanks. Every once in a while I get a few things right... law of averages I guess.

[Meridian]

Marx never said that. He never said philosophy is created through a misuse of language. Nothing in the Grundrisse indicates that. And nothing in The German Ideology says philosophy is created through a misuse of language. That claim too is just abject, impoverished idealism.
What, exactly, is idealistic about philosophy being created through misuse of language?

[S.Artesian]

What, exactly, is idealistic about philosophy being created through misuse of language?

Oy vey. You're kidding right? Probably not.

It is idealistic because that assessment is a-historical. Are all philosophers at all times always misusing language, are engaged in the profession, the practice of the misuse of language?

The language of philosophy, like the language of political economy, is not "born" improper, nor, in reverse, does it give birth to an improper philosophy or political economy. The terms may in fact be adequate and accurate in so far as the material reality, the social organization, has developed at one time, and may only reveal their inadequacy, their "distortion," when the social conflicts assume a greater development.

The language and the philosophy are limited, as is the language of economic analysis by the overall development of society, by the material of the social reproduction of human being.

Marx is not in The German Ideology, arguing that the philosophy of Saint Max etc. is created through the misuse of language. He is arguing that the misuse of language is the manifestation of the inability to analyze, understand the actual social, historical forces at work.

That's why the volume opens with the essay on Feuerbach.

And that's why Marx and Engels make the point, in various iterations that:

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will]have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence."

The real movement puts the lie and the truth to the "philosophy" that does not, cannot apprehend that movement; ; that does not apprehend the material premises.

It is not the distortion of language that creates a philosophy incapable of apprehending the material premises. The distortion of language is the manifestation of a philosophy detached, opposed, to the material premises of the real movement. Those material premises are in the social labor process... and with that apprehension Marx is closing the books on philosophy, not opening a new page in a new book of philosophy, a philosophy of "undistorted" "ordinary" language.

[ChrisK]

You just said it again, that's who. Can't you read what you write? Would you like some help. First you say-- here, open up, let me put your own words back in your own mouth-- "Philosophy is derived from distorted language. The distorted language spreads ruling class ideas. We'll attack the distorted language and that will check the spread of ruling class ideas, of ruling class philosophy."

I respond-- and I'll put some words in my mouth "That's idealist nonsense. That's a waste of time. Ruling class ideas depend the economic domination of that ruling class. You're not going to demolish ruling class ideas by examining their language. Marx put an end to philosophy not by shifting the language, but shifting the methodology and subject, the methodology of the subject to history, to the labor process. There's no need for Marxism to engage with logical atomism, logical positivism, etc etc. etc."

You have yet to show where I say that we will destroy this thought using language analysis. Let me help you, I say it is a tool to help expose it as nonsense. As to how that will destroy it your guess is as good as mine. It is a tool to help us see that it is nonsense, that won't make it go away or anything, but it will let people see it for what it really is.

Now then, what did I say that is idealist? Where have I claimed that thought creates reality? In fact, how does the ruling class distorting language to legitimize their role in society act as idealist?

Furthermore, I am no logical atomist or positivist, those are philosophical systems. I simply argue for ordinary language, not a philosophy.


Then you say, "Where did I say different?" And right after you say that you repeat "If we dissolve the abstracted language we can see the philosophy of the ruling class as nonsense. Why is that wrong?"


Why is it wrong? Because a] what exactly is the "philosophy of the ruling class"? other than making money? other than preserving private property? other than maintaining themselves as the ruling class? Who says they, the ruling class, even has a philosophy; that the academic philosophers aren't maintained in their chairs simply as an affectation, a distraction, a diversion?

Marx himself.


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.

If their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch, then the philosophy of the day will support them. Arguments about human nature support their system, the utilitarianism of Benthem and Mills gives them ethical authority, Randian philosophy clearly supports them, etc. Why would you even think that philosophy does not support the rule of the current ruling class?


Because b] arguing about the abstracted language rather than engaging in the concrete analysis of that ruling class and how it makes its money, preserves its property, maintains its class rule essentially guts, not the philosophy, but Marxism. It makes of Marxism an estranged vocabulary.

How the fuck does it make Marxism an extranged vocabulary?


Because c] what is different, important, unique about the "abstract" language of philosophy and showing that to be nonsense as opposed to say the abstract language of religion; the abstract language of political economy; the abstract language of sociology; the abstract language of law? Is it simply based on your particular academic preference?

Do you know the three types of language? Ordinary, specialized and philosophical (religious language would fall under here). The first two are useful. Philosophical is not useful, it is rather useless. Specialized would be any scientific language. You ought to learn a thing or two about the subject before you make your wild leaps.


What makes you think "philosophy" has the slightest bit of influence on the reproduction of capital, on the thoughts, needs, actions of the bourgeoisie, who are nothing but capital personified?

Who said anything about bourgeoisie? However, if you are stupid enough to think that the ideas of the ruling class cannot be detrimental to a movement, then you are beyond help.


What makes you think "philosophy" has the slightest bit of influence even on Marxists, who even when they use its language, its distorted language of "dialectical materialism," use it as an ideology, a justification after the fact for an already determined position?

The fact that Stalin was able to use it to help legitimize his regime just proves the point.


Marx never said that. He never said philosophy is created through a misuse of language. Nothing in the Grundrisse indicates that. And nothing in The German Ideology says philosophy is created through a misuse of language. That claim too is just abject, impoverished idealism.

When Marx 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," that means that philosophy is comprised of misused language.


You say you've read it but when you say "I was commenting on a facet of Marx's philosophy..." it's really hard to believe-- since Marx in that volume, in the Theses on Feuerbach etc. is breaking with philosophy in its entirety-- that's what critique does. Marx no more has a philosophy than he has a political economy. From the critique of the former he moves to the analysis of the latter, and from the critique of that latter he moves to the explanation of the accumulation, and limits to the accumulation of capital-- to the conflict between the means and relations of production, and to socialist revolution and the end to "pre-history."

Thats a fairly common phrase. Would you have prefered Marx's take on philosophy? Considering that I claim that Marx atticipates Wittgenstein's destruction of philosophy, that should be implied.


The above is about as self-deluding and pathetic a bit of idealist nonsense as I've ever read. As if the ruling classes ever had to justify what work they do or don't do to others. As if the ruling classes relied on philosophers to justify that work/not work. That justification is/was the task not of philosophy but of political economy. That's the "school" that Marx demolishes, not on the basis of their "abstract language, but on the basis of their explanations for the source of capitalist accumulation.

1. Idealism has nothing to do with people using ideas to legitimize their position.

2. Do you think that people would just sit back and labor in early class society without rebelling against those who are not laboring without being told that they had a "natural place in society"

3. Do you honestly believe that people would accept the economic inequalities of capitalism without being told day in and day out that this is how it should be? That it is ethical accumulate alot because "it makes people happy". That human nature dictates it? That people are naturally greedy? That people are naturally lazy and need incintives to work? Philosophy is one force that promotes these ideas.

4. I didn't say they relied on them. I said they used them. They are a part of a whole.

5. Political economy is a new invention and is, yes, another facet of legitimizing captialism. It is definately the most important one to the capitalists, but that does not mean that philosophy does not play a role.

6. Do you realize that Marx can critique capitalism in more than one way? He can very well critique their philosophy in many ways and critique philosophy, political economy, old views of history and sociologically. Its so amazing, that he could attack things in many different ways!

7. Marx can easily critique philosophers based on their economic views and language.

[S.Artesian]

You have yet to show where I say that we will destroy this thought using language analysis. Let me help you, I say it is a tool to help expose it as nonsense. As to how that will destroy it your guess is as good as mine. It is a tool to help us see that it is nonsense, that won't make it go away or anything, but it will let people see it for what it really is.

Nope. That's not what you claimed. We go through this repeatedly. You make a stupid, truly stupid claim. You get called on it. And, ala your mentor, you then assert "That's not what I said. Show me where I.."blahblah.

What you claimed was that Marx was wrong, that Marx made a mistake when he makes the direct, and almost immediate shift from his analysis of the distorted language of philosophy and to his analysis of the labor process. You argue that was a mistake because the former would or could or will or can lead to the "decimation" of "ruling class thought."

Neither of us has to "guess" how your undoing of Marx's mistake will "help destroy ruling class thought," because Marx shows that the distortion of language does not produce ruling class thought, but rather that the expropriation of wage-labor, the organization of the MOP as private property reproduces the ruling class [I]as a class, thoughts, warts, and all.

This is the basis of Marx's social materialism which neither you nor your mentor not only cannot grasp, but refuse to acknowledge-- and your refusal isn't in any explicit statement of ordinary language, but rather in your distortion of the focus of Marx's work.



Furthermore, I am no logical atomist or positivist, those are philosophical systems. I simply argue for ordinary language, not a philosophy.No shit? Really? I was using those schools of philosophy of examples of the philosophy, and of the uselessness that results from suggesting that Marxism needs to confront the "distortion" of language promulgated by those philosophies.



If their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch, then the philosophy of the day will support them. Arguments about human nature support their system, the utilitarianism of Benthem and Mills gives them ethical authority, Randian philosophy clearly supports them, etc. Why would you even think that philosophy does not support the rule of the current ruling class?Again, look at Marx's criticism of Mills. It is not a criticism of or based on language, of philosophy. It is a criticism based on the material reproduction of society; on class; on the organization of labor.

Again, look at Randian "philosophy." Look at laissez-faire. Those are not philosophies based on a distortion of language. Laissez-faire doesn't originate in philosophy-- it is, in reality, an afterthought of a political-economy .

"Randism" isn't a philosophy; it's an ideological justification. The critique of Randism isn't in discourse; isn't in "vetting" the language; isn't in reviewing her novels. The critique is in opposition, the material analysis, of the actual conditions of production that provide the platform for the erection of such an ideology.

You think the sophism of Milton Friedman and his ilk, the distortions of George Gilder and that bunch are a "philosophy"? You want to argue with Friedman's followers about the meaning of "freedom"? Go right ahead, but that's not going to do a fucking thing to demolish, inhibit, their "philosophies" because they aren't philosophies, they're ideological justifications for the expropriation of labor.

So we don't argue with Friedman's followers about, for example, the "state" as being the source of all imbalances, disruptions in capital because the "state" is "unfree," impairs the markets. That's a waste of time. We might, and should point out that behind Friedman's and his follower's "free-marketeering" in Chile stood the "state" in all its glory-- that behind every free market there stands a death squad; that every invisible hand holds a razor.

Your weapon of "criticism" happens to be a popgun, loaded with the blanks.



How the fuck does it make Marxism an extranged vocabulary?I suggest you read your own, and Rosa's, writings. There is nothing that estranges Marxism more from what Marx undertook than your and her pretension at Marxism. Not a single word on the actual relations between capital and labor; on the history of capital and labor; on accumulation, expanded reproduction, on the reconversion of surplus value into capital-- NOTHING. You have taken Marxism and estranged it completely from its focus, and its own material-ism.




Do you know the three types of language? Ordinary, specialized and philosophical (religious language would fall under here). The first two are useful. Philosophical is not useful, it is rather useless. Specialized would be any scientific language. You ought to learn a thing or two about the subject before you make your wild leaps.Three types of language? No shit? I certainly would learn a thing or two about three types of language if indeed those types of language were the issue. As I have consistently tried to point out, the distortion of language, the types of language are not a big issue for Marx. He makes those points in TGI but only after demonstrating what the issue really is, the material reproduction of human social existence, and then he moves directly into the analysis of that material reproduction. As a matter of fact his criticisms in TGI are criticisms based on that material reproduction.

The subject, which you consistently deny, prove incapable of grasping, is Marxism, the actual content of Marx's critique of capitalism, not the use of language. Which, BTW, was all I was trying to say in my first post when I stated let's just keep in mind how little time and effort Marx spent on the issue of philosophers' use of distorted language.



The fact that Stalin was able to use it to help legitimize his regime just proves the point.WTF? This isn't even hilarious, it's beyond hilarious, it's pitiful. First because it proves my point, not yours. The issue isn't the philosophy and its distortion of language, and the remedy,or partial remedy, is not in some imagined combat with "dialectical materialism."

Second, because your same argument can and is used by supporters of Stalin to claim "legitimacy" of that regime.

Third, because the ideology does not create the conditions in the fSU, and the critique of the ideology is not in any way shape or form a critique of those conditions.

Fourth, because such a "pseudo-critique" is ahistorical, a distorted abstraction itself, isolating the transformation of the fSU from the internal material conditions of the economy, of the material reproduction of social life and from the interaction of those conditions with international capitalism.

Fifth, because the Soviet regime used lots of things to "legitimize" its authority, the least important of which is its creation and assertion of 'dialectical materialism.' The most important of which being the October Revolution itself, the triumph over the counterrevolution in the civil war, and the defeat, almost singlehandedly, of Nazi Germany.



Finally, your last points about how Marx can criticize capitalism in any number of ways-- he sure can, because every which way is developed from his criticism of the material reproduction of capital. Your entire effort, however, as encapsulated in those final 6 or so points, is to avoid any engagement with that material critique; any exploration of accumulation; any inquiry into the concrete, real, undistorted, "ordinary" current, past, or future relations of wage-labor and capital. In that you are a perfect idealist, and the true heir to St. Max, St. Bruno and the Leipzig council.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Not-so-Smartesian:


I suggest you read your own, and Rosa's, writings. There is nothing that estranges Marxism more from what Marx undertook than your and her pretension at Marxism. Not a single word on the actual relations between capital and labor; on the history of capital and labor; on accumulation, expanded reproduction, on the reconversion of surplus value into capital-- NOTHING. You have taken Marxism and estranged it completely from its focus, and its own material-ism.

As you have been told many times before, it is important to stem the flow of Hermetic/ruling-class poison into Marxist theory first (a flow, it has to be said, you are helping perpetuate).

The other topics you mention -- well, as you have also been told: no need to do this since Marx and other Marxists have done a pretty good job already.


Fifth, because the Soviet regime used lots of things to "legitimize" its authority, the least important of which is its creation and assertion of 'dialectical materialism.' The most important of which being the October Revolution itself, the triumph over the counterrevolution in the civil war, and the defeat, almost singlehandedly, of Nazi Germany.

How can this have been the 'least important' when this 'theory' allowed them (as it allows you and other mystics) to rationalise anything they/you like, and its opposite.

[S.Artesian]

Not-so-Smartesian:



As you have been told many times before, it is important to stem the flow of Hermetic/ruling-class poison into Marxist theory first (a flow, it has to be said, you are helping perpetuate).

Careful Rosa, you're getting very close to that old slur you throw around with such abandon; and which you agreed should not be used in our discussion.

If you wish to back out of that agreement, contact me privately.


The other topics you mention -- well, as you have also been told: no need to do this since Marx and other Marxists have done a pretty good job already.

Same-old, same-old from our resident no-nothing when it comes to the real substance of Marx's analysis.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Not-so-Smartesian (still feeding the alleged troll, eh?):


Careful Rosa, you're getting very close to that old slur you throw around with such abandon; and which you agreed should not be used in our discussion.

Not it at all, and nothing even remotely like it.


Same-old, same-old from our resident [kn]no-nothing when it comes to the real substance of Marx's analysis.

To which you have no reply. Suits me.:)

[ChrisK]

Nope. That's not what you claimed. We go through this repeatedly. You make a stupid, truly stupid claim. You get called on it. And, ala your mentor, you then assert "That's not what I said. Show me where I.."blahblah.

What menor? Thats what I did all through debate.


What you claimed was that Marx was wrong, that Marx made a mistake when he makes the direct, and almost immediate shift from his analysis of the distorted language of philosophy and to his analysis of the labor process. You argue that was a mistake because the former would or could or will or can lead to the "decimation" of "ruling class thought."

Maybe you should read what you wrote before I made that claim. You claimed that Marx had shown how it was unneccessary to continue on that line of thought. I said Marx was wrong, that it was worth pursuing further. His mistake is that he looked over a tool for exposing ruling class thought as nonsense.


Neither of us has to "guess" how your undoing of Marx's mistake will "help destroy ruling class thought," because Marx shows that the distortion of language does not produce ruling class thought, but rather that the expropriation of wage-labor, the organization of the MOP as private property reproduces the ruling class [I]as a class, thoughts, warts, and all.

Did you miss the part where I said that ruling class philosophy is comprised of distorted language. Something that Marx's own writing supports.

Of course material conditions are the cause of ruling class thought, but that doesn't mean that they don't legitimize their role with distorted language.


This is the basis of Marx's social materialism which neither you nor your mentor not only cannot grasp, but refuse to acknowledge-- and your refusal isn't in any explicit statement of ordinary language, but rather in your distortion of the focus of Marx's work.

Show me where I say this is the focus of Marx's work. Seriously learn to fucking read.


Again, look at Marx's criticism of Mills. It is not a criticism of or based on language, of philosophy. It is a criticism based on the material reproduction of society; on class; on the organization of labor.

Marx's criticism of Mills is based on Mills economics writings. I was speaking of his philosophical writings. But then again we know you think that people can only write about one thing.


Again, look at Randian "philosophy." Look at laissez-faire. Those are not philosophies based on a distortion of language. Laissez-faire doesn't originate in philosophy-- it is, in reality, an afterthought of a political-economy .

"Randism" isn't a philosophy; it's an ideological justification. The critique of Randism isn't in discourse; isn't in "vetting" the language; isn't in reviewing her novels. The critique is in opposition, the material analysis, of the actual conditions of production that provide the platform for the erection of such an ideology.

Objectivism very much is a philosophy. Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand))read up on this before you argue. The part on ethics is rather important.

Furthermore, why can't we have a mulipronged attack?


You think the sophism of Milton Friedman and his ilk, the distortions of George Gilder and that bunch are a "philosophy"? You want to argue with Friedman's followers about the meaning of "freedom"? Go right ahead, but that's not going to do a fucking thing to demolish, inhibit, their "philosophies" because they aren't philosophies, they're ideological justifications for the expropriation of labor.

So we don't argue with Friedman's followers about, for example, the "state" as being the source of all imbalances, disruptions in capital because the "state" is "unfree," impairs the markets. That's a waste of time. We might, and should point out that behind Friedman's and his follower's "free-marketeering" in Chile stood the "state" in all its glory-- that behind every free market there stands a death squad; that every invisible hand holds a razor.

Thats because he is an economist, not a philosopher. Their distortions are not linguistic in nature.


I suggest you read your own, and Rosa's, writings. There is nothing that estranges Marxism more from what Marx undertook than your and her pretension at Marxism. Not a single word on the actual relations between capital and labor; on the history of capital and labor; on accumulation, expanded reproduction, on the reconversion of surplus value into capital-- NOTHING. You have taken Marxism and estranged it completely from its focus, and its own material-ism.

Why would I write about it? Marx did it far better than I could. Others have written summaries on these subjects to help people learn. Writing more about it would be repeating Marx.

Also, nice dodging the question with rhetoric. Let us ask again, how does Marxism become an estranged vocabulary?


Three types of language? No shit? I certainly would learn a thing or two about three types of language if indeed those types of language were the issue. As I have consistently tried to point out, the distortion of language, the types of language are not a big issue for Marx. He makes those points in TGI but only after demonstrating what the issue really is, the material reproduction of human social existence, and then he moves directly into the analysis of that material reproduction. As a matter of fact his criticisms in TGI are criticisms based on that material reproduction.

The subject, which you consistently deny, prove incapable of grasping, is Marxism, the actual content of Marx's critique of capitalism, not the use of language. Which, BTW, was all I was trying to say in my first post when I stated let's just keep in mind how little time and effort Marx spent on the issue of philosophers' use of distorted language.

Nice changing the subject once again. You go from criticising ordinary language philosophy to talking about what Marx cares about, without ever engaging on my response. You simply know little about the subject but aren't willing to admit it.


WTF? This isn't even hilarious, it's beyond hilarious, it's pitiful. First because it proves my point, not yours. The issue isn't the philosophy and its distortion of language, and the remedy,or partial remedy, is not in some imagined combat with "dialectical materialism."

How does that prove your point. Stalin was able to use dialectical materialism (a philosophy based on distorted language) to legitimize his regime. This is one example of the poison that Hegel gave to the Marxist movement.


Second, because your same argument can and is used by supporters of Stalin to claim "legitimacy" of that regime.

Did you happen to miss something?


Third, because the ideology does not create the conditions in the fSU, and the critique of the ideology is not in any way shape or form a critique of those conditions.

Of course it doesn't. Did you forget what legitimize means? Considering what you think a contradiction is I wouldn't be suprised.


Fourth, because such a "pseudo-critique" is ahistorical, a distorted abstraction itself, isolating the transformation of the fSU from the internal material conditions of the economy, of the material reproduction of social life and from the interaction of those conditions with international capitalism.

How is ordinary language philosophy an abstraction? Why do all criticism have to be historical?


Fifth, because the Soviet regime used lots of things to "legitimize" its authority, the least important of which is its creation and assertion of 'dialectical materialism.' The most important of which being the October Revolution itself, the triumph over the counterrevolution in the civil war, and the defeat, almost singlehandedly, of Nazi Germany.

So you admit that it was a factor. You seem to agree with me.


Finally, your last points about how Marx can criticize capitalism in any number of ways-- he sure can, because every which way is developed from his criticism of the material reproduction of capital. Your entire effort, however, as encapsulated in those final 6 or so points, is to avoid any engagement with that material critique; any exploration of accumulation; any inquiry into the concrete, real, undistorted, "ordinary" current, past, or future relations of wage-labor and capital. In that you are a perfect idealist, and the true heir to St. Max, St. Bruno and the Leipzig council.

You seem to have missed the point. Marx can critique in many ways, including ordinary language philosophy. Now lets look at what I posted.



1. Idealism has nothing to do with people using ideas to legitimize their position.

2. Do you think that people would just sit back and labor in early class society without rebelling against those who are not laboring without being told that they had a "natural place in society"

3. Do you honestly believe that people would accept the economic inequalities of capitalism without being told day in and day out that this is how it should be? That it is ethical accumulate alot because "it makes people happy". That human nature dictates it? That people are naturally greedy? That people are naturally lazy and need incintives to work? Philosophy is one force that promotes these ideas.

4. I didn't say they relied on them. I said they used them. They are a part of a whole.

5. Political economy is a new invention and is, yes, another facet of legitimizing captialism. It is definately the most important one to the capitalists, but that does not mean that philosophy does not play a role.

6. Do you realize that Marx can critique capitalism in more than one way? He can very well critique their philosophy in many ways and critique philosophy, political economy, old views of history and sociologically. Its so amazing, that he could attack things in many different ways!

7. Marx can easily critique philosophers based on their economic views and language.

Care to respond to any of my points? Or are you content to call me an idealist without knowing what that means (see point 1) and ignoring the role philosophy has played through out history (how ahistorical of you) (see point 2) and ignoring all of my other points (3-5).

[S.Artesian]

Maybe you should read what you wrote before I made that claim. You claimed that Marx had shown how it was unneccessary to continue on that line of thought. I said Marx was wrong, that it was worth pursuing further. His mistake is that he looked over a tool for exposing ruling class thought as nonsense.

Yeah, let's go back and look. Here's how it goes:



Me: Perhaps we should keep in mind how little time and effort Marx put into this question; how he doesn't follow up on it; how his investigations immediately move to and concentrate upon the labor process, not the language process.
You: So basically you don't have a response and just want to pretend that he never wrote it. Of course you forget that he also wrote about how language develops in a social context in the Grundrisse. So he continued to have thoughts about this subject that paralleled Wittgenstein until at least the mid 1850's.I then point out how Marx's remarks on language in the Grundrisse have absolutely nothing to do with arguments about the "distortion of language" being the basis of philosophy, or the "tool of the ruling class," something you admit, but continue to ignore as you refer to those remarks in the Grundrisse as somehow validating the "importance" of your imagined Marx/Wittgenstein convergence.


I then move to, what for me is the critical point, and is indeed the very purpose of the essays published in The German Ideology:



Me: What counts, IMO, for Marx, is the shift away from things hardly worth mentioning and into the actual material of human, social reproduction, into property, into the labor process.Which brings this charming and profound response:



You:

Marx was wrong in this case. The decimatation of 2500 years of ruling class thought is important


Which takes us into an equally charming discussion about what constitutes decimation of the ruling class, and what I think Marx is trying to achieve by moving away from philosophy; how Marx's critique of philosophy is not based on philsophy's necessary distortion of ordinary language, but rather Marx's repositioning, regrounding of the entire framework of analysis from one of "language" to that of the labor process-- which of course, in you opinion is the mistake Marx made.


Me: Marx in the body of his writings shows something other than that philosophy is based on a misuse of language. He shows how philosophy is an estrangement from the actual determinants of human, material, existence. The philosophical language reflects that.

You say:

Because it seems to me that Marx is saying that philosophers are absracting language and that they shouldn't. Rather, they should be looking at the world in reality, not in abstraction.And I point out, no he's not saying that at all. He's not saying philosophers "shouldn't" be abstracting language, he's saying philosophy is an estranged representation of an estranged material life. It is not capable, not competent of anything other than reproducing that estrangement, and that it is necessary to move away, beyond philosophy into the concrete examination of the material conditions of estrangement, of the reproduction of estrangement, into the labor process. That, that movement is exactly what The German Ideology tracks, measures, initiates. It is a movement away from the distortion all right and into the concrete, not through a critique of abstract language, but through a grasp of the concrete conditions of the reproduction of estrangement, alienation, which are the expropriation of wage-labor, the organization of the means of production as....[trumpets, please] capital.



Did you miss the part where I said that ruling class philosophy is comprised of distorted language. Something that Marx's own writing supports.How could I? That's all you ever say. That's exactly what I mean by the estrangement of Marxism. You say the ruling class supports itself through philosophy [even suggesting they use it as a reason for not working]. You say that the ruling class philosophy distorts language.

These are, at best, unremarkable, completely pedestrian observations-- observations that Marx makes in one or two paragraphs and then leaves behind to move on to the conditions that produce the ruling class itself, something a bit more important than the ruling class' distortion of philosophical language... which is why, in my first post, all I wanted to make clear is that remarks are a segue to what becomes the basis for all of Marx's further investigations.


Show me where I say this is the focus of Marx's work. Seriously learn to fucking read.You learn to read. I stated you won't and don't say that explicitly. You're much to facile to do something like that.


me:
This is the basis of Marx's social materialism which neither you nor your mentor not only cannot grasp, but refuse to acknowledge-- and your refusal isn't in any explicit statement of ordinary language, but rather in your distortion of the focus of Marx's work. And the proof? I'll be fucked if I can find in anything you write a single fucking reference to capital, to labor, to the labor process, to appropriation, expropriation, accumulation, means of production, mode of production, relations of production. Anything-- other than when you're quoting something else.

Your focus is what you attempt to impose on Marx-- a focus on philosophical distortion of language, and that is simply not what Marx's work in general, or in specific, and certainly not in particular what the work in The German Ideology is about-- even tangentially.

And where does this get us in reality? It gets you to this:


Objectivism very much is a philosophy.. The part on ethics is rather important.No, objectivism is not a philosophy, or it is exactly to the degree that it pretends at some analysis of real life that is actually and only an attempt to mask a precise social organization of production. It is an ideology of a class, of a property form.

You want to argue with Alan Greenspan [Ayn Rands former acolyte and rumored lover] about his objectivism? You think that's going to expose Greenspan? How about this instead-- how about how Greenspan in run-up to the S&L crisis in the US, which itself is the precursor for the current "asset-back-securities" meltdown, is the guy who wrote the letters to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board so that the swindler Charles Keating could get a license to open up Lincoln Savings and Loan, after Keating had by been rejected by the board as unfit? Which do you think is the real decimation of "ruling class ideas"? Arguing over objectivism, or Alan Greenspan as a shill, a flack, a hack, a bagman? Which do you think really involves the, as your mentor Rosa loves to put it, "the ordinary language of the working class."

And that your preference is for arguing the ethics of objectivism by the way, is exactly how you estrange Marxism from its material, concrete connections.




Also, nice dodging the question with rhetoric. Let us ask again, how does Marxism become an estranged vocabulary?See above.

As for the rest of your points-- they've been responded in the above comments. If you can't see that, and I'm sure you can't.... get a dog, or a hobby. Leave Marxism alone.

[S.Artesian]

Originally Posted by ChristoferKoch
1. Idealism has nothing to do with people using ideas to legitimize their position.

2. Do you think that people would just sit back and labor in early class society without rebelling against those who are not laboring without being told that they had a "natural place in society"

3. Do you honestly believe that people would accept the economic inequalities of capitalism without being told day in and day out that this is how it should be? That it is ethical accumulate alot because "it makes people happy". That human nature dictates it? That people are naturally greedy? That people are naturally lazy and need incintives to work? Philosophy is one force that promotes these ideas.

4. I didn't say they relied on them. I said they used them. They are a part of a whole.

5. Political economy is a new invention and is, yes, another facet of legitimizing captialism. It is definately the most important one to the capitalists, but that does not mean that philosophy does not play a role.

6. Do you realize that Marx can critique capitalism in more than one way? He can very well critique their philosophy in many ways and critique philosophy, political economy, old views of history and sociologically. Its so amazing, that he could attack things in many different ways!

7. Marx can easily critique philosophers based on their economic views and language.

In order to remove this specious charge of not responding to your points, I'll go through this sophomoric exercise with you one more time.

1. Right, but that's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing it's idealism to think your "critique" of the "distorted language" of philosophy can or will amount to a decimation of ruling class ideas.

2. Whatever people did and did not do in earlier societies, the events of revolution and non-revolution, the incidents of rebellion and non-rebellion had nothing whatsoever to do with what they were being told about what's "right" "just" and/or "natural." Those events and incidents had everything to do with the material conditions of the reproduction of their abilities to feed themselves and their children; clothes themselves and their children. Everything to do with labor, and nothing to do with what the ruling class was saying... and in earlier societies, earlier class societies, it wasn't philosophers telling the oppressed and exploited what "the natural order" was... not by a long shot.

Philosophers might have been telling the ruling class what the natural order was; might have been telling those individuals and fractions of classes, those de-classed elements what the natural order was, but they sure weren't telling slaves, serfs, indentured laborers, debt peons what the natural order was since those oppressed and exploited had no contact with the philosophers.

Priests, preachers might have been telling them what the natural order was; and itinerant preachers, millenarians, ranters, diggers might have been telling them that wasn't the natural order, not god's will, but it sure wasn't philosophers telling them that from either side. And nobody was arguing about "distorted" language.

3. Do I believe...? Has nothing to do with it. You mean to say, since we want to use plain language-- People would NOT accept the economic inequalities of capitalism without being told day in and day out that this is how it should be. People would NOT accept that it is ethical accumulate alot unless they were told that "it makes people happy". People would NOT accept capitalist accumulation unless they were told that human nature dictates it? That people are naturally greedy? etcetc Philosophy is one force that promotes these ideas.

I think clearly, when your questions are posed in such plain language, free of your distortion, it is clear what idealist nonsense and twaddle you hold to-- how anti-materialist your "linguistic Marxism" really. As if acceptance, rejection are choices, voluntaristic options. Necessity, that old Hegelian guff about necessity, that old Marxist stuff about material necessity-- subsistence and the means of subsistence determines what people accept and don't accept, and when the economic contradictions of that specific social organization of necessity, of reproducing subsistence, of those means and relations of production reach the critical level, the conjucture, then specific classes move against the mode of production, for the abolition of expropriation, and for reappropriating the social labor process as indeed, the property of all.

As for your "critique of distorted language" it is of a whole with the distorted language itself-- idealist twaddle, nonsense.

4. Good for you. Part or whole, it's still twaddle.

5. Nope, political economy is not the most important method of legitimizing capitalism. Capital is, as Marx described, it self-mediating, self-reproducing. It, capital accumulation is the most import method legitimizing capitalism.

6. Tell us, how many different ways did Marx criticize capitalism? Tell us how many of those different ways are in fact different manifestations of the Marx's fundamental apprehension of the "source" of capitalist reproduction itself-- the separation and opposition of labor to the conditions of labor?

7. Yes, Marx can do that. Just so happen that beginning with the his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, through the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and his critical remarks on Hegel, through the Theses on Feuerbach and The German Ideology, and continuing onward Marx bases his criticisms on the material reproduction of society. Which is why I guess, Marx refers to himself as a socialist, a materialist. Not a philosopher, not a political economist. Mere technicality, I'm sure.

8. Did you get that dog yet?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Not-so-Smartesian:


You want to argue with Alan Greenspan [Ayn Rands former acolyte and rumored lover] about his objectivism? You think that's going to expose Greenspan? How about this instead-- how about how Greenspan in run-up to the S&L crisis in the US, which itself is the precursor for the current "asset-back-securities" meltdown, is the guy who wrote the letters to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board so that the swindler Charles Keating could get a license to open up Lincoln Savings and Loan, after Keating had by been rejected by the board as unfit? Which do you think is the real decimation of "ruling class ideas"? Arguing over objectivism, or Alan Greenspan as a shill, a flack, a hack, a bagman? Which do you think really involves the, as your mentor Rosa loves to put it, "the ordinary language of the working class."

What makes you think I am Chris's 'mentor'? He is quite capable of thinking for himself -- and you mustn't assume that what he says is identical with what I'd say, either. He has his own distinct ideas on this, and I welcome them.

Even more bizarre: what on earth makes you think I or Chris want to argue with the likes of Ayn Rand or Alan Greenspan?

I fear your over-heated brain is now clutching at straws.:(

[ChrisK]

Yeah, let's go back and look. Here's how it goes:


I then point out how Marx's remarks on language in the Grundrisse have absolutely nothing to do with arguments about the "distortion of language" being the basis of philosophy, or the "tool of the ruling class," something you admit, but continue to ignore as you refer to those remarks in the Grundrisse as somehow validating the "importance" of your imagined Marx/Wittgenstein convergence.

The Marx/Wittgenstein convergence is not "important", it is interesting. What's important is the tool. Also, have you yet wrapped your head around the fact that the Grundrisse's comments are also Wittgensteinian.


I then move to, what for me is the critical point, and is indeed the very purpose of the essays published in The German Ideology:


Which brings this charming and profound response:


You distorting quotes. I claimed that Marx saying that it doesn't require futher discussion to be a mistake. I in no way criticized Marx's materialist approach.


Which takes us into an equally charming discussion about what constitutes decimation of the ruling class, and what I think Marx is trying to achieve by moving away from philosophy; how Marx's critique of philosophy is not based on philsophy's necessary distortion of ordinary language, but rather Marx's repositioning, regrounding of the entire framework of analysis from one of "language" to that of the labor process-- which of course, in you opinion is the mistake Marx made.



You say:
And I point out, no he's not saying that at all. He's not saying philosophers "shouldn't" be abstracting language, he's saying philosophy is an estranged representation of an estranged material life. It is not capable, not competent of anything other than reproducing that estrangement, and that it is necessary to move away, beyond philosophy into the concrete examination of the material conditions of estrangement, of the reproduction of estrangement, into the labor process. That, that movement is exactly what The German Ideology tracks, measures, initiates. It is a movement away from the distortion all right and into the concrete, not through a critique of abstract language, but through a grasp of the concrete conditions of the reproduction of estrangement, alienation, which are the expropriation of wage-labor, the organization of the means of production as....[trumpets, please] capital.


How could I? That's all you ever say. That's exactly what I mean by the estrangement of Marxism. You say the ruling class supports itself through philosophy [even suggesting they use it as a reason for not working]. You say that the ruling class philosophy distorts language.

It does use distorted language. The really fun part about all of this, is that I've told you many times that I agree with you one the cause. What I am talking about is Marx's implication that philosophers should stop using abstracted langauge in order to see what they are doing.

As for the bolded, do you know time is? You see, that is my claim about the earliest philosophers not current ones. And I said it is one of the things that they use to legitimize their position is society.


These are, at best, unremarkable, completely pedestrian observations-- observations that Marx makes in one or two paragraphs and then leaves behind to move on to the conditions that produce the ruling class itself, something a bit more important than the ruling class' distortion of philosophical language... which is why, in my first post, all I wanted to make clear is that remarks are a segue to what becomes the basis for all of Marx's further investigations.

Yet my point was that they are in complete agreeance with Wittgenstein and worth looking into. Why do you have a problem with that?


Your focus is what you attempt to impose on Marx-- a focus on philosophical distortion of language, and that is simply not what Marx's work in general, or in specific, and certainly not in particular what the work in The German Ideology is about-- even tangentially.

And where does this get us in reality? It gets you to this:

I am not imposing shit on Marx. I am commenting on a passage that people ignore, that Marx wrote. I do not say that he focuses on distorted language. I say that he made a comment on it ala Wittgenstein. If you can't understand that you are beyond hope.


No, objectivism is not a philosophy, or it is exactly to the degree that it pretends at some analysis of real life that is actually and only an attempt to mask a precise social organization of production. It is an ideology of a class, of a property form.

Standford University's philosophy department disagrees with you.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayn-rand/

Oddly, if you say it is a philosophy and then the rest of what you say, its actually spot on. Maybe there is hope for you. Maybe.


You want to argue with Alan Greenspan [Ayn Rands former acolyte and rumored lover] about his objectivism? You think that's going to expose Greenspan? How about this instead-- how about how Greenspan in run-up to the S&L crisis in the US, which itself is the precursor for the current "asset-back-securities" meltdown, is the guy who wrote the letters to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board so that the swindler Charles Keating could get a license to open up Lincoln Savings and Loan, after Keating had by been rejected by the board as unfit? Which do you think is the real decimation of "ruling class ideas"? Arguing over objectivism, or Alan Greenspan as a shill, a flack, a hack, a bagman? Which do you think really involves the, as your mentor Rosa loves to put it, "the ordinary language of the working class."

Not really. At all. I would like to expose objectivism for what it is; nonsense. But I prefer to respond to economists with economic criticism.

Rosa is not my mentor. I seriously doubt she agrees with everything I argue. Just because I agree with her on dialectics does not make her a mentor. That would be like calling Joe Rogan my mentor because I agree with his stance on pot.


And that your preference is for arguing the ethics of objectivism by the way, is exactly how you estrange Marxism from its material, concrete connections.



My preference for how I argue on revleft does not estrange Marxism. My arguments with cappies on the labor theory of value while selling papers had no hint of philosophy in them. Or perhaps when I was in debate and I argued against anothers policy based on the relationship between the capitalist class and the state.

Maybe you shouldn't assume things about people you've never met.



1. Right, but that's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing it's idealism to think your "critique" of the "distorted language" of philosophy can or will amount to a decimation of ruling class ideas.

Right, but I am arguing that it is a tool that exposes ruling class philosophies for what they are; nonsense. How is that idealist? Or are you having trouble with your philosophical terms?


2. Whatever people did and did not do in earlier societies, the events of revolution and non-revolution, the incidents of rebellion and non-rebellion had nothing whatsoever to do with what they were being told about what's "right" "just" and/or "natural." Those events and incidents had everything to do with the material conditions of the reproduction of their abilities to feed themselves and their children; clothes themselves and their children. Everything to do with labor, and nothing to do with what the ruling class was saying... and in earlier societies, earlier class societies, it wasn't philosophers telling the oppressed and exploited what "the natural order" was... not by a long shot.

And why didn't they rebel against those who took the surplus and didn't work? They didn't need those "organizers".

Right, because Aristotle didn't come up with chain of of being. And Plato didn't argue that there were three different people with different wants that are naturally endowned upon them.


Philosophers might have been telling the ruling class what the natural order was; might have been telling those individuals and fractions of classes, those de-classed elements what the natural order was, but they sure weren't telling slaves, serfs, indentured laborers, debt peons what the natural order was since those oppressed and exploited had no contact with the philosophers.

Priests, preachers might have been telling them what the natural order was; and itinerant preachers, millenarians, ranters, diggers might have been telling them that wasn't the natural order, not god's will, but it sure wasn't philosophers telling them that from either side. And nobody was arguing about "distorted" language.

And St. Thomas Aquanis wasn't a philosopher? And the priests didn't take chain of being from Aristotle as a way to legitimize social order.

Yes Priests are important in that role, in fact, their role is similar to that of the philosophers. However, they took many ideas from philosophers, especially Plato and Aristotle.

Perhaps you should learn some history?


3. Do I believe...? Has nothing to do with it. You mean to say, since we want to use plain language-- People would NOT accept the economic inequalities of capitalism without being told day in and day out that this is how it should be. People would NOT accept that it is ethical accumulate alot unless they were told that "it makes people happy". People would NOT accept capitalist accumulation unless they were told that human nature dictates it? That people are naturally greedy? etcetc Philosophy is one force that promotes these ideas.

I think clearly, when your questions are posed in such plain language, free of your distortion, it is clear what idealist nonsense and twaddle you hold to-- how anti-materialist your "linguistic Marxism" really. As if acceptance, rejection are choices, voluntaristic options. Necessity, that old Hegelian guff about necessity, that old Marxist stuff about material necessity-- subsistence and the means of subsistence determines what people accept and don't accept, and when the economic contradictions of that specific social organization of necessity, of reproducing subsistence, of those means and relations of production reach the critical level, the conjucture, then specific classes move against the mode of production, for the abolition of expropriation, and for reappropriating the social labor process as indeed, the property of all.[/QUOTE]

How is this idealistic? Language is part of our material reality. Socialization is part of our material reality.

How is it that you propose to convince workers of our side being correct? I assume you'll use some form of communication to counter the socialization of capitalism. By your definition, that makes you an idealist.


As for your "critique of distorted language" it is of a whole with the distorted language itself-- idealist twaddle, nonsense.

Considering what you seem to think idealism is, I don't think I'll be trusting your genius on this one.


4. Good for you. Part or whole, it's still twaddle.

Way to not engage on the role that philosophy plays in legitimizing the ruling class.


5. Nope, political economy is not the most important method of legitimizing capitalism. Capital is, as Marx described, it self-mediating, self-reproducing. It, capital accumulation is the most import method legitimizing capitalism.

And capital is part of the... the... oh whats that subject... pol... polit... political... political ec.... POLITICAL ECONOMY! Thats it!

Also, way to not engage on philosophies role in legitimizing the ruling class.


6. Tell us, how many different ways did Marx criticize capitalism? Tell us how many of those different ways are in fact different manifestations of the Marx's fundamental apprehension of the "source" of capitalist reproduction itself-- the separation and opposition of labor to the conditions of labor?

Sure they are part of that fundamental source, but that doesn't mean that we can't look at facets of his arguments and take them further. He clearly saw that philosophers use distorted language. We can expose this as he did.


7. Yes, Marx can do that. Just so happen that beginning with the his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, through the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and his critical remarks on Hegel, through the Theses on Feuerbach and The German Ideology, and continuing onward Marx bases his criticisms on the material reproduction of society. Which is why I guess, Marx refers to himself as a socialist, a materialist. Not a philosopher, not a political economist. Mere technicality, I'm sure.

Yes, and he used many different approaches to attacking this.


8. Did you get that dog yet?

Already have two, don't need a third. Have you found time to take fourth grade english?

[S.Artesian]

Well, if Stanford University says so, home of the Hoover Institute, and and holder of Friedman's papers, then it must be so.

Your errors regarding Marxism are legion, and elementary.

You can't even understand Marx's materialist analysis of revolution, of the forces triggering revolution when it's spelled out for you.

This by you:


And why didn't they rebel against those who took the surplus and didn't work? They didn't need those "organizers". shows how you understand nothing at all about the materialist interpretation of history, and/or of the actual events of history, since the history of pre-capitalist non-communal societies, like feudalism, like the transplanted monarch-mercantile alliances exploiting the "New World" is absolutely filled with incidents of revolt, of peasant wars, of serf struggles, of indigenous rebellions.

And no "capital" is not part of.. or.. political economy. That's one more thing, basic to Marxism that you can't grasp. Capital is the product of a historically specific organization of labor; of a precise relationship of classes. Capital is self-valorising value. Political economy is never able to, has no necessity to, explore, explicate, acknowledge that precise relationship, which is why it always falls short of explaining the very subject it is sworn to protect, preserve, and promote.

You never answered the question-- you never showed us any of the different ways Marx criticized capitalism. You showed us absolutely nothing where Marx utilizes a critique of distorted language as his weapon of criticism against ruling class ideas, not even in The German Ideology. In fact Marx didn't make such a critique. Remember, he made the "mistake" of moving directly on to the consideration of the labor process?

You cite the paragraphs and then you don't even bother to follow it up by showing how Marx demonstrates that his critique is one of the distortion of language,separate and apart from the material organization of society, and that such a critique actually does "decimate" a ruling class idea.

You haven't shown a single one of the "many approaches" Marx took to his critique of capitalism--a single one of the "many approaches" that do not originate in, and return to, the fundamental disproportion in the exchange between wage-labor and capital, itself a result of the opposition [Marx's word] of labor and the conditions of labor.

You've provided nothing.

You know nothing about Marx's work. And worse than that, you know nothing about the actual origin, organization, reproduction of capital which might make you want to actually read something more than select paragraphs.

Most of all, what you don't grasp is that ruling class "philosophy" stems from the position of the ruling class as the ruling class. Even that oft-cited "interaction between base and superstructure" which is supposed to include everything ever done by ruling classes, ever thought, spoken or uttered by ruling classes as being somehow critical, essential to the reproduction of the ruling class as the ruling class isn't going to do you much good...You'd be better off speculating on the effects of music videos, or text messages on social consciousness rather than pretending to wrestle with ruling class philosophers.

The decimation of ruling class philosophy is not in the parsing of distorted language, but in the very same conflict between means and relations of production that undermines the class's economic, social control of the mode of production, of property.

The very first thing I stated was that Marx spent little time and effort on this issue of "distorted language" being a vector for philosophy and philosophy being the vector for ruling class reproduction. Rather that Marx said that philosophers need to give up their distorted language to dissolve their estrangement into the estrangement of real life. What Marx doesn't say in those paragraphs, but makes abundantly clear is that for philosophers to do that, they would have to cease being philosophers. but then they wouldn't be philosophers. And once that is said, that's pretty much all that needs to be said. Marx moves directly to the consideration of the material reproduction of the social conditions of labor.

Your response was "Oh you have nothing to say and you want to ignore what Marx said," adding a mention of Marx's comments on language in the Grundrisse when in fact, as has been shown, those comments by Marx have nothing to do with your earlier, and subsequent assertions, about the distortion of language and ruling class philosophy.

Expose objectivism as nonsense? Go right ahead. Why in fact don't you do that? Why don't you produce a single post detailing what is the distorted language in objectivism? Why not start a thread on that?

But you don't do that. You want to prove that if you ever did do that, that it would fully in keeping with Marx's critique of philosophers using distorted language.

You're like a child that wants to run away from home but can only keep going around the block because your parents haven't given you permission to cross the street.

As for your relationship with Rosa.... I suggest anyone interested in that look at http://www.revleft.com/vb/nti-dialectics-made-t132104/index.html (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../nti-dialectics-made-t132104/index.html)

She's got you practically gushing like a..... schoolboy, schoolboy.

[ChrisK]

Well, if Stanford University says so, home of the Hoover Institute, and and holder of Friedman's papers, then it must be so.

Good job on changing the subject. How does any of this show that the Standford Philosophy Department, one of the highest ranked in the Anglophone world, doesn't know what a philosophy is.


Your errors regarding Marxism are legion, and elementary.

You can't even understand Marx's materialist analysis of revolution, of the forces triggering revolution when it's spelled out for you.

Hmm, do explain.


shows how you understand nothing at all about the materialist interpretation of history, and/or of the actual events of history, since the history of pre-capitalist non-communal societies, like feudalism, like the transplanted monarch-mercantile alliances exploiting the "New World" is absolutely filled with incidents of revolt, of peasant wars, of serf struggles, of indigenous rebellions.

Actually, I was talking about a time that Marx knew very little about, very ancient socities. Yes there were rebellions and yes there were problems, but what was used to help prevent these from happening? Philosophy, religion, etc.


And no "capital" is not part of.. or.. political economy. That's one more thing, basic to Marxism that you can't grasp. Capital is the product of a historically specific organization of labor; of a precise relationship of classes. Capital is self-valorising value. Political economy is never able to, has no necessity to, explore, explicate, acknowledge that precise relationship, which is why it always falls short of explaining the very subject it is sworn to protect, preserve, and promote.

Hmmmmmm, why is it then that Engels in the Anti-Duhring puts capital under the heading of Political Economy? Could it be that captial is part of economics. Maybe, just perhaps.


You never answered the question-- you never showed us any of the different ways Marx criticized capitalism. You showed us absolutely nothing where Marx utilizes a critique of distorted language as his weapon of criticism against ruling class ideas, not even in The German Ideology. In fact Marx didn't make such a critique. Remember, he made the "mistake" of moving directly on to the consideration of the labor process?

Where did I say he did? I did say that he said that philosophers used distorted language as a way of supporting the idea that Marx can criticize people in more than one way (read: philosophers).

You keep on distorting what I said. His mistake was assuming that it wouldn't be fruitful to look into more deeply; something that Wittgenstein did.


You cite the paragraphs and then you don't even bother to follow it up by showing how Marx demonstrates that his critique is one of the distortion of language,separate and apart from the material organization of society, and that such a critique actually does "decimate" [hey, dumb shit, maybe you'll be able to read this finally, such a critique exposes such thought for what it really is. I used decimate as a rhetorical flourish]a ruling class idea.

I never said it was seperate and apart. What I said is that he viewed philosophy as comprised of distorted language.


You know nothing about Marx's work. And worse than that, you know nothing about the actual origin, organization, reproduction of capital which might make you want to actually read something more than select paragraphs.

I don't read select paragraphs. I comment on select paragraphs. If I commented on every paragraph of Marx's works I'd be writing for fucking forever.


Most of all, what you don't grasp is that ruling class "philosophy" stems from the position of the ruling class as the ruling class. The basis some oft-cited "interaction between base and superstructure" which is supposed to include everything ever done by ruling classes, ever thought, spoken or uttered by ruling classes as being somehow critical, essential to the reproduction of the ruling class as the ruling class. Because such ideological utterances are just that, ideological utterances. Their decimation is not in the parsing of distorted language, but in the very same conflict between means and relations of production that undermines the class's economic, social control of the mode of production, of property.

And how don't I understand this? I said we will be able to expose such thought. Why do you think this bad? What harm could it do?


Expose objectivism as nonsense? Go right ahead. Why in fact don't you do that? Why don't you produce a single post detailing what is the distorted language in objectivism? Why not start a thread on that?

But you don't do that. You want to prove that if you ever did do that, that it would fully in keeping with Marx's critique of philosophers using distorted language.

Actually I don't do that because I am not prepared to do that. After some more learning and practicing I'll be ready to do that (and when I have the money to buy objectivist books).


As for your relationship with Rosa.... I suggest anyone interested in that look at http://www.revleft.com/vb/nti-dialectics-made-t132104/index.html (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../nti-dialectics-made-t132104/index.html)

I also sent a PM to redstar2000 thanking him for all he has done for the movement. Called him an inspiration. Does that make him my mentor? I respect those who deserve it and I let them know that I do.


She's got you practically gushing like a..... schoolboy, schoolboy.

Not too sure what you have against people who go to college. Though it does explain why you apply such idiotic ideas to Marx (the Doctor of Philosophy); you just can't stand those who go to college, especially those who study philosophy.

Now I'll just wait for you to go after Lenin (Law degree) and Trotsky (studied math, thought about getting a degree in the subject), seeing as no college student is safe from you distortions. Hell, I'll just wait for you to attack Rosa Luxemburg (studied philosophy, history, economics, politics and mathematics).

[S.Artesian]

Actually, I was talking about a time that Marx knew very little about, very ancient socities. Yes there were rebellions and yes there were problems, but what was used to help prevent these from happening? Philosophy, religion, etc.

Nope... not philosophy, religion, etc..are the issues here. The "religion,etc." are my selections for ruling class rule. You're supposed to show how philosophy-- using philosophical language rather than scientific or ordinary language [and certainly not religious language which isn't even one of your big 3] functions as-- distorts language and uses that distortion to maintain class rule thereby reconciling the oppressed to the reproduction of their own oppression. And how demystifying that language is emancipatory.

So can you give us an example? What ancient societies do you have in mind?



You keep on distorting what I said. His mistake was assuming that it wouldn't be fruitful to look into more deeply; something that Wittgenstein did.No, I didn't distort your response. I quoted it. You have now [and in the previous post] attempted to change the meaning of what you said.




Actually I don't do that because I am not prepared to do that. After some more learning and practicing I'll be ready to do that (and when I have the money to buy objectivist books). Says it all. You're not prepared to do that. You can say you can and will do that, but you can't actually do it. Got it. Actually, that makes you a first class philosopher in my book, and in that book by Marx, The German Ideology, too. Like I said, puts you right on the Leipzig Council.

[ChrisK]

Nope... not philosophy, religion, etc..are the issues here. The "religion,etc." are my selections for ruling class rule. You're supposed to show how philosophy-- using philosophical language rather than scientific or ordinary language [and certainly not religious language which isn't even one of your big 3] functions as-- distorts language and uses that distortion to maintain class rule thereby reconciling the oppressed to the reproduction of their own oppression. And how demystifying that language is emancipatory.

So can you give us an example? What ancient societies do you have in mind?

I can very well use religion, as I have shown you its strong link to philosophy. If you need reminding, the works of Plato were very important for the early church especially for Augustine of Hippo (a preist and philosopher) and the works of Aristotle, especially his chain of being, were extremely important for people like Thomas Aquanis (a monk and philosopher)

So in terms of a philosophic idea being used to support ruling class ideas, the simplist one I can think of the is the Chain of Being. Aristotle wrote this after Greek Democracy had fallen and it was clearly an idea for the ruling class (oddly all the Greek leaders and Roman emporers seem to have loved his ideas). Chain of Being claims that all people have their "natural place" in society and that that is where they are supposed to be. They, therefore, shouldn't fight the chain of being and except their lot in life. This idea was later appropriated by the Catholic Church and used to try to keep peasents from rebelling.

The distortion of language is the use of the word being. They use being to mean one's natural existence. In other words they have taken the verb "to be" and have nominalized it into a noun with existential qualities. By realizing this, we understand that there is no Being, as that is nonsense. If Being is nonsense, then the Chain of Being is also nonsense. Rejecting Chain of Being gives people reasonable doubt about the Chruches doctrine because Chain of Being is nonsense.


No, I didn't distort your response. I quoted it. You have now [and in the previous post] attempted to change the meaning of what you said.

You quote it out of context. That is a distortion.


Says it all. You're not prepared to do that. You can say you can and will do that, but you can't actually do it. Got it. Actually, that makes you a first class philosopher in my book, and in that book by Marx, The German Ideology, too. Like I said, puts you right on the Leipzig Council.

I'm not prepared because I am practicing to do that. Look at my thread on the Being. That is me practicing for it and based on the criticisms, it is clear that I need to refine my approach.

[S.Artesian]

I can very well use religion, as I have shown you its strong link to philosophy. If you need reminding, the works of Plato were very important for the early church especially for Augustine of Hippo (a preist and philosopher) and the works of Aristotle, especially his chain of being, were extremely important for people like Thomas Aquanis (a monk and philosopher)

That's just jim-dandy. Go ahead and do it. But you might want to keep in mind that, if your era of reference is the early church, then we are no longer talking about ancient era, as Christianity was not the religion of the ruling class during the period of Athenian rule.

So then what? The late Roman era? The HRE? The medieval era? Feudalism. The Byzantine Church? The Ottomans?

How about the pre-Christian religions? Based on the distortion of language to maintain a ruling class hegemony?


So in terms of a philosophic idea being used to support ruling class ideas, the simplist one I can think of the is the Chain of Being. Aristotle wrote this after Greek Democracy had fallen and it was clearly an idea for the ruling class (oddly all the Greek leaders and Roman emporers seem to have loved his ideas). Chain of Being claims that all people have their "natural place" in society and that that is where they are supposed to be. They, therefore, shouldn't fight the chain of being and except their lot in life. This idea was later appropriated by the Catholic Church and used to try to keep peasents from rebelling.Sure, back to the church. But before we get to the church, how is that Chain of Being base on "non-sensical" language. To have the influence you claim it must have had on those who, in their everyday lives of oppression and exploitation, the language must have some sense; it must make some sense. And this, this recognition that the language makes some sense, speaks to an actual condition of actual human beings, oppressed, exploited human beings. The distortion then practiced in the language expresses a real human need.

It is precisely this recognition that the language, the words are NOT non-sensical that distinguishes Marx's method of critique, the method as given its comprehensive conscious expression by Hegel the "language analysis" you and others seek to attach to Marx, or find in Marx, or "wish" Marx had explored. It is that method of critique employed by Marx that also distinguishes Marx's method from the Holy Family, the critical critiques, the "Leipzig Council," all those who attached themselves to and reproduced the decay of, and the decay in, Hegel's work as most clearly expressed in The Philosophy of Right.

An illustration, perhaps might help.

In an earlier post on this thread, Rosa argued:


Gil:

Quote:
What Marx is suggesting is that what Feuerbach tried to do to religious language should be done to philosophical language, i.e. that it should be seen as vitiated by a thorough-going metaphorical inversion of a truth (or set of truths) which lie within it and which can be uncovered by unwinding the metaphor.


Rosa: This is correct, but does not go far enough, since Marx, like Wittgenstein, argued that philosophical language is a distorted language -- and Wittgenstein drew the logical conclusion from this: that such language is non-sensical. .

Marx, on the contrary goes exactly the right distance in recognizing that the distortion is not non-sensical, that the distortion is not in the meaning of the words, but in the actual experience of human life. In contrast to Wittgenstein's "logical conclusion" that such language is "non-sensical," Marx says the following:



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. And where does Marx say this? Where else but in that critical work that measures Marx's movement away from "left Hegelianism" and his movement to social materialism, to materialist social-ism, to the materialist interpretation of history-- his Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right.


Marx does not abandon the method of the dialectic, of critique in this or any subsequent work. Rather he uses the dialectic to extract the rational kernel-- that religion is both an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering-- but a "sanitized" protest. With that method, that "dis-inversion"-- which is why Marx states with Hegel the dialectic is standing on its head, and clearly Marx is standing the dialectic, the critique, back on its feet-- disinverting it, Marx gets us to to the point where the demand for the abolition of religion, for the end to illusory happiness must, to have any "materiality," must be the demand for real happiness, for the abolition of those material conditions that produce suffering.


Wittgenstein never gets us there. Not even close. His "non-sensical" language analysis is, in Rosa's words-- CK can disagree if he cares to-- without social or historical content, and therefore doesn't have the slightest connection with how religion materially develops, the material, human purposes it serves, and what is required for the abolition of the "non-sense" of religion. Rather than going further than Marx, Wittgenstein, as Rosa provides his analysis, goes absolutely, nowhere, gets us absolutely nowhere.

[Proletarian Ultra]

Sure, back to the church. But before we get to the church, how is that Chain of Being base on "non-sensical" language. To have the influence you claim it must have had on those who, in their everyday lives of oppression and exploitation, the language must have some sense; it must make some sense. And this, this recognition that the language makes some sense, speaks to an actual condition of actual human beings, oppressed, exploited human beings. The distortion then practiced in the language expresses a real human need.


Straight up materialism, yo.

The case would be stronger if one could show the material conditions under which ruling class distortions of language are produced and reproduced. That would be a full on critique of ideology which would require smashing and moving beyond the anti-communist logic games that pass for philosophy in the Anglo-American world.

[black magick hustla]

I don't see what is idealist about arguing philosophical problems arise as a misuse of language. Marx argued that the conservative aspect of idealism is that it justifies authority by making up bullshit about gods and moral values. I think it is similar to philosophy - that words without the social context turn into nonsense. To marx, part of what made what in his day called idealism reactionary is that it imagined itself as the ultimate authority but in reality, the roots of those ideas laid in a socio-economic base. Its a similar argument to the idea that philosophical problems dont really arise from reason, but from not knowing ho0w those words used by philosophers came into being.

[S.Artesian]

I don't see what is idealist about arguing philosophical problems arise as a misuse of language. Marx argued that the conservative aspect of idealism is that it justifies authority by making up bullshit about gods and moral values. I think it is similar to philosophy - that words without the social context turn into nonsense. To marx, part of what made what in his day called idealism reactionary is that it imagined itself as the ultimate authority but in reality, the roots of those ideas laid in a socio-economic base. Its a similar argument to the idea that philosophical problems dont really arise from reason, but from not knowing ho0w those words used by philosophers came into being.

Philosophical problems may or may not arise from a misuse of language. Marx is not engaged in the consideration of philosophical, or religious, problems, as his Introduction and The Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right and The German Ideology and everything he writes subsequent to those efforts makes transparently clear.

[black magick hustla]

Philosophical problems may or may not arise from a misuse of language. Marx is not engaged in the consideration of philosophical, or religious, problems, as his Introduction and The Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right and The German Ideology and everything he writes subsequent to those efforts makes transparently clear.

Marx is trying to discredit what he called "idealism" at that time which to be completed requires a rejection of philosophical language in general.

[S.Artesian]

Marx is trying to discredit what he called "idealism" at that time which to be completed requires a rejection of philosophical language in general.

Yep. and Nope. As Yogi said, "This feels like deja vu all over again." Marx is not trying to discredit idealism. He is developing the transposition to the material analysis of social reproduction initiated in the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts-1844, in the Theses on Feuerbach-- all of which precede The German Ideology.

History, the actual material reproduction of society has discredited idealism. What ensues from that material "discrediting" is a decay of and in idealism which Marx is using as his foil, his "jumping-off" or "jumping at" point to expound his material critique of society.

The introduction to Progress Publishers 1968 edition of TGI quotes Engels about the objectives he and Marx had in this period of their work:

"We were both of us already deeply involved in the political movement , and possessed a certain following in the educated world, especially of Western Germany, and abundant contact with the organized proletariat. It was our duty to provide a scientific foundation for our new view, but it was equally important for us to win over the European and in the first place the German proletariat to our conviction."

[Proletarian Ultra]

I don't see what is idealist about arguing philosophical problems arise as a misuse of language.

Without a materialist understanding of how 'misuses' of language are produced and reproduced in specific historical circumstances, everything is idealist about it. Also, the idea you can defuse philosophical problems by just policing the boundaries of valid language more efficiently is reactionary nonsense. It's the intellectual equivalent of 'class peace.'



Marx argued that the conservative aspect of idealism is that it justifies authority by making up bullshit about gods and moral values.

Bullshit about 'proper' use of language?


I think it is similar to philosophy - that words without the social context turn into nonsense. To marx, part of what made what in his day called idealism reactionary is that it imagined itself as the ultimate authority but in reality, the roots of those ideas laid in a socio-economic base. Its a similar argument to the idea that philosophical problems dont really arise from reason, but from not knowing ho0w those words used by philosophers came into being.

I think we're in basic agreement on these points. But doesn't that leave analytic philosophy up reactionary creek, from a Marxian point of view?



Marx is trying to discredit what he called "idealism" at that time which to be completed requires a rejection of philosophical language in general.

Critique != discredit.

[black magick hustla]

Without a materialist understanding of how 'misuses' of language are produced and reproduced in specific historical circumstances, everything is idealist about it. Also, the idea you can defuse philosophical problems by just policing the boundaries of valid language more efficiently is reactionary nonsense. It's the intellectual equivalent of 'class peace.'

I am a marxist, therefore I have a "materialist" understanding of the issue. I never claimed Wittgenstein was a marxist or that his whole worldview was correct, but that his observations on ordinary language are spot on.

You don't "police" the boundaries of language. The problem is that a sentence like "green furiously eats aspergers" is nonsensical by virtue that the sense of the words (which they were developed in social interaction) is not taken into account. Same with the "nothing nothings".






I think we're in basic agreement on these points. But doesn't that leave analytic philosophy up reactionary creek, from a Marxian point of view?


A lot of analytic philosophy is gibberish and suffers from similar ailments to continental philosophy. I consider Wittgenstein more of an anti-philosopher though, in the same strain as Marx or Nietzche.




Critique != discredit.

I think we all know Marx had a strong distaste for idealism, so I would imagine he wanted more to discredit it than just "critiqueing" it.

[ChrisK]

That's just jim-dandy. Go ahead and do it. But you might want to keep in mind that, if your era of reference is the early church, then we are no longer talking about ancient era, as Christianity was not the religion of the ruling class during the period of Athenian rule.

It wasn't. I included two frames of reference. Ancient Athens and the Catholic Church during feudalism.


Sure, back to the church. But before we get to the church, how is that Chain of Being base on "non-sensical" language. To have the influence you claim it must have had on those who, in their everyday lives of oppression and exploitation, the language must have some sense; it must make some sense. And this, this recognition that the language makes some sense, speaks to an actual condition of actual human beings, oppressed, exploited human beings. The distortion then practiced in the language expresses a real human need.

If you could fucking read the question would have been answered. Read what I wrote about the distortion of the word being.

It makes sense if you accept a distorted definition of being as having an existential quality outside of the word itself. If you are really a materialist, then you would know that this is not the case.


It is precisely this recognition that the language, the words are NOT non-sensical that distinguishes Marx's method of critique, the method as given its comprehensive conscious expression by Hegel the "language analysis" you and others seek to attach to Marx, or find in Marx, or "wish" Marx had explored. It is that method of critique employed by Marx that also distinguishes Marx's method from the Holy Family, the critical critiques, the "Leipzig Council," all those who attached themselves to and reproduced the decay of, and the decay in, Hegel's work as most clearly expressed in The Philosophy of Right.

Run on sentences don't make for easy reading. Periods are your friend.

Perhaps you need some help on what the word "nonsense" means in this context. It means that it is without meaning. And how do words gain meaning? (I'll give you a hint, Marx told you how in the Grunrisse)

[S.Artesian]

Chris--

You are simply a dissembling irredeemable idiot.

And I mean that in the nicest way possible.


So when I point out how ignorant you are of history-- how the actual history of the late Roman empire, of the medieval period, of feudalism, of the monarch-mercantile alliance, of early capitalism is absolutely chock full of resistance and rebellion... all of which took place without the benefit of your linguistic intervention...you say you had in mind ancient societies.

And when we get to ancient societies... you had the church, and non-ancient societies in mind.

But I'll tell you what, moron, you go take your fucking "deconstruction" of the distortion of the language of "being," and your proof thereby of the nonsense of "chain of being" and "natural order of things" down to those workers using that ordinary language of the workers you and your friends keep pontificating about. Take your essay down to Tribune's imaginary mates at his pretend loading dock..

Remember that guy, who had no use for dialectics because it was rarefied language that had no practical application in his "real" world of his pretend mates?

Anyway, you take your bullshit deconstruction to those workers who know ordinary language . Use your erudite deconstruction of "philosophy" to prove to them how the rule of the bourgeoisie is not "the natural chain of being" and that they, the workers, shouldn't accept their exploitation as the "natural order of things." Those that don't laugh in your fucking schoolboy face from the getgo will tell you that you are about 200-300 years too late and talking to the wrong class, because that natural order of being was chucked off when certain representatives of the natural divine order were separated from their heads, back in the day.

Just like a schoolboy revolutionary-- waging a battle settled centuries ago, and ignoring the actual manifestations of the struggle going on today. All you forgot to do is stick in your thumb, pull out a plum and tell the teacher what a good boy you are.

Objectivism, "natural chain of being" or order of things, or whatever you want to call it? Those are the "burning issues" you're preparing to engage? You're centuries late, and billions of dollars short. And you're still not ready. No shit.

Every and any scientist or layperson who takes the time and makes the effort to contradict the pseudo-science of socio-biology, of "race," of the biological--read race-- basis for intelligence; who opposes the 101 varieties of neo-Malthusianism that the bourgeoisie spew forth, not as philosophy, but as economics, as science, as biology, makes a greater contribution to human emancipation than all the "Wittgensteinians" ever.

[ChrisK]

Chris--

You are simply a dissembling irredeemable idiot.

And I mean that in the nicest way possible.


So when I point out how ignorant you are of history-- how the actual history of the late Roman empire, of the medieval period, of feudalism, of the monarch-mercantile alliance, of early capitalism is absolutely chock full of resistance and rebellion... all of which took place without the benefit of your linguistic intervention...you say you had in mind ancient societies.

And when we get to ancient societies... you had the church, and non-ancient societies in mind.

Athens was in power when exactly? Ancient times. Good fucking job. And context is still something you have problems with. When we were talking about ancient societies, we were talking about the first philosophers. So continue being a fucking moron and get some glasses you dumb shit.


But I'll tell you what, moron, you go take your fucking "deconstruction" of the distortion of the language of "being," and your proof thereby of the nonsense of "chain of being" and "natural order of things" down to those workers using that ordinary language of the workers you and your friends keep pontificating about. Take your essay down to Tribune's imaginary mates at his pretend loading dock..

Remember that guy, who had no use for dialectics because it was rarefied language that had no practical application in his "real" world of his pretend mates?

Anyway, you take your bullshit deconstruction to those workers who know ordinary language . Use your erudite deconstruction of "philosophy" to prove to them how the rule of the bourgeoisie is not "the natural chain of being" and that they, the workers, shouldn't accept their exploitation as the "natural order of things." Those that don't laugh in your fucking schoolboy face from the getgo will tell you that you are about 200-300 years too late and talking to the wrong class, because that natural order of being was chucked off when certain representatives of the natural divine order were separated from their heads, back in the day.

Still hating Marx I see, that fucking school boy.

Eh, why would I do that? Chain of being isn't used anymore. The capitalists discredited it (Thomas Paine had a role in that).


Just like a schoolboy revolutionary-- waging a battle settled centuries ago, and ignoring the actual manifestations of the struggle going on today. All you forgot to do is stick in your thumb, pull out a plum and tell the teacher what a good boy you are.

Right, because I haven't been engaged in actual activism. Congrats, you take what I write about over the internet and consider that to be a reflection of how I act in life. Are you a fuckwit who hates students, people by the name of Rosa and jerks off because no one will fuck his sorry ass? Because thats the impression you give over the net.


Objectivism, "natural chain of being" or order of things, or whatever you want to call it? Those are the "burning issues" you're preparing to engage? You're centuries late, and billions of dollars short. And you're still not ready. No shit.

Why would I call these "burning issues"? The burning issues I engage in are things like the Iraq War, military recruitment and supporting striking workers. I also want to expose philosophy for what it is; nonsense that supports the ruling class. I have this strange theory that Ayn Rand was around fifty years ago, Rawls is still writing and philosophy is alive and well.


Every and any scientist or layperson who takes the time and makes the effort to contradict the pseudo-science of socio-biology, of "race," of the biological--read race-- basis for intelligence; who opposes the 101 varieties of neo-Malthusianism that the bourgeoisie spew forth, not as philosophy, but as economics, as science, as biology, makes a greater contribution to human emancipation than all the "Wittgensteinians" ever.

No shit. And what makes you think I don't.

[S.Artesian]

No shit it isn't used anymore, and Tom Paine didn't discredit it -- the fucking growth of the world markets did. The need for access to "free" "detached" "mobile" labor had everything to do with it, fuckwad.

If knowledge of and understanding of historical materialism were dynamite, you wouldn't have enough to blow your fucking nose.

"No social or historical content.... but not insurmountable..." says your school mistress, your little singing nun of the pedagogy of distortion? It fucking-A is insurmountable, and you're the living proof.

I have nothing against people who go to college. Why, some of my best friends went to college. I even supported my daughters through college and post-grad work. Even went to their graduations, imagine that. Hey, I spent some time in college myself. Beat the shit out of getting shot at and side-stepping land mines, I'll give you that much you ignorant piece of rancid rat fat.

I just don't think writing papers on language amounts to fuck-all in the struggle for the emancipation of labor; especially when that "anti-philosophy" is deployed to obscure the method and subject, the subject in the method, of Marx's critique.

Couple words of advice: 1. Change your major course of study. 2. turn fucking blue.-- in no particular order.

[Proletarian Ultra]

Here, look at this picture a moment before posting your next replies.

http://falloutbek.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/pug.jpg

If that fails, looka these two: http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd163/ericka18_01/Spongebob-Happy-spongebob-squarepan.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_l8xeX8k9lgo/SRLc6G7dMCI/AAAAAAAAJqw/Q-PUrqJ6SnM/s400/BLACK%2BBABY%2BGIRL.jpg

Now: feel free to continue.

[ChrisK]

No shit it isn't used anymore, and Tom Paine didn't discredit it -- the fucking growth of the world markets did. The need for access to "free" "detached" "mobile" labor had everything to do with it, fuckwad.

It was discredited by people influenced by the changes in how society was producing things. The changes in the material world created a need for new thought and new philosophies, Thom Paine was a part of that. He wrote about why ideas similar to that are stupid.


If knowledge of and understanding of historical materialism were dynamite, you wouldn't have enough to blow your fucking nose.

If your ability to make wild assumpitions about peoples beliefs through tiny amounts of texts was attractivness, you'd actually get laid! Unfortunately for you this is not the case.


I have nothing against people who go to college. Why, some of my best friends went to college. I even supported my daughters through college and post-grad work. Even went to their graduations, imagine that. Hey, I spent some time in college myself. Beat the shit out of getting shot at and side-stepping land mines, I'll give you that much you ignorant piece of rancid rat fat.

Ahh, so you too are a schoolboy. You must really hate yourself... and your daughters.


I just don't think writing papers on language amounts to fuck-all in the struggle for the emancipation of labor; especially when that "anti-philosophy" is deployed to obscure the method and subject, the subject in the method, of Marx's critique.

How does it obscure? If anything, it clarifies Marx's position and can be used to drain the poision that plauges our movement.


Couple words of advice: 1. Change your major course of study. 2. turn fucking blue.-- in no particular order.

Here's my advice to you, go complete the fourth grade, your reading comprehension will improve vastly.

[S.Artesian]

How does it obscure? If anything, it clarifies Marx's position and can be used to drain the poision that plauges our movement.


Quoting from the catechism for the confirmation of anti-dialecticians, are you? You haven't produced a single thing that clarifies a concrete position Marx developed in his analysis of capital; in the relations of capital and wage-labor. You can't point to a single concrete example of either an unfinished or debated component of Marx's work-- like disproportion, crisis theory, overproduction, expanded reproduction, export of capital to foreign countries that you have investigated and illuminated. In fact, you don't think you have to. Every time an issue such as those is raised, you retreat behind your desk and say "I don't have to. Somebody already did that." Or, "I'll call my mother."

Draining the poison in our movement? Really? What fucking poison is that? Tell me again how your paper on the misappropriation of "be" or "to be" into "being" drains exactly what poison from "our movement."

Are you running out there to prove to all the subsistence, and "subsistence plus" agricultural producers that there is no such thing as a natural chain of being? Now that is a very productive effort. How's that working out for you?

Are you leading marching charging feet showing workers that the vocabulary of the ethics of individualism, the invisible hand, the free market are the the distorted language of philosophers who shouldn't, according to you, be using abstract language? How's that working out for you?

You're not draining anything. You're obscuring what Marx actually accomplished in The German Ideology and his other works-- which is moving the subject away from discourse, vocabulary, language and language analysis and into the actual material conditions of society. The method and the subject of Marx's critique become the labor process, not the etymology process.

"No social or historical content..." Perfect. Put that on your fucking tombstone.

[ChrisK]

Quoting from the catechism for the confirmation of anti-dialecticians, are you? You haven't produced a single thing that clarifies a concrete position Marx developed in his analysis of capital; in the relations of capital and wage-labor. You can't point to a single concrete example of either an unfinished or debated component of Marx's work-- like disproportion, crisis theory, overproduction, expanded reproduction, export of capital to foreign countries that you have investigated and illuminated. In fact, you don't think you have to. Every time an issue such as those is raised, you retreat behind your desk and say "I don't have to. Somebody already did that." Or, "I'll call my mother."

Easily done. Read capital and take out the word contradiction. Read it as conflict or whatever word you that shows an opposition to another.

As to the bolded I never said that. I said I don't have to write posts about most of Marx's ideas because, on revleft, it would just amount to a circle jerk.


Draining the poison in our movement? Really? What fucking poison is that? Tell me again how your paper on the misappropriation of "be" or "to be" into "being" drains exactly what poison from "our movement."

That Hegelian nonsense that you have wet dreams about.

My paper doesn't. Nor does it have to.


Are you running out there to prove to all the subsistence, and "subsistence plus" agricultural producers that there is no such thing as a natural chain of being? Now that is a very productive effort. How's that working out for you?

Are you leading marching charging feet showing workers that the vocabulary of the ethics of individualism, the invisible hand, the free market are the the distorted language of philosophers who shouldn't, according to you, be using abstract language? How's that working out for you?

Nice job not engaging on what I wrote about how Chain of Being and other ideas were discredited.


You're not draining anything. You're obscuring what Marx actually accomplished in The German Ideology and his other works-- which is moving the subject away from discourse, vocabulary, language and language analysis and into the actual material conditions of society. The method and the subject of Marx's critique become the labor process, not the etymology process.

How is this obscuring what Marx did? Have you forgotten what obscuring means again?

I pretty clearly accept that that is what Marx did and that his arguments and criticisms are the best. You seem to think that analyzing something small that Marx wrote to be obscuring and that just shows how fucking stupid you really are. Go post about crisis theory and enjoy the fruitless circle jerk.


"No social or historical content..." Perfect. Put that on your fucking tombstone.

"Too fucking stupid to read, too fucking stupid to get laid, too fucking stupid to respond to the actual content of arguments." Sums you up well enough for a tombstone I'd say.

[S.Artesian]

Oh... Chris, not to put too fine a point on it-- but if there is "poison" in Marx's analysis, then because Marx's analysis is social, is historical, is material, the "poison" has to be evident, be manifested in that social, historical, material content of that analysis of capitalism, not in Marx's use of...language. Not in the abstract, but in the concrete.

That is the meaning of the materialist critique Marx and Engels unfold in The German Ideology.

Thus all those areas you find so final, so settled, so unnecessary for examination in Marx, his actual material analysis of the labor process and capital's inversion and expropriation of the labor process, are the areas that involve their own continuous examination of, and application to, capitalist accumulation. In demonstrating, exploring, confirming the applicability, the accuracy of those categories of Marx's analysis to the reproduction of capital, we are also demonstrating the applicability and the accuracy of the language Marx used in his demonstration, his exploration.

That is the "self-materialism" of Marx's work.

That materialism is also why Wittgenstein's lack of historical or social content is an insurmountable obstacle.

That materialism is why attempts to "cross," "parallel," "fuse" Wittgenstein with Marx are a gigantic waste of time.

That materialism is why you are a gigantic waste of time.

Tombstone or no, you're already dead.

[ZeroNowhere]

I am a marxist, therefore I have a "materialist" understanding of the issue. I never claimed Wittgenstein was a marxist or that his whole worldview was correct, but that his observations on ordinary language are spot on.To be fair to the bloke, though, he did ultimately trace language back to forms of life (ie. as a manifestation of life. Indeed, 'On Certainty' is in large part a critique of philosophy which is 'without premises', and attempts to separate language from the forms of life in which it exists), and in his 'Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics', IIRC, referred to certain philosophical problems as originating from the form of society, so that this would have to be changed before they could dissolve. Indeed, I believe that his view that his work on language could not dissolve traditional philosophy itself was the reason why he claimed that he could not found a school.

After looking this quote up, it was:

I am by no means sure that I should prefer a continuation of my work by others to a change in the way people live which would make all these questions superfluous. (For this reason I could never found a school.)"

The first quote which I had referred to was:

"The sickness of a time is cured by an alteration in the mode of life of human beings, and it is possible for the sickness of philosophical problems to get cured only through a changed mode of thought and life, not through a medicine invented by an individual."

[S.Artesian]

To be fair to the bloke, though, he did ultimately trace language back to forms of life (ie. as a manifestation of life. Indeed, 'On Certainty' is in large part a critique of philosophy which is 'without premises', and attempts to separate language from the forms of life in which it exists), and in his 'Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics', IIRC, referred to certain philosophical problems as originating from the form of society, so that this would have to be changed before they could dissolve. Indeed, I believe that his view that his work on language could not dissolve traditional philosophy itself was the reason why he claimed that he could not found a school.



That is being fair to Wittgenstein. He recognizes the limit to his own "end" to philosophy, to his own "decimation" of ruling class ideas through the deconstruction of language.

A pity about his epigoni though-- that they don't.

[ChrisK]

Oh... Chris, not to put too fine a point on it-- but if there is "poison" in Marx's analysis, then because Marx's analysis is social, is historical, is material, the "poison" has to be evident, be manifested in that social, historical, material content of that analysis of capitalism, not in Marx's use of...language. Not in the abstract, but in the concrete.

That is the meaning of the materialist critique Marx and Engels unfold in The German Ideology.

The poison has been evident in its use by Stalin and Mao to argue that more dictatorship creates more democracy. It is evident in Trotsky's dialectical argument that the Soviet Union could be a workers state when the workers held no power whatsoever. It can be seen it the Black Panthers' Intercommunalist Theory. It is all part of the poision.


Thus all those areas you find so final, so settled, so unnecessary for examination in Marx, his actual material analysis of the labor process and capital's inversion and expropriation of the labor process, are the areas that involve their own continuous examination of, and application to, capitalist accumulation. In demonstrating, exploring, confirming the applicability, the accuracy of those categories of Marx's analysis to the reproduction of capital, we are also demonstrating the applicability and the accuracy of the language Marx used in his demonstration, his exploration.

Nice job. You dropped my point about how different language will make reading the book simpler. You won't lose any of its meaning doing that. Thus, the other language is better.

Also, considering what I just stated, your last sentence is shown to be a bunch of bullshit. You aren't affirming Marx's language, you are affirming his ideas, which can be better expressed using some different words.


That is the "self-materialism" of Marx's work.

That materialism is also why Wittgenstein's lack of historical or social content is an insurmountable obstacle.

That materialism is why attempts to "cross," "parallel," "fuse" Wittgenstein with Marx are a gigantic waste of time.

You keep saying that materialism is why Wittgenstein cannot be used with Marxism. You never say how, you just keep saying it.


Tombstone or no, you're already dead.

Am I dead inside or something? How idealist of you.

[S.Artesian]

The poison has been evident in its use by Stalin and Mao to argue that more dictatorship creates more democracy. It is evident in Trotsky's dialectical argument that the Soviet Union could be a workers state when the workers held no power whatsoever. It can be seen it the Black Panthers' Intercommunalist Theory. It is all part of the poision.



And these things, which aren't things at all, but social relations, manifestations of the relations of classes, are evidence that what? Hegel's vocabulary is a distortion? a poison?

I would ask "Don't you get it?" but that would be a rhetorical question as obviously you don't get it. If Stalinism and Maoism are expressions of social relations, as poisonous as they might be, the "draining" of the poison" isn't going to be accomplished by draining Marx's work of his "Hegelian" language, of his connection to Hegelian, of his self-professed extraction of the rational kernel from Hegel's dialectic.

The "antidote" to the "poison" is precisely in that material critique, that social analysis of the relations of production, of the actual content of that dictatorship and that so-called democracy. The antidote is in that extraction of the rational kernel from Hegel's dialectic, via Feuerbach, which is history, the creation, and mediation of human history through the labor process and its social organization. And that's something you claim doesn't even exist in Hegel or dialectics.

You might claim that such a rational kernel does exist but it's in the very undialectical dialectics of Adam Smith, the Scottish materialists. They themselves cannot see the historical process behind the formation of value and consequently are more, and less, than one-sided, they are blind to the limitations, conflicts, barriers of capitalist accumulation.




Nice job. You dropped my point about how different language will make reading the book simpler. You won't lose any of its meaning doing that. Thus, the other language is better.

Most have missed that. Where did you write that. I still can't find it. And what book do you mean? Capital? The German Ideology? That's precious. You are going to make Marx simpler? Is that what you mean?


Also, considering what I just stated, your last sentence is shown to be a bunch of bullshit. You aren't affirming Marx's language, you are affirming his ideas, which can be better expressed using some different words.

Apparently that is exactly what you mean. Dont lack for chutzpah, do you? You want to better express Marx's ideas by changing his language? Fucking A, sounds like Stalinism to me. Hope you never get on the editorial board of the MEGA project.

Tell you what-- demonstrate that; take an area like overproduction, the tendency of the rate of profit to decline; the transformation from formal to real domination of capital; the reconversion of surplus value into capital; the historical origins of capital itself and improve it, make it better. which means MAKE ITS CONTENT BETTER, by substituting your different words.

Let's see what you come up with. Or has that too already been done by others?


You keep saying that materialism is why Wittgenstein cannot be used with Marxism. You never say how, you just keep saying it.

I keep quoting an internet source for your scholarly submissions that Wittgenstein's work is without historical and social content, that's what I'm doing. That's her statement.

My statement is that without that content, it can't even be criticized on the basis of Marxism, and that by the way is a good thing, A real comprehension of Marx, is a comprehension of its specificity.

When reading an analysis of Radical Reconstruction in the United States, one written by anyone Marxist or not, Marxists can criticize, connect, apprehend that analysis based on its actual connection to, depiction of the social forces at work in that period [and the plain old accuracy of its rendering of events, incidents etc].

In analyzing, criticizing Locke, the physiocrats, Rousseau, Malthus, the eugenicists, we do the same thing- make the comprehension and critique based on the historical and social content of what is being argued.

When it comes to areas lacking a certain direct correspondence with historical or social content-- for example areas of the arts and the theoretical sciences, while we can certainly point to the technical level of society that forms the "passive" basis for such discoveries, and while we can certainly gain insight based on the historical and social conditions surrounding the artists at the time of their efforts, we do not seek to connect those fields and efforts to Marxism. Unless of course we want to convert art, science, and Marxism into ideology, in which case count me out.

And this by the way is exactly why I do not accept dialectical materialism.

Marxism is first, last, and always about human history, human society.

[ChrisK]

And these things, which aren't things at all, but social relations, manifestations of the relations of classes, are evidence that what? Hegel's vocabulary is a distortion? a poison?

If you weren't such a thick headed fuckwit, you'd know that I was speaking of their use of so-called Marxian dialectics as a legitimizing tool for their oppression of the workers. This spawns from their class interests, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that the dialectical poison has been used to legitimize the oppression of workers in the name of the workers.


I would ask "Don't you get it?" but that would be a rhetorical question as obviously you don't get it. If Stalinism and Maoism are expressions of social relations, as poisonous as they might be, the "draining" of the poison" isn't going to be accomplished by draining Marx's work of his "Hegelian" language, of his connection to Hegelian, of his self-professed extraction of the rational kernel from Hegel's dialectic.

The "antidote" to the "poison" is precisely in that material critique, that social analysis of the relations of production, of the actual content of that dictatorship and that so-called democracy. The antidote is in that extraction of the rational kernel from Hegel's dialectic, via Feuerbach, which is history, the creation, and mediation of human history through the labor process and its social organization. And that's something you claim doesn't even exist in Hegel or dialectics.

You don't seem to get that the dialectic you attribute to Marx is the poison. It is the legitimizer of despotism. It is the legitimizer of workers being the ruling class yet having no power. You are too fucking stupid to see what is right in your face.


You might claim that such a rational kernel does exist but it's in the very undialectical dialectics of Adam Smith, the Scottish materialists. They themselves cannot see the historical process behind the formation of value and consequently are more, and less, than one-sided, they are blind to the limitations, conflicts, barriers of capitalist accumulation.

Because it is a method. But we all know that you think a method is a conclusion. So go learn some vocab and come on back later.


Most have missed that. Where did you write that. I still can't find it. And what book do you mean? Capital? The German Ideology? That's precious. You are going to make Marx simpler? Is that what you mean?

Still trouble with the reading thing?


Easily done. Read capital and take out the word contradiction. Read it as conflict or whatever word you that shows an opposition to another.


This takes out part of the coquetted Hegelian vocabulary, that can be read in a much better way.


Apparently that is exactly what you mean. Dont lack for chutzpah, do you? You want to better express Marx's ideas by changing his language? Fucking A, sounds like Stalinism to me. Hope you never get on the editorial board of the MEGA project.

Its the same thing as taking a work written five hundred years ago, and rewriting it with modern English. Except that I take misused, coquetted words and replace them with words that are clear in meaning.


Tell you what-- demonstrate that; take an area like overproduction, the tendency of the rate of profit to decline; the transformation from formal to real domination of capital; the reconversion of surplus value into capital; the historical origins of capital itself and improve it, make it better. which means MAKE ITS CONTENT BETTER, by substituting your different words.

Let's see what you come up with. Or has that too already been done by others?



We saw in a former chapter that the exchange of commodities implies contradictory and mutually exclusive conditions. The differentiation of commodities into commodities and money does not sweep away these inconsistencies, but develops a modus vivendi, a form in which they can exist side by side. This is generally the way in which real contradictions are reconciled. For instance, it is a contradiction to depict one body as constantly falling towards another, and as, at the same time, constantly flying away from it. The ellipse is a form of motion which, while allowing this contradiction to go on, at the same time reconciles it.

In so far as exchange is a process, by which commodities are transferred from hands in which they are non-use-values, to hands in which they become use-values, it is a social circulation of matter. The product of one form of useful labour replaces that of another. When once a commodity has found a resting-place, where it can serve as a use-value, it falls out of the sphere of exchange into that of consumption. But the former sphere alone interests us at present. We have, therefore, now to consider exchange from a formal point of view; to investigate the change of form or metamorphosis of commodities which effectuates the social circulation of matter.



We saw in a former chapter that the exchange of commodities implies conflicting conditions. The differentiation of commodities into commodities and money does not sweep away these inconsistencies, but develops a modus vivendi [latin for an agreement between two differing things], a form in which they can exist side by side. This is generally the way in which conflicts of motion are reconciled. For instance, it is an oddity to depict one body as constantly falling towards another, and as, at the same time, constantly flying away from it. The ellipse is a form of motion which, while allowing this oddity to go on, at the same time reconciles it.

In so far as exchange is a process, by which commodities are transferred from hands in which they are non-use-values, to hands in which they become use-values, it is a social circulation of matter. The product of one form of useful labour replaces that of another. When once a commodity has found a resting-place, where it can serve as a use-value, it falls out of the sphere of exchange into that of consumption. But the former sphere alone interests us at present. We have, therefore, now to consider exchange from a formal point of view; to investigate the change of form or metamorphosis of commodities which effectuates the social circulation of matter.

My changes were written in red. I translated the latin since most people do not speak latin these days. Oddity might not have been the right word to replace contradiction there. Other's could have been conflict or the phrase "it is thought to be an impossibilty." Other people might chose some different words, but I think that these cover the issue well.

Also, I have not changed the meaning of the work, just cleared out some of the unclear language.


I keep quoting an internet source for your scholarly submissions that Wittgenstein's work is without historical and social content, that's what I'm doing. That's her statement.

My statement is that without that content, it can't even be criticized on the basis of Marxism, and that by the way is a good thing, A real comprehension of Marx, is a comprehension of its specificity.

But what is stopping us from applying social and historical content to Wittgenstein's work? That is what you must answer.


When reading an analysis of Radical Reconstruction in the United States, one written by anyone Marxist or not, Marxists can criticize, connect, apprehend that analysis based on its actual connection to, depiction of the social forces at work in that period [and the plain old accuracy of its rendering of events, incidents etc].

In analyzing, criticizing Locke, the physiocrats, Rousseau, Malthus, the eugenicists, we do the same thing- make the comprehension and critique based on the historical and social content of what is being argued.

When it comes to areas lacking a certain direct correspondence with historical or social content-- for example areas of the arts and the theoretical sciences, while we can certainly point to the technical level of society that forms the "passive" basis for such discoveries, and while we can certainly gain insight based on the historical and social conditions surrounding the artists at the time of their efforts, we do not seek to connect those fields and efforts to Marxism. Unless of course we want to convert art, science, and Marxism into ideology, in which case count me out.

And this by the way is exactly why I do not accept dialectical materialism.

Marxism is first, last, and always about human history, human society.

Sure I agree with you here, with one exception. This does not show how we cannot apply social and historical content to Wittgenstein's work.

[S.Artesian]

If you weren't such a thick headed fuckwit, you'd know that I was speaking of their use of so-called Marxian dialectics as a legitimizing tool for their oppression of the workers. This spawns from their class interests, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that the dialectical poison has been used to legitimize the oppression of workers in the name of the workers.

You know, I make a supreme effort not to call you the total fucking dickhead you so clearly are and go through it point by point despite your obvious ignorance of everything Marx wrote, and what do I get in return? Abuse. If I had a heart, it would be broken; if I had feelings they'd be hurt. If you weren't such a right dickhead, I might be offended. But I don't and its not; I don't and they're not; you are, and I'm not.

Well, that will show me. No more Mr. Nice Guy, that's for sure. So listen you gob of spit, I know exactly what you're referring to. I know exactly its Marx's dialectics that sticks in your craw, you fermentation vat for the next generation of viruses. And blaming Marx's dialectic, or Marxist dialectics for maintaining, creating, buttressing, upholding Stalin or Mao, or the ANC in South Africa, whatever is another version of "socialism for fools."

It's not like, it's exactly analogous to blaming Lenin for Stalin, Trotsky's stupid romance with the militarization of labor with the introduction of forced collectivization, etc. It's analogous to blaming Marx's remarks on the Asiatic mode of production for chauvinism and racism of various socialists welcoming the "progress" capitalism "brought" to "backward" Asia.

It's like... no, not like it is blaming Marx for everything that's been done under the cover of the label of Marxism. Really, the thing about Hegel and dialectics is insignificant compared to the claim the fSU made regarding its authority under MARXISM-- so let's just get rid of Marxism while we're at it. Let's get rid of dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggle, and let's get rid of all that stuff about means and relations of production, because all that vocabulary has been distorted, and so easily, by all those who have opposed a dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggle, any analysis of the conflict and contradiction of means and relations of production.

Good idea, no?

And you know what else, you bucket of wormy, moth-eaten guts? Let's get rid of that word proletariat because that word has been distorted to the max. And wage-labor? Puh-leese, that's so plastic a word.

Short version: You're an idiot.


You don't seem to get that the dialectic you attribute to Marx is the poison. It is the legitimizer of despotism. It is the legitimizer of workers being the ruling class yet having no power. You are too fucking stupid to see what is right in your face.Nope. The dialectic I attribute to Marx is not "the poison." It is not the legitimizer of despostism, no more than "dictatorship of the proletariat" is the legitimizer of despotism against the workers; no more than "class struggle" is a legitimizer of acts of repression taken against other revolutionary groups, factions, organizations that were in and outside the fSU.

You are too frightened of the real material conditions that can lead to such inversions [yeah, that's the word, in all its poisonous dialecticity] to even attempt any comprehension of those conditions and so you invent a "poison of dialectics."




Its the same thing as taking a work written five hundred years ago, and rewriting it with modern English. Except that I take misused, coquetted words and replace them with words that are clear in meaning..

Except it isn't. Because it wasn't written 500 years ago, and it is written in modern German. And most of all, because we have an obligation to being historically accurate you fucking self-important, self-aggrandizing moron. Because those are Marx's words. And he studied, drafted, rejected, redrafted every fucking thing he wrote you ignorant asshole and he selected those words not out of flirtation, not to play a practical joke on anybody, or because he like archaic language, but because those exact words expressed clearly that objective, material dynamic of capitalism.

Mere technicality for someone as brilliant, obviously, as you consider your pathetic self to be.


Also, I have not changed the meaning of the work, just cleared out some of the unclear language. Nope, fuckface, you haven't. You've simply made yourself a parasite on what Marx already established in his analysis of the contradictions of the commodity, of use and exchange value, the opposition that makes a commodity at one and the same time an useful object and a social relation.

The only reason anyone might understand your version is a] he or she has already read Marx and knows what Marx means and therefore can determine what you mean or b] he or she hasn't read Marx and has no clue as to what Marx means in his analysis of the value forms and so your "lite" version is close enough.

But if someone were to ask you based on your little exposition-- what are these conflicts that you refer to and don't explain? How are these conflicts generated? What is the origin of these conflicts? Are these conflicts ever resolved? Why are these conflicts never resolved? Why do these conflicts get reproduced? What are the limits to the reproduction of these conflicts? Why in fact are these aspects of the commodity, of capitalist production even in conflict at all? hat are you going to say?

We know what Marx said-- because each facet of the conflict in fact exists in the facet on the "opposite" side of the conflict; that capital in order to expand, reproduce, accumulate-- in order to valorise itself has to reproduce, expand, accumulate both sides, both facets, all the conflicts as the sum total of its own existence.

But what are you going to say? I mean other than-- uhh, "I got to get back to my dorm."



But what is stopping us from applying social and historical content to Wittgenstein's work? That is what you must answer.No, that's not what I need to show. Your mentor claims Wittgenstein's work is without social and historical content. That is the obstacle to trying to make it "part" of Marxism, of even applying it, Wittgenstein's analysis, to Marxism since Marxism is all about, and is itself, social and historical content.

You need to show how Wittgenstein's analysis leads to a "transcendence" of its inherent limitations; limitations that Wittgenstein himself apparently realized.


Sure I agree with you here, with one exception. This does not show how we cannot apply social and historical content to Wittgenstein's work.Go right the fuck ahead, asshole. I wish you would. I've been asking you and your singing nun to do that for months. Give us a single bit of concrete analysis of a bit of material history, that old distorted thing called class struggle, using your new improved Wittgensteinian materialism. Everybody's waiting.


And all of the above is written with my sincere wishes for a good grade on your next paper of earth-shaking importance on vocabulary and the emancipation of labor. Please send me a copy.

[ChrisK]

You know, I make a supreme effort not to call you the total fucking dickhead you so clearly are and go through it point by point despite your obvious ignorance of everything Marx wrote, and what do I get in return? Abuse. If I had a heart, it would be broken; if I had feelings they'd be hurt. If you weren't such a right dickhead, I might be offended. But I don't and its not; I don't and they're not; you are, and I'm not.

LOL, this from Mr. Abuse from the get go. Can't take it when its thrown back at you huh? Continue to whine like the child you are.


Well, that will show me. No more Mr. Nice Guy, that's for sure. So listen you gob of spit, I know exactly what you're referring to. I know exactly its Marx's dialectics that sticks in your craw, you fermentation vat for the next generation of viruses. And blaming Marx's dialectic, or Marxist dialectics for maintaining, creating, buttressing, upholding Stalin or Mao, or the ANC in South Africa, whatever is another version of "socialism for fools."

OH NO! NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY. I'M SO FUCKING TERRIFIED! I'M PISSING MYSELF AS I TYPE!

Well if you could read, you'd see I said that it was a legitimizing force. Not a creator or maintainer. And as long as this idea exists in the Marxist movement it can be used as such.


It's not like, it's exactly analogous to blaming Lenin for Stalin, Trotsky's stupid romance with the militarization of labor with the introduction of forced collectivization, etc. It's analogous to blaming Marx's remarks on the Asiatic mode of production for chauvinism and racism of various socialists welcoming the "progress" capitalism "brought" to "backward" Asia.

It's like... no, not like it is blaming Marx for everything that's been done under the cover of the label of Marxism. Really, the thing about Hegel and dialectics is insignificant compared to the claim the fSU made regarding its authority under MARXISM-- so let's just get rid of Marxism while we're at it. Let's get rid of dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggle, and let's get rid of all that stuff about means and relations of production, because all that vocabulary has been distorted, and so easily, by all those who have opposed a dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggle, any analysis of the conflict and contradiction of means and relations of production.

Good idea, no?

Its not blaming Marx at all. Its showing how a stupid idea can be used to legitimize things done in the name of Marxism.


And you know what else, you bucket of wormy, moth-eaten guts? Let's get rid of that word proletariat because that word has been distorted to the max. And wage-labor? Puh-leese, that's so plastic a word.

Short version: You're an idiot.

Now that argument doesn't even make sense. Why would we replace economic words? Its the philosophical one's I'm worried about.


Nope. The dialectic I attribute to Marx is not "the poison." It is not the legitimizer of despostism, no more than "dictatorship of the proletariat" is the legitimizer of despotism against the workers; no more than "class struggle" is a legitimizer of acts of repression taken against other revolutionary groups, factions, organizations that were in and outside the fSU.

Your too blind to even see what I write. You attribute arguments that have nothing to do with what I say. Your a moron who cowers whenever your dogma is threatened.


You are too frightened of the real material conditions that can lead to such inversions [yeah, that's the word, in all its poisonous dialecticity] to even attempt any comprehension of those conditions and so you invent a "poison of dialectics."

I think you need some help here. I'm not against words like inversion and contradiction. I'm against their misuse.


Except it isn't. Because it wasn't written 500 years ago, and it is written in modern German. And most of all, because we have an obligation to being historically accurate you fucking self-important, self-aggrandizing moron. Because those are Marx's words. And he studied, drafted, rejected, redrafted every fucking thing he wrote you ignorant asshole and he selected those words not out of flirtation, not to play a practical joke on anybody, or because he like archaic language, but because those exact words expressed clearly that objective, material dynamic of capitalism.

I love how you claim that I'm self-important and claim we must be historically accurate and then ignore what Marx himself said about his use of those words!


Mere technicality for someone as brilliant, obviously, as you consider your pathetic self to be.

I don't consider myself brilliant. More average than anything else. But I can think for myself and follow Marx's own motto "Doubt everything." I have done so and have found that the dialectical dogma must go.


Nope, fuckface, you haven't. You've simply made yourself a parasite on what Marx already established in his analysis of the contradictions of the commodity, of use and exchange value, the opposition that makes a commodity at one and the same time an useful object and a social relation.

The only reason anyone might understand your version is a] he or she has already read Marx and knows what Marx means and therefore can determine what you mean or b] he or she hasn't read Marx and has no clue as to what Marx means in his analysis of the value forms and so your "lite" version is close enough.

You asked me to do what I claim. I did so. How does that make me a parasite?

How is my version wrong?


But if someone were to ask you based on your little exposition-- what are these conflicts that you refer to and don't explain? How are these conflicts generated? What is the origin of these conflicts? Are these conflicts ever resolved? Why are these conflicts never resolved? Why do these conflicts get reproduced? What are the limits to the reproduction of these conflicts? Why in fact are these aspects of the commodity, of capitalist production even in conflict at all? hat are you going to say?

Your basically asking me to do what I did to the whole of Capital. Now that will take quite a bit of time. Your questions discredit nothing and only show that I have not taken the time to rewrite the entirety of Capital.


We know what Marx said-- because each facet of the conflict in fact exists in the facet on the "opposite" side of the conflict; that capital in order to expand, reproduce, accumulate-- in order to valorise itself has to reproduce, expand, accumulate both sides, both facets, all the conflicts as the sum total of its own existence.

But what are you going to say? I mean other than-- uhh, "I got to get back to my dorm."

Wow, amazing. You just wrote that without using the word contradiction. I'm so proud of you! You've done part of my work for me.


No, that's not what I need to show. Your mentor claims Wittgenstein's work is without social and historical content. That is the obstacle to trying to make it "part" of Marxism, of even applying it, Wittgenstein's analysis, to Marxism since Marxism is all about, and is itself, social and historical content.

What mentor? Professor Harms? Professor Kramer? Dr. Marx? I have no mentor.

Its an obstacle for sure, but how does that mean its impossible?


You need to show how Wittgenstein's analysis leads to a "transcendence" of its inherent limitations; limitations that Wittgenstein himself apparently realized.

No I don't. I just have to show that they can be used together.


Go right the fuck ahead, asshole. I wish you would. I've been asking you and your singing nun to do that for months. Give us a single bit of concrete analysis of a bit of material history, that old distorted thing called class struggle, using your new improved Wittgensteinian materialism. Everybody's waiting.

Been working on it for a while. Its going to be a long paper on how material conditions and class struggle give rise to philosophy. Then it will be how philosophy is created through distorting language. I will then show how it upholds the position of the ruling class during this time. So far I have an outline and an introduction.

You might want to save this post, I don't know when it will be done and you being you will want to hold me to this.


And all of the above is written with my sincere wishes for a good grade on your next paper of earth-shaking importance on vocabulary and the emancipation of labor. Please send me a copy.

Aww, you do care! I'll give the paper right after I'm done!

[S.Artesian]

I have no dogma whatsoever. The only thing that counts in all this is the actual materialist analysis; actual apprehension of capital. So far, you've shown zippo... Me? Well, I'm prejudiced so I'll leave that, evaluating what I've shown, to others.

They can check these and numerous other posts. They can check here:

http://insurgentnotes.com (http://insurgentnotes.com/)

and here

http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com (http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com/)

and make their own decision.

In the end, it seems all you give a fuck about is one word, contradiction... a word Marx uses in every essay on capital, in every demonstration of historical material he produces... the word you think he misuses in every one of those same essays, same demonstrations. Because you'd like to think you are a Marxist but cannot understand the first fucking thing about Marx's analysis of capital, i.e. the opposition of labor to the conditions of labor, you wish a Marxism without that first fucking thing, which you present as a Marxism without that word... contradiction.

That's like wishing for Marxism... without Hegel. That's like wishing for socialism without a proletarian dictatorship. Didn't happen. Doesn't happen. Won't happen. Never happen.

Naah... I won't hold you to it. I know you're busy with your classes and stuff and you've got that intramural softball challenge series coming up. Bet you're real good at softball. It's hardball you suck at.


But one thing you got right... I really do care.

[ChrisK]

I have no dogma whatsoever. The only thing that counts in all this is the actual materialist analysis; actual apprehension of capital. So far, you've shown zippo... Me? Well, I'm prejudiced so I'll leave that, evaluating what I've shown, to others.

Your dialectical dogma has been disproven in practice. It was derived from abstractions not actual materialist analysis. Your idealism is showing.


In the end, it seems all you give a fuck about is one word, contradiction... a word Marx uses in every essay on capital, in every demonstration of historical material he produces... the word you think he misuses in every one of those same essays, same demonstrations. Because you'd like to think you are a Marxist but cannot understand the first fucking thing about Marx's analysis of capital, i.e. the opposition of labor to the conditions of labor, you wish a Marxism without that first fucking thing, which you present as a Marxism without that word... contradiction.

There are more words than contradiction. You continue to ignore Marx's own words on his use of Hegelian terminology.


That's like wishing for Marxism... without Hegel. That's like wishing for socialism without a proletarian dictatorship. Didn't happen. Doesn't happen. Won't happen. Never happen.

Why can Marxism exist only with an idealist, hermeticist like Hegel?


Naah... I won't hold you to it. I know you're busy with your classes and stuff and you've got that intramural softball challenge series coming up. Bet you're real good at softball. It's hardball you suck at.

Work is the only thing that's slowing down research on this subject. I guess you'll just keep playing hardball; swinging and missing.

[black magick hustla]

dialectics - the real class line:)

[S.Artesian]

Marx's own words on his use of Hegelian language? Back to that? That to the 2nd edition of volume 1-- where he says "I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that might thinker and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with modes of expression peculiar to him"?

And when does Marx make this avowal, and coquettes with modes of expression peculiar to him? Why, just when he is working on the first volume of Das Kapital, that Rosa claims Marx has "extirpated" Hegel from his presentation. Sometime between the writing of the Grundrisse and the writing of Capital, Marx purged himself of that poison [while liberally dosing himself and his carbuncles with the poisons of tobacco, alcohol, and camphor], or so it is claimed, yet Marx says nothing of that, and says what he does say.

So Marx "coquetted" with "modes of expression peculiar to" Hegel as a token of esteem, and homage to that mighty thinker in contradiction to those in "cultured Germany" treating Hegel like a dead dog.

Well enough about animals... so let's leave that afterward, without even mentioning how, 2 paragraphs later, Marx is right back to using "contradiction" to describe the actual movement of capitalist society..

Let's go the first preface to volume 1, where Marx says:

"Intrinsically, it is not a question of the higher or lower degree of development of the social antagonisms that result from the natural laws of capitalist production. It is a question of these laws themselves, of these tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevitable results."

Social antagonisms? What could those be? What is the origin of those social antagonism that result from such natural laws of capitalist production? For that matter what could be the "natural laws" of capitalist production? Indeed, how could capitalist production even have such laws that dictate its development, its expansion, its accumulation?

So what are those social laws of capitalist development? And how can such laws, such laws based on and resulting from specific social antagonisms work with any necessity towards inevitable results-- unless the social antagonisms are the source of those laws, unless of course, the social antagonisms are inexorably linked by the process that creates society and history itself; unless the social antagonism are already different aspects of a shared identity, and drive each other to their fullest development in their opposition; unless the iron necessity of the social development toward "inevitable results" is in fact a negation of the very reason-for-existence of the mode of production? Like maybe, development of capitalism impairing the accumulation of capital; like maybe accumulation of profit leading to reduced profitability?

These are the areas where I think method and subject are indeed fused, united in Marx's exploration, and that the dialectic of Marx exists regardless of the vocabulary utilized to describe the material processes of capitalism.

[S.Artesian]

dialectics - the real class line:)

Nope. Materialist analysis of capitalism and its immanent critique; actions taken for the abolition of capitalism. Those form the class line.

[ChrisK]

Marx's own words on his use of Hegelian language? Back to that? That to the 2nd edition of volume 1-- where he says "I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that might thinker and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with modes of expression peculiar to him"?

I admit it is a strange sentance. What he does is start writing in the past tense and then admitting that he coquetts, flirts, with Hegel's terminology.


And when does Marx make this avowal, and coquettes with modes of expression peculiar to him? Why, just when he is working on the first volume of Das Kapital, that Rosa claims Marx has "extirpated" Hegel from his presentation. Sometime between the writing of the Grundrisse and the writing of Capital, Marx purged himself of that poison [while liberally dosing himself and his carbuncles with the poisons of tobacco, alcohol, and camphor], or so it is claimed, yet Marx says nothing of that, and says what he does say.

I like to view it as an evolutionary progress. He starts in his early works with an intense reaction to Hegel. Then, around the mid-fifties, drops off the critique a bit and looks into Hegel more seriously again (though never accepting much of Hegel), as seen in his notes and letters during the time. After this, it looks as though he made up his mind and dropped Hegel completely.

This is, of course, just my specualtion on the subject.


So Marx "coquetted" with "modes of expression peculiar to" Hegel as a token of esteem, and homage to that mighty thinker in contradiction to those in "cultured Germany" treating Hegel like a dead dog.

Yes. I would say he respected Hegel enough to do that.


Well enough about animals... so let's leave that afterward, without even mentioning how, 2 paragraphs later, Marx is right back to using "contradiction" to describe the actual movement of capitalist society..

Let's go the first preface to volume 1, where Marx says:

"Intrinsically, it is not a question of the higher or lower degree of development of the social antagonisms that result from the natural laws of capitalist production. It is a question of these laws themselves, of these tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevitable results."

Social antagonisms? What could those be? What is the origin of those social antagonism that result from such natural laws of capitalist production? For that matter what could be the "natural laws" of capitalist production? Indeed, how could capitalist production even have such laws that dictate its development, its expansion, its accumulation?

So what are those social laws of capitalist development? And how can such laws, such laws based on and resulting from specific social antagonisms work with any necessity towards inevitable results-- unless the social antagonisms are the source of those laws, unless of course, the social antagonisms are inexorably linked by the process that creates society and history itself; unless the social antagonism are already different aspects of a shared identity, and drive each other to their fullest development in their opposition; unless the iron necessity of the social development toward "inevitable results" is in fact a negation of the very reason-for-existence of the mode of production? Like maybe, development of capitalism impairing the accumulation of capital; like maybe accumulation of profit leading to reduced profitability?

These are the areas where I think method and subject are indeed fused, united in Marx's exploration, and that the dialectic of Marx exists regardless of the vocabulary utilized to describe the material processes of capitalism.

You see, my problem is only the vocabulary that he uses. Contradiction does not mean what he uses it to mean and this creates confusion. Additionally, Engels use of these same words in the creation of dialectical materialism, allows that idea to be seen as a legitimately Marxist theory. You already know my problem with that theory.

That said, I agree with everything you wrote. In fact, you wrote it very similarly to how I would like to see these ideas written. None of the obscure Hegelian terminology that so informs dialectical materialism.

[S.Artesian]

The critical aspect for me is that we grasp how capitalism really functions, really reproduces itself through its "original" antagonism of labor and the conditions of labor.

I almost never ever use the word "contradiction" when analyzing capital, or even exploring Marx's analysis of the problems, conflicts, antagonisms whatever in the process of accumulation because the word is so, in a sense, empty. In that, we agree. The word can be use to mean everything and anything, and is thus pretty meaningless.

And dialectical materialism? The "discovery" of the laws of dialectic in natural science? First, I don't know that there is any scientific evidence for such "natural dialectic," and secondly, IMO it represents a tremendous step backward from the subject of Marx's inquiry, which is the material of social development, which is the labor process.

To me, it's all about that real metabolism of capital. That's where I find Marx's connection to and use of Hegel's dialectic-- that is to say, in his demystification of dialectic- in his own historically specific application of it to the investigation of capitalism.

So apologies for all my insulting words. The disputes are certainly disputes. And the conflict certainly helps hone the argument. The rest of the stuff is unnecessary.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Not-so-Smartesian:


Marx, on the contrary goes exactly the right distance in recognizing that the distortion is not non-sensical, that the distortion is not in the meaning of the words, but in the actual experience of human life. In contrast to Wittgenstein's "logical conclusion" that such language is "non-sensical," Marx says the following:

Who said Marx asserted it was non-sensical? That's my inference, based on what he says, and it uses a technical term (non-sensical') partially derived from Wittgenstein in order to do so.

Distorted language can't be anything other than non-sensical (i.e., incapable of expressing a truth value).


Marx does not abandon the method of the dialectic, of critique in this or any subsequent work. Rather he uses the dialectic to extract the rational kernel-- that religion is both an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering-- but a "sanitized" protest. With that method, that "dis-inversion"-- which is why Marx states with Hegel the dialectic is standing on its head, and clearly Marx is standing the dialectic, the critique, back on its feet-- disinverting it, Marx gets us to the point where the demand for the abolition of religion, for the end to illusory happiness must, to have any "materiality," must be the demand for real happiness, for the abolition of those material conditions that produce suffering.

But, we have already seen that Marx did abandon the 'dialectic' as you understand it, and that the 'rational kernel' is not to be found in Hegel, but in the work of Aristotle, Kant, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Ferguson, Millar, Robertson, Hume, Smith, and Stewart.

On Kant, for example, Marxist philosopher Allen Wood had this to say:


"Kant's historical conjectures are inspired less by Scripture than by the model of Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. But Kant's philosophy of history also goes beyond Rousseau in many ways.... As should be evident by now, Kant's theory of the human race's development bears more than a casual resemblance to the materialist conception of history later worked out by Karl Marx. Kant's vision of humanity's historical future as well as its past has more in common with its greatest nineteenth-century descendant than has usually been appreciated.

"Kant's Idea for a Universal History proposes to view history as the process through which human beings develop their species-capacities. As we have seen, for Kant the decisive trait of the human species -- the original empirical meaning of its rationality and freedom -- is its ability to devise its own way of life. Thus along with Marx, Kant understands the basis of history as the development of people's socially productive powers, their collective capacities to produce their means of subsistence. In history, these capacities change and grow, and the historical process follows on this growth. As becomes clear in the Conjectural Beginning [of Human History -- RL], history for Kant has passed through several different stages, each of which corresponds to the then dominant modes of productive activity. If the key to historical development is the growth of human species powers, the fundamental determining powers are productive ones. What fundamentally characterizes each historical epoch is not only the mode of material production characteristic of it, but also the social conflicts this mode of production involves....

"Like Marx, Kant regards history as a scene not only of conflict and strife, but also of deepening inequality and oppression.... As in Marx's theory of history, the root of social antagonism is a struggle between groups of people with opposed economic interests, where the different groups represent different stages in humanity's economic development. And in both theories the victory in this struggle tends to belong to the group whose mode of production more fully develops the productive powers of humanity.

"Marx's theory of history is 'materialist' in more than one sense. First, it treats 'the mode of production in material life' as the key to humanity's historical development. Second, and perhaps more significantly, it understands the social 'form' of human society as grounded on its economic 'matter'. Kant's theory of history is materialist in both these senses. It treats humanity's activities in producing their means of subsistence as the historical basis for the development of all their capacities.... And Kant regards the employment of these capacities as conditioning the social relations -- in particular, the property relations and political forms -- that characterise a given historical epoch. Kant's theory of history, therefore, is correctly described as a form of 'historical materialism.'" [Wood (1998), pp.25-27.]

Bold emphasis alone added.

Wood, A, (1998), 'Kant's Historical Materialism' in Kneller and Axinn, Chapter Five.

Kneller, J., and Axinn, S, (1998), Autonomy And Community: Readings In Contemporary Kantian Social Philosophy (State University of New York Press).

This is the 'rational core' (which appears in embryonic form in Aristotle, etc., but more overtly in Kant) which Hegel appropriated, and then proceeded to mystify. So, no wonder Marx waved it 'goodbye'.


Wittgenstein never gets us there. Not even close. His "non-sensical" language analysis is, in Rosa's words-- CK can disagree if he cares to-- without social or historical content, and therefore doesn't have the slightest connection with how religion materially develops, the material, human purposes it serves, and what is required for the abolition of the "non-sense" of religion. Rather than going further than Marx, Wittgenstein, as Rosa provides his analysis, goes absolutely, nowhere, gets us absolutely nowhere.

Ah, but this does not prevent us using Wittgenstein's method to do this, anymore than it prevents us using Marx's method to analyse, say, racial or gay oppression.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dupilcate post.

[ChrisK]

The critical aspect for me is that we grasp how capitalism really functions, really reproduces itself through its "original" antagonism of labor and the conditions of labor.

Completely agree.


I almost never ever use the word "contradiction" when analyzing capital, or even exploring Marx's analysis of the problems, conflicts, antagonisms whatever in the process of accumulation because the word is so, in a sense, empty. In that, we agree. The word can be use to mean everything and anything, and is thus pretty meaningless.

I'm going to slightly disagree here. I think that contradiction has a set definition (A = not A). And that is why I think there is some confusion about many things Marx writes; the word contradiction is used to mean something other than what people understand it to mean.


And dialectical materialism? The "discovery" of the laws of dialectic in natural science? First, I don't know that there is any scientific evidence for such "natural dialectic," and secondly, IMO it represents a tremendous step backward from the subject of Marx's inquiry, which is the material of social development, which is the labor process.

Agreed


To me, it's all about that real metabolism of capital. That's where I find Marx's connection to and use of Hegel's dialectic-- that is to say, in his demystification of dialectic- in his own historically specific application of it to the investigation of capitalism.

Here is my problem with this. Hegel's main contribution to the dialectic was his using it as a worldview. That the world is generated by the mind and is ruled by dialectics. He also generated those laws that Engels writes about.

If we strip dialectics of Hegel's mystification, his main contribution, then we get the dialectic as used by the Scottish Materialists.


So apologies for all my insulting words. The disputes are certainly disputes. And the conflict certainly helps hone the argument. The rest of the stuff is unnecessary.

My apologies as well. My insults were uncalled for.

[S.Artesian]

I'm going to slightly disagree here. I think that contradiction has a set definition (A = not A). And that is why I think there is some confusion about many things Marx writes; the word contradiction is used to mean something other than what people understand it to mean.

Actually, here is something I think you are correct about-- Marx's use of the word "contradiction" throughout his explorations of capital is NOT of that set definition; is in fact a use of the word other than what people "normally" understand it to mean.

For Marx there is the critical component of history, of "becoming" as a material force. So that we get not contradiction where each facet always excludes the other,[ which I guess is contradiction A=not A], but rather , let's call it conflict . This conflict is where the origins of A-- [I]wage-labor WL, and not A, not WL, Capital C are in the shared historical process, are different facets of the same identity.

Marx's use of "contradiction" is about that material organization of -- using the agreed upon word-- conflict in that shared historical process, that shared reproduction so to speak.


I am not, clearly, a student of philosophy. I've read Hegel, particularly his Science of Logic, and I find it to be [besides enough to bring a grown man to tears] an attempt at an historical account: development, becoming.

Marx takes on Hegel's alienated attempt at locating an "alienated" driver to the alienated history of human estrangement in the material world. Hegel's "alienated history" is most clearly represented in i The Philosophy of Right. Here Hegel's "reason" clearly throws in the towel and capitulates to "all that is real is rational." Marx subjects that to a withering critique that extends from his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right through the early manuscripts and into The German Ideology.

What comes out on the other side of that critique is... the labor process, the material force of the reproduction of human society. And from there we are off to the races.



Here is my problem with this. Hegel's main contribution to the dialectic was his using it as a worldview. That the world is generated by the mind and is ruled by dialectics. He also generated those laws that Engels writes about.Again, I'm in agreement with this. It is a problem. When people tell me that "Marxism is a world-view," I want to turn my head and puke. It is not. It is the materialist analysis of history. It is the critique of capital and the explanation of the tendencies immanent within capitalism for its own abolishment.

The "world" is neither generated in the mind nor ruled by "dialectics"-- even the phrasing of this makes "dialectics" a "thing unto itself"-- or actually a totem, a fetishist object of human endeavor, a product of labor that is endowed with powers over human beings when in fact the powers are the powers of human beings over other human beings.

This is also why I think Marx in his dialectic, unites method and subject. The labor-process and its social alienation, expropriation, transformation into property is the subject and it is the method for analyzing the social alienation.

Capitalism is generated, and self-generating in its aggrandizement of this labor-process. It is self-generating in its reproduction of itself as both private property and wage-labor. That's what "rules the world," not some-- and I agree again-- mystical, omniscient universal omnipotent unity of opposites.

There is no "great law" of dialectics governing all forms of matter, all motion, all anything. And even if there is, that's not what Marx is interested in, that's not what Marx is undertaking in his critique of capital.




If we strip dialectics of Hegel's mystification, his main contribution, then we get the dialectic as used by the Scottish Materialists.This where we disagree. I think, as I said before, Hegel recognizes a process of history, transformation, of "becoming" that the Scottish Materialists don't apprehend.


My apologies as well. My insults were uncalled for.Appreciated. But really, some of your insults were definitely called for. Caused me to crack-up a few times with laughter-- thinking "Damn, that guy's good."

Really... "can't get laid." That was brilliant. I've been married twice, had a number lovers, and to this day, what do I worry about? I worry about getting laid enough times before I die. What's enough times? That's exactly the point. There is no "enough times." That's what worries me.

[ChrisK]

Actually, here is something I think you are correct about-- Marx's use of the word "contradiction" throughout his explorations of capital is NOT of that set definition; is in fact a use of the word other than what people "normally" understand it to mean.

For Marx there is the critical component of history, of "becoming" as a material force. So that we get not contradiction where each facet always excludes the other,[ which I guess is contradiction A=not A], but rather , let's call it conflict . This conflict is where the origins of A-- [I]wage-labor WL, and not A, not WL, Capital C are in the shared historical process, are different facets of the same identity.

Marx's use of "contradiction" is about that material organization of -- using the agreed upon word-- conflict in that shared historical process, that shared reproduction so to speak.

Conflict is a good word in my opinion. Be careful with becoming, its philosophical implications are extremely idealistic (for the same reasons as being). I assume you are using becoming in its non-philosophical sense of potentiality, correct? Becoming, in its philosophic sense, means changing (or evolving) into something else.


I am not, clearly, a student of philosophy. I've read Hegel, particularly his Science of Logic, and I find it to be [besides enough to bring a grown man to tears] an attempt at an historical account: development, becoming.

Not going to lie, I gave up of the Science of Logic. It hurt too much to read. I'll be trying again in a few months, but I have other books (that don't hurt) that I am reading.


Marx takes on Hegel's alienated attempt at locating an "alienated" driver to the alienated history of human estrangement in the material world. Hegel's "alienated history" is most clearly represented in i The Philosophy of Right. Here Hegel's "reason" clearly throws in the towel and capitulates to "all that is real is rational." Marx subjects that to a withering critique that extends from his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right through the early manuscripts and into The German Ideology.

What comes out on the other side of that critique is... the labor process, the material force of the reproduction of human society. And from there we are off to the races.

I think our main disagreement here is going to be that I think that Hegel was not the first to do this. The Scottish Materialists are certainly one's I focus on, as well as Rousseau and Kant. So I think that Hegel simply mystified what these other people had already argued for.


Again, I'm in agreement with this. It is a problem. When people tell me that "Marxism is a world-view," I want to turn my head and puke. It is not. It is the materialist analysis of history. It is the critique of capital and the explanation of the tendencies immanent within capitalism for its own abolishment.

The "world" is neither generated in the mind nor ruled by "dialectics"-- even the phrasing of this makes "dialectics" a "thing unto itself"-- or actually a totem, a fetishist object of human endeavor, a product of labor that is endowed with powers over human beings when in fact the powers are the powers of human beings over other human beings.

This is also why I think Marx in his dialectic, unites method and subject. The labor-process and its social alienation, expropriation, transformation into property is the subject and it is the method for analyzing the social alienation.

Capitalism is generated, and self-generating in its aggrandizement of this labor-process. It is self-generating in its reproduction of itself as both private property and wage-labor. That's what "rules the world," not some-- and I agree again-- mystical, omniscient universal omnipotent unity of opposites.

There is no "great law" of dialectics governing all forms of matter, all motion, all anything. And even if there is, that's not what Marx is interested in, that's not what Marx is undertaking in his critique of capital.

Completely agree.



This where we disagree. I think, as I said before, Hegel recognizes a process of history, transformation, of "becoming" that the Scottish Materialists don't apprehend.

Whereas I see them doing this in simpler terms.


Appreciated. But really, some of your insults were definitely called for. Caused me to crack-up a few times with laughter-- thinking "Damn, that guy's good."

Really... "can't get laid." That was brilliant. I've been married twice, had a number lovers, and to this day, what do I worry about? I worry about getting laid enough times before I die. What's enough times? That's exactly the point. There is no "enough times." That's what worries me.

That's what having been in High School not too long ago will do to you. You'll know what to say as an insult.

I thought your intermural softball crack was perfect. It hit (haha) on multiple levels.

[Zanthorus]

I think our main disagreement here is going to be that I think that Hegel was not the first to do this. The Scottish Materialists are certainly one's I focus on, as well as Rousseau and Kant. So I think that Hegel simply mystified what these other people had already argued for.

I don't remember Kant, Rousseau or the Scottish Materialists ever talking about alienation though. What Hegel talks about which is important for Marx is specifically the fact that in order to life a life as a true manifestation of the human species human labour first needs to go through a process of self-estrangement in order to develop the productive forces to a higher level. Hegel's account is mystifying and one-sided because he only states this in account to abstract mental labour and the development of the "absolute idea", which by no means prevents him from being the first one to articulate the principle clearly.

[S.Artesian]

Yes, I am using "becoming" in that non-philosophical sense, as potential.

I think the critical task is to avoid the use of all those "hot button" words when conducting the material analysis of capitalism

We have to show the "how," not claim the "is," and the "how" is the actual process of capitalist accumulation.

A friend of mine who is a writer told me what she considered to be the key to "good writing:" Dramatization rather than narration. Let the characters demonstrate the issues and ideas.

I think the same thing applies to Marxist analysis-- have the characters demonstrate their connections, their conflicts.

[ChrisK]

Yes, I am using "becoming" in that non-philosophical sense, as potential.

I think the critical task is to avoid the use of all those "hot button" words when conducting the material analysis of capitalism

We have to show the "how," not claim the "is," and the "how" is the actual process of capitalist accumulation.

A friend of mine who is a writer told me what she considered to be the key to "good writing:" Dramatization rather than narration. Let the characters demonstrate the issues and ideas.

I think the same thing applies to Marxist analysis-- have the characters demonstrate their connections, their conflicts.

Completely agree with everything you have written.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


For Marx there is the critical component of history, of "becoming" as a material force. So that we get not contradiction where each facet always excludes the other,[ which I guess is contradiction A=not A], but rather , let's call it conflict [I'd say opposition, but as I remember similar conflicts JazzRemington over that word, let's avoid that too]. This conflict is where the origins of A-- wage-labor WL, and not A, not WL, Capital C are in the shared historical process, are different facets of the same identity.

But, you have failed to tell us what this "A" refers to. Is it a predicate letter? A name variable? A propositional variable? A phrase variable? Or what?

If it's a propositional variable (which it will have to be in order for your schema to be counted as a contradiction), then it cannot feature either side of an "=" sign. [The identity sign only takes names and other singular expressions as arguments. An explanation will be supplied on request.]

On the other hand, if these "A"s aren't propositions, then your schema isn't a contradiction. [I'll explain that assertion, too, if you are not sure why.]

Now, your own interpretation has an "A" as noun phrase "wage labour", so that your "A and not-A" becomes "Wage labour and not-wage labour". But his can neither be true nor false (since it contains no verb), hence it cannot be a contradiction.

If you now insert a verb, to obtain something like "F is wage labour and not wage labour" you will indeed have an example of a colloquial contradiction (where "F" is a singular expression (or demonstrative) variable of your choice, giving, say, "This is wage labour and it isn't wage labour"). But, in that case you will have lost your identity sign, and hence you are no further forward.

This is the brick wall that Hegel's 'theory' hit (except no one spotted it, since those who study Hegel seem to know no logic).

I have summarised this argument here:

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

and explained it in more detail here:

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

On the other hand, you might be using 'contradiction' in a new and as-yet-unexplained sense. Fine, but what is it? It can't be the bowdlerised 'contradictions' Hegel screwed around with, since his 'contradictions' aren't contradictions to begin with, as I have shown above.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


I don't remember Kant, Rousseau or the Scottish Materialists ever talking about alienation though. What Hegel talks about which is important for Marx is specifically the fact that in order to life a life as a true manifestation of the human species human labour first needs to go through a process of self-estrangement in order to develop the productive forces to a higher level. Hegel's account is mystifying and one-sided because he only states this in account to abstract mental labour and the development of the "absolute idea", which by no means prevents him from being the first one to articulate the principle clearly.

That's a rather slender straw you are clutching at comrade!

You will, however, find that idea in the writings of the German Romantics, of whom Hegel was one. That's because it's basically a religious notion, and alludes to the alienation of man from 'god' (and in the Neo-Platonists, 'god' from 'himself', and thus the world). It derives also from the work of Rousseau.

Using Feuerbach's method, it will thus be quite easy to translate it into non-mystical terms.

So, we still do not need Hegel.

No wonder then that Marx kicked this mystical idiot into touch.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Here is what István Mészáros has to say about this:


István Mészáros, 1970

Marx’s Theory of Aienation

1. Origins of the Concept of Alienation

As is well known, Feuerbach, Hegel and English Political Economy exercised the most direct influence on the formation of Marx's theory of alienation. But we are concerned here with much more than simple intellectual influences. The concept of alienation belongs to a vast and complex problematics, with a long history of its own. Preoccupations with this problematics – in forms ranging from the Bible to literary works as well as treatises on Law, Economy and Philosophy – reflect objective trends of European development, from slavery to the age of transition from capitalism to socialism. Intellectual influences, revealing important continuities across the transformations of social structures, acquire their real significance only if they are considered in this objective framework of development. If so assessed, their importance – far from being exhausted in mere historical curiosity – cannot be stressed enough: precisely because they indicate the deep-rootedness of certain problematics as well as the relative autonomy of the forms of thought in which they are reflected.

It must be made equally clear, however, that such influences are exercised in the dialectical sense of “continuity in discontinuity”. Whether the element of continuity predominates over discontinuity or the other way round, and in what precise form and correlation, is a matter for concrete historical analysis. As we shall see, in the case of Marx's thought in its relation to antecedent theories discontinuity is the “übergreifendes Moment”, but some elements of continuity are also very important.

Some of the principal themes of modern theories of alienation appeared in European thought, in one form or another, many centuries ago. To follow their development in detail would require copious volumes. In the few pages at our disposal we cannot attempt more than an outline of the general trends of this development, describing their main characteristics insofar as they link up with Marx's theory of alienation and help to throw light on it.

1. The Judeo-Christian Approach

The first aspect we have to consider is the lament about being “alienated from God” (or having “fallen from Grace”) which belongs to the common heritage of Judeo-Christian mythology. The divine order, it is said, has been violated; man has alienated himself from “the ways of God”, whether simply by “the fall of man” or later by “the dark idolatries of alienated Judah”, or later again by the behaviour of “Christians alienated from the life of God”. The messianic mission consists in rescuing man from this state of self-alienation which he had brought upon himself.

But this is as far as the similarities go in the Judeo-Christian problematics; and far-reaching differences prevail in other respects. For the form in which the messianic transcendence of alienation is envisaged is not a matter of indifference. “Remember” – says Paul the Apostle – “that ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made High by the blood of Christ.... Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” Christianity thus, in its universality, announces the imaginary solution of human self-alienation in the form of “the mystery of Christ.” This mystery postulates the reconciliation of the contradictions which made groups of people oppose each other as “strangers”, “foreigners”, “enemies”. This is not only a reflection of a specific form of social struggle but at the same time also its mystical “resolution” which induced Marx to write: “It was only in appearance that Christianity overcame real Judaism. It was too refined, too spiritual to eliminate the crudeness of practical need except by raising it into the ethereal realm. Christianity is the sublime thought of Judaism. Judaism is the vulgar practical application of Christianity. But this practical application could only become universal when Christianity as perfected religion had accomplished, in a theoretical fashion, the alienation of man from himself and from nature.” [Marx, On the Jewish Question]

Judaism in its “crude” realism reflects with a much greater immediacy the actual state of affairs, advocating a virtually endless continuation of the extension of its worldly powers – i.e. settling for a “quasi-messianic” solution on earth: this is why it is in no hurry whatsoever about the arrival of its Messiah – in the form of two, complementary, postulates:

1. the softening of internal class conflicts, in the interest of the cohesion of the national community in its confrontation with the outside world of the “strangers”: “For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.”

2. the promise of readmission into the grace of God is partly fulfilled in the form of granting the power of domination over the “strangers” to Judah: “And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and your vinedressers.”

The formidable practical vehicle of this expanding domination was the weapon of “usury” which needed, however, in order to become really effective, its suitable counterpart which offered an unlimited outlet for the power of this weapon: i.e. the metamorphosis of Judaism into Christianity. For “Judaism attains its apogee with the perfection of civil society; but civil society only reaches perfection in the Christian world. Only under the sway of Christianity, which objectifies a national, natural, moral and theoretical relationships, could civil society separate itself completely from the life of the state, sever all the species-bonds of man, establish egoism and selfish need in their place, and dissolve the human world into a world of atomistic, antagonistic individuals.”

The ethos of Judaism which stimulated this development was not confined to the general assertion of the God-willed superiority of the “chosen people” in its confrontation with the world of strangers, issuing in commands like this: “Ye shall not eat any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God.” Far more important was in the practical sense the absolute prohibition imposed on the exploitation of the sons of Judah through usury: “If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.” Usury was only allowed in dealings with strangers, but not with “brethren”.

Christianity, by contrast, which refused to retain this discrimination between “any of my people” and “strangers” (or “aliens”) postulating in its place the “universal brotherhood of mankind”, not only deprived itself of the powerful weapon of “usury” (i.e. of “interest” and the accumulation of capital coupled with it) as the most important vehicle of early economic expansion but at the same time also became an easy prey to the triumphant advance of the “spirit of Judaism”. The “crude and vulgar practical principle of Judaism” discussed by Marx – i.e. the effectively self-centred, internally cohesive, practical-empirical partiality could easily triumph over the abstract theoretical universality of Christianity established as a set of “purely formal rites with which the world of self-interest encircles itself”. (On the importance of “usury” and the controversies related to it at the time of the rise of early capitalism)

It is very important to emphasise here that the issue at stake is not simply the empirical reality of Jewish communities in Europe but “the spirit of Judaism”; i.e. the internal principle of European social developments culminating in the emergence and stabilisation of capitalistic society. “The spirit of Judaism”, therefore, must be understood, in the last analysis, to mean “the spirit of capitalism”. For an early realisation of the latter Judaism as an empirical reality only provided a suitable vehicle. Ignoring this distinction, for one reason or another, could lead – as it did throughout the ages – to scapegoat-hunting anti-Semitism. The objective conditions of European social development, from the dissolution of pre-feudal society to the Universal triumph of capitalism over feudalism, must be assessed in their comprehensive complexity of which Judaism as a sociological phenomenon is a part only, however important a part it may have been at certain stages of this development.

Judaism and Christianity are complementary aspects of society's efforts to cope with its internal contradictions. They both represent attempts at an imaginary transcendence of these contradictions, at an illusory “reappropriation” of the “human essence” through a fictitious supersession of the state of alienation. Judaism and Christianity express the contradictions of “partiality versus universality” and “competition versus monopoly”: i.e. internal contradictions of what has become known as “the spirit of capitalism”. In this framework the success of partiality can only be conceived in contradiction to and at the expense of universality – just as this “universality” can only prevail on the basis of the suppression of partiality – and vice versa. Similarly with the relationship between competition and monopoly: the condition of success of “competition” is the negation of monopoly just as for monopoly the condition of extending its power is the suppression of competition. The partiality of Judaism, the “chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the trader, and above all of the financier” – writes Marx, repeatedly emphasising that “the social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism”, i.e. from the partiality of the financier's “nationality”, or, expressed in more general terms, from “the Jewish narrowness of society”. “Jewish narrowness” could triumph in “civil society” because the latter required the dynamism of the “supremely practical Jewish spirit” for its full development. The metamorphosis of Judaism into Christianity carried with it a later metamorphosis of Christianity into a more evolved, less crudely partial form of – secularised – Judaism: “The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only by acquiring the power of money, but also because money had become, through him and also apart from him, a world power, while the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves in so far as the Christians have become Jews. Protestant modifications of earlier established Christianity, in various national settings, had accomplished a relatively early metamorphosis of “abstract-theoretical” Christianity into “practical-Christian-Judaism” as a significant step in the direction of the complete secularisation of the whole problematics of alienation. Parallel to the expanding domination of the spirit of capitalism in the practical sphere, the ideological forms have become more and more secular as well; from the various versions of “deism” through “humanistic atheism” to the famous declaration stating that “God is dead”. By the time of the latter even the illusions of “universality” with which “the world of self-interest encircles itself” – retained and at times even intensified by deism and humanistic atheism – have become acutely embarrassing for the bourgeoisie and a sudden, often cynical, transition had to be made to the open cult of partiality.

As has been mentioned, under the conditions of class society because of the inherent contradiction between the “part” and the “whole”, due to the fact that partial interest dominates the whole of society – the principle of partiality stands in an insoluble contradiction to that of Universality. Consequently it is the crude relation of forces that elevates the prevailing form of partiality into a bogus universality, whereas the ideal-oriented negation of this partiality, e.g. the abstract-theoretical universality of Christianity, before its metamorphosis into “practical-Christian-Judaism” – must remain illusory, fictitious, impotent. For “partiality” and “universality” in their reciprocal opposition to each other are two facets of the same, alienated, state of affairs. Egoistic partiality must be elevated to “universality” for its fulfilment: the underlying socioeconomic dynamism is both “self-centred” and “outer-directed”, “nationalist” and “cosmopolitan”, “protectionist-isolationist” and “imperialist” at the same time. This is why there can be no room for genuine universality, only for the bogus universalisation of the crudest partiality, coupled with an illusory, abstract-theoretical postulate of universality as the – merely ideological – negation of effective, practically prevailing partiality. Thus the “chimerical nationality of the Jew” is all the more chimerical because – insofar as it is “the nationality of the trader and of the financier” – it is in reality the only effective universality: partiality turned into operative universality, into the fundamental organising principle of the society in question. (The mystifications of anti-Semitism become obvious if one realises that it turns against the mere sociological phenomenon of Jewish partiality, and not against “the Jewish narrowness of society”; it attacks partiality in its limited immediacy, and thus not only does it not face the real problem: the partiality of capitalist self-interest turned into the ruling universal principle of society, but actively supports its own object of attack by means of this disorienting mystification.)

For Marx, in his reflections on the Judeo-Christian approach to the problems of alienation, the matter of central concern was to find a solution that could indicate a way out of the apparently perennial impasse: the renewed reproduction, in different forms, of the same contradiction between partiality and universality which characterised the entire historical development and its ideological reflections. His answer was not simply the double negation of crude partiality and abstract universality. Such a solution would have remained an abstract conceptual opposition and no more. The historical novelty of Marx's solution consisted in defining the problem in terms of the concrete dialectical concept of “partiality prevailing as universality”, in opposition to genuine universality which alone could embrace the manifold interests of society as a whole and of man as a “species-being” (Gattungswesen - i.e. man liberated from the domination of crude, individualistic self-interest). It was this specific, socially concrete concept which enabled Marx to grasp the problematics of capitalist society in its full contradictoriness and to formulate the programme of a practical transcendence of alienation by means of a genuinely universalising fusion of ideal and reality, theory and practice.

Also, we have to emphasise in this context that Marx had nothing to do with abstract “humanism” because he opposed right from the outset – as we have seen in the quotations taken from On the Jewish Question, written in 1843 – the illusions of abstract universality as a mere postulate, an impotent “ought”, a fictitious “reappropriation of non-alienated humanness”. There is no trace, therefore, of what might be termed “ideological concepts” in the thought of the young Marx who writes On the Jewish Question, let alone in the socioeconomically far more concrete reflections contained in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.

2. Alienation as “Universal Saleability”

The secularisation of the religious concept of alienation had been accomplished in the concrete assertions concerning “saleability”. In the first place this secularisation progressed within the religious shell. Nothing could withstand this trend of converting everything into a saleable object, no matter how “sacred” it may have been considered at some stage in its “inalienability” sanctioned by an alleged divine command. (Balzac's Melmoth is a masterfully ironical reflection on the state of a totally secularised society in which “even the Holy Spirit has its quotation on the Stock Exchange”.) Even the doctrine of the “fall of man” had to be challenged – as it had been done by Luther, for instance – in the name of man's “liberty”. This advocacy of “liberty”, however, in reality turned out to be nothing more than the religious glorification of the secular principle of “universal saleability”. It was this latter which found its – however utopian – adversary in Thomas Münzer who complained in his pamphlet against Luther, saying that it was intolerable “that every creature should be transformed into property – the fishes in the water, the birds of the air, the plants of the earth”. Insights like this, no matter how profoundly and truthfully they reflected the inner nature of the transformations in course, had to remain mere utopias, ineffective protests conceived from the perspective of a hopeless anticipation of a possible future negation of commodity-society. At the time of the triumphant emergence of capitalism the prevalent ideological conceptions had to be those which assumed an affirmative attitude towards the objective trends of this development.

In the conditions of feudal society the hindrances which resisted the advance of “the spirit of capitalism” were, for instance, that “the vassal could not alienate without the consent of his superior (Adam Smith) or that “the bourgeois cannot alienate the things of the community without the permission of the king” (thirteenth century). The supreme ideal was that everyone should be able “to give and to alienate that which belongs to him” (thirteenth century). Obviously, however, the social order which confined to “The Lord” the power to “sell his Servant, or alienate him by Testament” (Hobbes) fell hopelessly short of the requirements of “free alienability” of everything – including one's person – by means of some contractual arrangement to which the person concerned would be a party. Land too, one of the sacred pillars of the outdated social order, had to become “alienable” so that the self-development of commodity society should go on unhampered.

That alienation as universal saleability involved reification has been recognised well before the whole social order which operated on this basis could be subjected to a radical and effective criticism. The mystifying glorification of “liberty” as “contractually safeguarded freedom” (in fact the contractual abdication of human freedom) played an important part in delaying the recognition of the underlying contradictions. Saying this does not alter, however, the fact that the connection between alienation and relocation has been recognised – even though in an uncritical form – by some philosophers who far from questioning the contractual foundations of society idealised it. Kant, for instance, made the point that “such a contract is not a mere reification [or “conversion into a thing” – Verdingung] but the transference – by means of hiring it out of one's person into the property of the Lord of the house. All object, a piece of dead property could be simply alienated from the original owner and transferred into the property of someone else without undue complications: “the transference of one's property to someone else is its alienation” (Kant).” (The complications, at an earlier stage, were of an “external”, political nature, manifest in the taboos and prohibitions of feudal society which declared certain things to be “inalienable”; with the successful abolition of such taboos the complications vanished automatically.) The living person, however, first had to be reified – converted into a thing, into a mere piece of property for the duration of the contract – before it could be mastered by its new owner. Reified in the same sense of “verdingen” in which Kant's younger contemporary Wieland uses the word in translating a line from Homer's Odyssey: “Stranger, will you become my thing, my servant?” (The current English translation, by contrast, characteristically reads like this: “Stranger,” he said, “I wonder how you'd like to work for me if I took you on as my man, somewhere on an upland farm, at a proper wage of course.)

The principal function of the much glorified “contract” was, therefore, the introduction – in place of the rigidly fixed feudal relations – of a new form of “fixity” which guaranteed the right of the new master to manipulate the allegedly “free” human beings as things, as objects without will, once they have “freely elected” to enter into the contract in question by “alienating at will that which belonged to them”.

Thus human alienation was accomplished through turning everything “into alienable, saleable objects in thrall to egoistic need and huckstering. Selling is the practice of alienation. Just as man, so long as he is engrossed in religion, can only objectify his essence by an alien and fantastic being; so under the sway of egoistic need, he can only affirm himself and produce objects in practice by subordinating his products and his own activity to the domination of an alien entity, and by attributing to them the significance of an alien entity, namely money.” [Marx, On the Jewish Question] Reification of one's person and thus the “freely chosen” acceptance of a new servitude – in place of the old feudal, politically established and regulated form of servitude – could advance on the basis of a “civil society” characterised by the rule of money that opened the floodgates for the universal “servitude to egoistic need” (Knechtschaft des egoistischen Bedürfnisses).

Alienation is therefore characterised by the universal extension of “saleability” (i.e. the transformation of everything into commodity); by the conversion of human beings into “things” so that they could appear as commodities on the market (in other words: the “reification” of human relations), and by the fragmentation of the social body into “isolated individuals” (vereinzelte Einzelnen) who pursued their own limited, particularistic aims “in servitude to egoistic need”, making a virtue out of their selfishness in their cult of privacy. No wonder that Goethe protested “alles vereinzelte ist verwerflich”, “all isolated particularity is to be rejected”, advocating in opposition to “selfish isolationism” some form of “community with others like oneself” in order to be able to make a common “front against the world.” Equally no wonder that in the circumstances Goethe's recommendations had to remain utopian postulates. For the social order of “civil society” could sustain itself only on the basis of the conversion of the various areas of human experience into “saleable commodities”, and it could follow relatively undisturbed its course of development only so long as this universal marketing of all facets of human life, including the most private ones, did not reach its point of saturation.

3. Historicity and the Rise of Anthropology

“Alienation” is an eminently historical concept. If man is alienated, he must be alienated from something, as a result of certain causes – the interplay of events and circumstances in relation to man as the subject of this alienation – which manifest themselves in a historical framework. Similarly, the “transcendence of alienation” is an inherently historical concept which envisages the successful accomplishment of a process leading to a qualitatively different state of affairs.

Needless to say, the historical character of certain concepts is no guarantee whatsoever that the intellectual edifices which make use of them are historical. Often, as a matter of fact, mystifications set in at one stage or another of the analysis. Indeed, if the concept of alienation is abstracted form the concrete socio-economical process, a mere semblance of historicity may be substituted for a genuine understanding of the complex factors involved in the historical process. (It is an essential function of mythologies to transfer the fundamental socio-historical problems of human development to an atemporal plane, and the Judeo-Christian treatment of the problematics of alienation is no exception to the general rule. Ideologically more topical is the case of some twentieth century theories of alienation in which concepts like “world-alienation” fulfil the function of negating the genuine historical categories and of replacing them by sheer mystification.)

Nevertheless it is an important characteristic of intellectual history that those philosophers achieved the greatest results in grasping the manifold complexities of alienation – before Marx: Hegel above all the others – who approached this problematics in an adequate historical manner. This correlation is even more significant in view of the fact that the point holds the other way round as well: namely those philosophers succeeded in elaborating a historical approach to the problems of philosophy who were aware of the problematics of alienation, and to the extent to which they were so. (It is by no means accidental that the greatest representative of the Scottish “historical school”, Adam Ferguson had at the centre of his thought the concept of “civil society” which was absolutely crucial for a socio-historically concrete understanding of the problematics of alienation.) The ontological determinants of this intellectual interrelationship need to retain our attention here for a moment.

It goes without saying, the development in question is by no means a simple linear one. At certain points of crisis in history when the possible socio-historical alternatives are still relatively open – a relative openness which creates a temporary “ideological vacuum” that favours the appearance of utopian ideologies – it is relatively easier to identify the objective characteristics of the emerging social order than at a later stage by which time the needs that bring into life in the field of ideology the “uncritical positivism” we are all too familiar with have produced a self-perpetuating uniformity. We have seen the profound but hopelessly “premature” insights of a Thomas Münzer into the nature of developments hardly perceivable on the horizon, and he did not stand alone, of course, in this respect. Similarly, at a much earlier age, Aristotle gave a surprisingly concrete historical analysis of the inherent interconnection between religious beliefs and politico-social as well as family relations: “The family is the association established by nature for the supply of man's every day wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas 'companions of the cupboard', and by Epimenides the Cretan, 'companions of the manger'. But when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, the first society to be formed is the village. And the most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be 'sucked with the same milk'. And this is the reason why Hellenic states were originally governed by kings; because the Hellenes were under royal rule before they came together, as the barbarians still are. Every family is ruled by the eldest and therefore in the colonies of the family the kingly form of government prevailed because they were of the same blood. As Homer says: 'Each one gives law to his children and to his wives.'

For they lived dispersedly, as was the manner in ancient times. Wherefore men say that the Gods have a king, because they themselves either are or were in ancient times under the rule of a king. For they imagine, not only the forms of the Gods, but their ways of life to be like their own.

Many hundreds of years had to pass by before philosophers could reach again a similar degree of concreteness and historical insight. And yet, Aristotle's insight remained an isolated one: it could not become the cornerstone of a coherent philosophy of history. In Aristotle's thought the concrete historical insights were embedded in a thoroughly ahistorical general conception. The main reason for this was an overriding ideological need which prevented Aristotle from applying a historical principle to the analysis of society as a whole. In accordance with this ideological need it had to be “proved” that slavery was a social order in complete conformity with nature itself. Such a conception – formulated by Aristotle in opposition to those who challenged the established social relations carried with it bogus concepts like “freedom by nature” and “slavery by nature”. For, according to Aristotle, “there is a great difference between the rule over freemen and the rule over slaves, as there is between slavery by nature and freedom by nature”.

The introduction of the concept of “slavery by nature” has far-reaching consequences for Aristotle's philosophy. History in it is confined to the sphere of “freedom” which is, however, restricted by the concept of “freedom by nature”. Indeed, since slavery must be fixed eternally – a need adequately reflected in the concept of slavery “by nature” – there can be no question of a genuine historical conception. The concept of “slavery by nature” carries with it its counterpart: “freedom by nature”, and thus the fiction of slavery determined by nature destroys the historicity of the sphere of “freedom” as well. The partiality of the ruling class prevails, postulating its own rule as a hierarchial-structural superiority determined (and sanctioned) by nature. (The partiality of Judaism – the mythology of the “chosen people” etc. – expresses the same kind of negation of history as regards the fundamental structural relations of class society.) The principle of historicity is therefore inevitably degraded into pseudo-historicity. The model of a repetitive cycle is projected upon society as a whole: no matter what happens, the fundamental structural relations determined by “nature” are said to be always reproduced, not as a matter of empirical fact, but as that of an a priori necessity. Movement, accordingly, is confined to an increase in “size” and “complexity” of the communities analysed by Aristotle, and changes in both “size” and “complexity” are circumscribed by the concepts of “freedom by nature” and “slavery by nature”, i.e. by the postulated a priori necessity of reproducing the same structure of society. Thus the insoluble social contradictions of his days lead even a great philosopher like Aristotle to operate with self-contradictory concepts like “freedom by nature”, imposed on him by the entirely fictitious concept of “slavery by nature”, in direct agreement with the prevailing ideological need. And when he makes a further attempt at rescuing the historicity of the sphere of “freedom by nature”, declaring that the slave is not a man but a mere thing, a “talking tool”, he finds himself right in the middle of another contradiction: for the tools of man have a historical character, and certainly not one fixed by nature. Because of the partiality of his position, the dynamic, dialectically changing laws of social totality must remain a mystery to Aristotle. His postulate of a natural “duality” directly rooted, as we have seen, in the ideological need of turning partiality into universality – make it impossible for him to perceive the manifold varieties of social phenomena as specific manifestations of an inherently interconnected, dynamically changing socio-historical totality.

The interrelationship between an awareness of alienation and the historicity of a philosopher's conception is a necessary one because a fundamental ontological question: the “nature of man” (“human essence”, etc.) is the common point of reference of both. This fundamental ontological question is: what is in agreement with “human nature” and what constitutes an “alienation” from the “human essence”? Such a question cannot be answered ahistorically without being turned into an irrational mystification of some kind. On the other hand, a historical approach to the question of “human nature” inevitably carries with it some diagnosis of “alienation” or “reification”, related to the standard or “ideal” by which the whole issue is being assessed.

The point of central importance is, however, whether or not the question of “human nature” is assessed within an implicitly or explicitly “egalitarian” framework of explanation. If for some reason the fundamental equality of all men is not recognised, that is ipso facto tantamount to negating historicity, for in that case it becomes necessary to rely on the magic device of “nature” (or, in religious conceptions, “divine order” etc.) in the philosopher's explanation of historically established inequalities. (This issue is quite distinct from the question of the ideological justification of existing inequalities. The latter is essential for explaining the socio-historical determinants of a philosopher's system but quite irrelevant to the logically necessary interrelationship of a set of concepts of a particular system. Here we are dealing with the structural relations of concepts which prevail within the general framework of a system already in existence. This is why the “structural” and the “historical” principles cannot be reduced into one another except by vulgarisers – but constitute a dialectical unity.) The philosopher's specific approach to the problem of equality, the particular limitations and shortcomings of his concept of “human nature”, determine the intensity of his historical conception as well as the character of his insight into the real nature of alienation. This goes not only for those thinkers who – for reasons already seen – failed to produce significant achievements in this regard but also for positive examples, from the representatives of the Scottish “historical school” to Hegel and Feuerbach.

“Anthropological orientation” without genuine historicity well as the necessary conditions of the latter, of course – amounts to nothing more than mystification, whatever socio-historical determinants might have brought it into existence. The “organic” conception of society, for instance, according to which every element of the social complex must fulfil its “proper function” i.e. a function predetermined by “nature” or by “divine providence” in accordance with some rigid hierarchial pattern – is a totally ahistorical and inverted projection of the characteristics of an established social order upon an alleged “organism” (the human body, for instance) which is supposed to be the “natural model” of all society. (A great deal of modern “functionalism” is, mutatis mutandis, an attempt at liquidating historicity. But we cannot enter here into the discussion of that matter.) In this regard it is doubly significant that in the development of modern thought the concept of alienation acquired an increasing importance parallel to the rise of a genuine, historically founded philosophical anthropology. On the one hand this trend represented a radical opposition to the mystifications of medieval pseudo-anthropology, and on the other it provided the positive organising centre of an incomparably more dynamic understanding of the social processes than had been possible before.

Well before Feuerbach recognised the distinction between “true: that is anthropological and false: that is the theological essence of religion” [Feuerbach, Essence of Christianity] religion was conceived as a historical phenomenon and the assessment of its nature was subordinated to the question of the historicity of man. In such a conception it became possible to envisage the supersession of religion insofar as mythology and religion were assigned only to a particular stage – though a necessary one – of the universal history of mankind, conceived on the model of man progressing from childhood to maturity. Vico distinguished three stages in the development of humanity (of humanity making its own history): (1) the age of Gods; (2) the age of heroes; and (3) “the age of men in which all men recognised themselves as equal in human nature”. Herder, at a later stage, defined mythology as “personified nature or dressed-up wisdom” and spoke of the “childhood”, “adolescence” and “manhood” of mankind, limiting even in poetry the possibilities of myth-creation under the circumstances of the third stage.

But it was Diderot who spelled out the socio-political secret of the whole trend by emphasising that once man succeeded in his critique of “the majesty of heaven” he will not shy away for long from an assault on the other oppressor of mankind: “the worldly sovereignty”, for these two stand or fall together. And it was by no means accidental that it was Diderot who reached this degree of clarity in political radicalism. For he did not stop at Vico's remarkable but rather abstract statement according to which “all men are equal in human nature”. He went on asserting, with the highest degree of social radicalism known among the great figures of French Enlightenment, that “if the day-worker is miserable, the nation is miserable”. Not surprisingly, therefore, it was Diderot who succeeded to the highest degree in grasping the problematics of alienation, well ahead of his contemporaries, indicating as basic contradictions “the distinction of yours and mine”, the opposition between “one's own particular utility and the general good” and the subordination of the “general good to one's own particular good.” And he went even further, emphasising that these contradictions result in the production of “superfluous wants”, “imaginary goods” and “artificial needs” – almost the same terms as those used by Marx in describing the “artificial needs and imaginary appetites” produced by capitalism. The fundamental difference was, however, that while Marx could refer to a specific social movement as the “material force” behind his philosophical programme, Diderot had to content himself – because of his “premature situation” – with the viewpoint of a far-away utopian community in which such contradictions as well as their consequences are unknown. And, of course, in accordance with his utopian standpoint related to the wretched working conditions of his day, Diderot could not see any solution except the limitation of needs which should enable man to liberate himself from the crippling tedium of work, allowing him to stop, to rest and to finish working . Thus an appeal is made to the utopian fiction of a “natural” limitation of wants because the type of labour which predominates in the given form of society is inherently anti-human, and “fulfilment” appears as an absence of activity, not as enriched and enriching, humanly fulfilling activity, not as self-fulfilment in activity. That which is supposed to be “natural” and “human” appears as something idyllic and fixed (by nature) and consequently as something to be jealously protected against corruption from “outside”, under the enlightening guidance of “reason”. Since the “material force” that could turn theory into social practice is missing, theory must convert itself into its own solution: into an utopian advocacy of the power of reason. At this point we can clearly see that even a Diderot's remedy is a far cry from the solutions advocated and envisaged by Marx.

Marx's radical superiority to all who preceded him is evident in the coherent dialectical historicity of his theory, in contrast to the weaknesses of his predecessors who at one point or another were all forced to abandon the actual ground of history for the sake of some imaginary solution to the contradictions they may have perceived but could not master ideologically and intellectually. In this context Marx's profound insight into the true relationship between anthropology and ontology is of the greatest importance. For there is one way only of producing an all-embracing and in every respect consistent historical theory, namely by positively situating anthropology within an adequate general ontological framework. If, however, ontology is subsumed under anthropology – as often happened not only in the distant past but in our own time as well in that case one-sidedly grasped anthropological principles which should be historically explained become self-sustaining axioms of the system in question and undermine its historicity. In this respect Feuerbach represents a retrogression in relation to Hegel whose philosophical approach avoided on the whole the pitfall of dissolving ontology within anthropology. Consequently Hegel anticipated to a much greater extent than Feuerbach the Marxian grasp of history, although even Hegel could only find “the abstract, logical, speculative expression for the movement of history”.

In contrast to both the Hegelian abstractness and the Feuerbachian retrogression in historicity Marx discovered the dialectical relationship between materialist ontology and anthropology, emphasising that “man's feelings, passions, etc., are not merely anthropological phenomena in the [narrower] sense, but truly ontological affirmations of essential being (of nature). . . . Only through developed industry i.e. through the medium of private property – does the ontological essence of human passion come to be both in its totality and in its humanity; the science of man is therefore itself a product of man's establishment of himself by practical activity. The meaning of private property – liberated from its estrangement – is the existence of essential objects for man, both as objects of enjoyment and as objects of activity”. We shall discuss some aspects of this complex of problems later in this chapter, as well as in chapter IV, VI, and VII. What is particularly important to stress at this point is that the specific anthropological factor (“humanity”) cannot be grasped in its dialectical historicity unless it is conceived on the basis of the historically developing ontological totality (“nature”) to which it ultimately belongs. A failure to identify the adequate dialectical relationship between ontological totality and anthropological specificity carries with it insoluble contradictions. In the first place it leads to postulating some fixed “human essence” as the philosopher's “original datum”, and consequently to the ultimate liquidation of all historicity (from Feuerbach to some recent theories of “structuralism”). Equally damaging is another contradiction which means that pseudo-historical and “anthropological” considerations are applied to the analysis of certain social phenomena whose comprehension would require a non-anthropomorphic – but of course dialectical – concept of causality. To give an example: no conceivable “anthropological hypothesis” could in the least help to understand the “natural laws” which govern the productive processes of capitalism in their long historical development; on the contrary, they could only lead to sheer mystifications. It might seem to be inconsistent with Marx's historical materialism when we are told in Capital that “The nature of capital is the same in its developed as in its undeveloped form”. (Some people might even use this passage in support of their interpretation of Marx's as a “structuralist” thinker.) A more careful reading would, however, reveal that, far from being inconsistent, Marx indicates here the ontological ground of a coherent historical theory. A later passage, in which he analyses capitalist production, makes this clearer:

“The principle which it [capitalism] pursued, of resolving each process into its constituent movements, without any regard to their possible execution by the hand of man, created the new modern science of technology. The varied, apparently unconnected, and petrified forms of the industrial processes now resolved themselves into so many conscious and systematic applications of natural science to the attainment of given useful effects. Technology also discovered the few main fundamental forms of motion, which, despite the diversity of the instruments used, are necessarily taken by every productive action of the human body...”

As we can see, the whole issue turns on understanding the natural basis (the general laws of causality, etc.) of specifically human historicity. Without an adequate grasp of this natural basis the “science of man” is simply inconceivable because everything gets ultimately dissolved into relativism. The “anthropological principle”, therefore, must be put in its proper place, within the general framework of a comprehensive historical ontology. In more precise terms, any such principle must be transcended in the direction of a complex dialectical social ontology.

If this is not achieved – if, that is, the anthropological principle remains narrowly anthropological – there can be no hope whatsoever of understanding a process, for instance, which is determined by its own laws of movement and imposes on human beings its own patterns of productive procedure “without any regard to their possible execution by the hand of man”. Similarly, nothing can be understood about the alienating “nature of capital” in terms of the fictitious postulates of an “egoistic human nature” so dear to the heart of the political economists. For the “sameness” of capital in both its “undeveloped” and “developed form” – a sameness which applies only to its “nature” and not to its form and mode of existence – must be explained in terms of the most comprehensive laws of a historical ontology founded on nature. The socially dominating role of capital in modern history is self-evident. But only the fundamental laws of social ontology can explain how it is possible that under certain conditions a given “nature” (the nature of capital) should unfold and fully realise itself – in accordance with its objective nature – by following its own inner laws of development, from its undeveloped form to its form of maturity, “without any regard to man”. Anthropological hypotheses, no matter how subtle, are a priori non-starters in this respect. Equally, a simple socio-historical hypothesis is of no use. For the issue at stake is precisely to explain what lies at the roots of historical development as its ultimate ground of determination, and therefore it would be sheer circularity to indicate the changing historical circumstances as the fundamental cause of development of capital itself. Capital, as everything else in existence, has – it goes without saying – its historical dimension. But this historical dimension is categorically different from an ontological substance.

What is absolutely essential is not to confound ontological continuity with some imaginary anthropological fixity. The ultimate ground of persistence of the problematics of alienation in the history of ideas, from its Judeo-Christian beginnings to its formulations by Marx's immediate predecessors, is the relative ontological continuity inherent in the unfolding of capital in accordance with its inner laws of growth from its “undeveloped” to its “developed form”. To turn this relative ontological continuity into some fictitious characteristic of “human nature” means that an elucidation of the actual processes which underlie these developments is a priori impossible. If, however, one realises that the ontological continuity in question concerns the “nature of capital”, it becomes possible to envisage a transcendence (Aufhebung) of alienation, provided that the issue is formulated as a radical ontological transformation of the social structure as a whole, and not confined to the partial measure of a political expropriation of capital (which is simply a necessary first step in the direction of the Marxian transcendence of alienation). Only if some basic conditions of an ontological transcendence are satisfied and to the extent to which they are so – i.e. insofar as there is an effective break in the objective ontological continuity of capital in its broadest Marxian sense – can we speak of a qualitatively new phase of development: the beginning of the “true history of mankind”. Without this ontological frame of reference there can be no consistent historical theory; only some form of historical relativism instead, devoid of an objective measure of advance and consequently prone to subjectivism and voluntarism, to the formulation of “Messianic programmes” coupled with an arbitrary anticipation of their realisation in the form of idealistic postulates.

Here we can clearly see the historical importance of the young Marx's discovery concerning the dialectical relationship between ontology and anthropology: it opened up the road to the elaboration of Marx's great theoretical synthesis and to the practical realisation of the revolutionary programmes based on it. His predecessors, as a rule, turned their limited ontological insights into elements of a curious mixture of anthropological-moral-ideological preaching. Henry Home (Lord Kames), for instance – not a negligible figure but one of the greatest representatives of the Scottish historical school of Enlightenment – wrote the following lines: “Activity is essential to a social being: to a selfish being it is of no use, after procuring the means of living. A selfish man, who by his opulence has all the luxuries of life at command, and dependents without number, has no occasion for activity. Hence it may fairly be inferred, that were man destined by providence to be entirely selfish, he would be disposed by his constitution to rest, and never would be active when he could avoid it. The natural activity of man, therefore, is to me evidence, that his Maker did not intend him to be purely a selfish being.” Since the social grounds of this criticism cannot be spelled out – because of the contradiction inherent in it, i.e. because of the “selfishness” necessarily associated with the social class represented by Henry Home – everything must remain abstract-anthropological; worse: even this abstract criticism in the end must be watered down by the terms “entirely” and “purely selfish”. A new form of conservatism appears on the horizon to take the place of the old one, appealing to the anthropological model of “Enlightened Man”: this “natural” realisation of Triumphant Reason. “Even those who are most prone to persecution, begin to hesitate. Reason, resuming her sovereign authority, will banish it [i.e. persecution] altogether . . . within the next century it will be thought strange, that persecution should have prevailed among social beings. It will perhaps even be doubted, whether it ever was seriously put into practice.” And again: “Reason at last prevailed, after much opposition: the absurdity of a whole nation being slaves to a weak mortal, remarkable perhaps for no valuable qualification, became apparent to all.” But the unhistorical and categorical criteria of “rational” and “absurd” rebound on this approach when it has to face some new problems. This is when its conservatism comes to the fore: “It was not difficult to foresee the consequences [of the general assault on the old order]: down fell the whole fabric, the sound parts with the infirm. And man now laugh currently at the absurd notions of their forefathers, without thinking either of being patriots, or of being good subjects." So just as much as one's own selfishness had to be distinguished from the “purely selfish” and “entirely selfish” behaviour of one's opponents, now the “legitimately” used criterion of “absurdity” has to be opposed to its “abuse” by those who carry it “too far”, endangering the “sound parts” of the “social fabric”. “Reason” is turned into a blank cheque, valid not only retrospectively but timelessly, sustaining the partial interest of its bearers, and destroying the earlier historical achievements. The insoluble dilemma of the whole movement of the Enlightenment is expressed in this mode of arguing, well before it assumes a dramatic political form in Burke's violent attacks on the French Revolution in the name of the continuity of the “sound social fabric”. A dilemma determined by the objective contradiction of subordinating the general interest to the partial interest of a social class.

Thus no sooner are the achievements of the Enlightenment realised than they are liquidated. Everything must fit the narrowly and ambiguously defined model of “Rational Man”. Only those aspects of alienation are recognised which can be classified as “alien to Reason”, with all the actual and potential arbitrariness involved in such an abstract criterion. Historicity reaches only as far as is compatible with the social position that requires these vague and abstract criteria as its ground of criticism, for the acknowledgment of human equality is, on the whole, confined to the abstract legal sphere. The same goes for the achievements in anthropology: old taboos are successfully attacked in the name of reason, but the understanding of the objective laws of movement, situating the specifically human factor within a dialectically grasped comprehensive natural framework, is hampered by the preconceived ideas expressed in the self-idealising model of “Rational Man”.

The reasons for this ultimate failure were very complex. Its ideological determinants, rooted in a social position dense with social contradictions that had to remain veiled from the thinkers concerned, have been mentioned already. Equally important was the fact that the underlying economic trends were still far from their point of maturity, which made it virtually impossible to gain an adequate insight into their real nature. (Marx could conceive his theory from the position of a qualitatively higher historical vantage point.) But the crucial point was that the philosophers of the Enlightenment could only take – at best – some tentative first steps in the direction of the elaboration of a dialectical method but were unable to grasp the fundamental laws of a materialist dialectic: their social and historical position prevented them from doing so. (On the other hand Hegel succeeded later in identifying the central concepts of dialectics, but in an “abstract, speculative, idealist fashion”.) This meant that they could not solve the dilemma inherent in historicised anthropology and anthropologically oriented history. For, paradoxically, history and anthropology helped one another up to a point, but turned into fetters for each other beyond that critical point. Only a materialist dialectic could have shown a way out of the impasse of this rigid opposition. For the want of such a dialectic, however, the historical principle was either dissolved into the pseudo-historicity of some repetitive cycle, or tended towards its own absolutisation in the form of historical relativism. The only possible solution which could have transcended both the “anthropological principle” and relativistic “historicism” would have been a synthesis of history and anthropology in the form of a comprehensive, materialist, dialectical ontology – having the concept of “self-developing human labour” (or “man's establishment of himself by practical activity”) for its centre of reference. The revolutionising idea of such a synthesis, however, did not appear in the history of human thought before the sketching of Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.

4. The End of “Uncritical Positivism”

The middle of the eighteenth century marked a turning point in the various approaches to the problems of alienation. As the contradictions of the emerging new society started to become more visible, the earlier “uncritical positivism” that characterised not only the school of “Natural Law” but also the first classics of Political Economy, ran into insurmountable difficulties. In the previous period the concept of alienation has been used in regard to socio-economic and political phenomena in a thoroughly positive sense, insisting on the desirability of the alienation of land, political power, etc., on the positivity of “profit upon alienation”, on the rightfulness of procuring interest without alienating capital, on selling one's labour, on reifying one's person, and so on. This one-sided positivism could not be maintained, however, once the crippling effects of the capitalistic mode of production based on the general diffusion of alienation started to erupt also in the form of social unrest that did not shy away from the violent destruction of the much glorified and idealised “rational” machinery of increasingly larger scale manufacture.

The crisis in the middle of the eighteenth century which brought into life the various critical theories was not, it goes without saying, an internal crisis of rising capitalism. It was, rather, a social crisis caused by a drastic transition from the antiquated feudal-artisan mode of production to a new one which was very far indeed from reaching the limits of its productive capabilities. This explains the essentially uncritical attitude towards the central categories of the new economic system even in the writings of those who criticised the social and cultural aspects of capitalistic alienation. Later on, when the inherent connection between the social and cultural manifestations of alienation and the economic system became more evident, criticism tended to diminish, instead of being intensified. The bourgeoisie which in the writings of its best representatives subjected some vital aspects of its own society to a devastating criticism, could not go, of course, as far as extending this criticism to the totality of capitalistic society. The social standpoint of criticism had to be radically changed first for that and, as we all know, a century had to elapse before this radical reorientation of social criticism could be accomplished.

There is no space here for a detailed systematic survey of the rise of social criticism. Our attention, again, must be confined to a few central figures who played an important role in identifying the problematics of alienation before Marx. We have already seen Diderot's achievements in this respect. His contemporary, Rousseau was equally important, though in a very different way. Rousseau's system is dense with contradictions, more so perhaps than any other in the whole movement of the Enlightenment. He himself warns us often enough that we should not draw premature conclusions from his statements, before carefully considering, that is, all the facets of his complex arguments. Indeed an attentive reading amply confirms that he did not exaggerate about the complexities. But this is not the full story. His complaints about being systematically misunderstood were only partially justified. One-sided though his critics may have been in their reading of his texts (containing as they did numerous qualifications that were often ignored), the fact remains that no reading whatsoever, however careful and sympathetic, could eliminate the inherent contradictions of his system. (Needless to say; we are not talking about logical contradictions. The formal consistency of Rousseau's thought is as impeccable as that of any great philosopher's, considering the non-abstract character of his terms of analysis. The contradictions are in the social substance of his thought, as we shall see in a moment. In other words, they are necessary contradictions, inherent in the very nature of a great philosopher's socially and historically limited standpoint.)

There are very few philosophers before Marx who would stand a comparison with Rousseau in social radicalism. He writes in his Discourse on Political Economy – in a passage he later repeats, stressing its central importance, in one of his Dialogues – that the advantages of the “social confederacy” are heavily weighed down on the side of the rich, against the poor:

“for this [the social confederacy] provides a powerful protection for the immense possessions of the rich, and hardly leaves the poor man in quiet possession of the cottage he builds with his own hands. Are not all the advantages of society for the rich and powerful? Are not all lucrative posts in their hands? Are not all privileges and exemptions reserved for them alone? Is not the public authority always on their side? If a man of eminence robs his creditors, or is guilty of other knaveries, is he not always assured of impunity? Are not the assaults, acts of violence, assassinations, and even murders committed by the great, matters that are hushed up in a few months, and of which nothing more is thought? But if a great man himself is robbed or insulted, the whole police force is immediately in motion, and woe even to innocent persons who chance to be suspected. If he has to pass through any dangerous road, the country is up in arms to escort him. If the axle-tree of his chaise breaks, everybody flies to his assistance. If there is a noise at his door, he speaks but a word, and all is silent. . . . Yet all this respect costs him not a farthing: it is the rich man's right, and not what he buys with his wealth. How different is the case of the poor man! The more humanity owes him, the more society denies him ... he always bears the burden which his richer neighbour has influence enough to get exempted from . . . all gratuitous assistance is denied to the poor when they need it, just because they cannot pay for it. I look upon any poor man as totally undone, if he has the misfortune to have an honest heart, a fine daughter and a powerful neighbour. Another no less important fact is that the losses of the poor are much harder to repair than these of the rich, and that the difficulty of acquisition is always greater in proportion as there is more need for it. 'Nothing comes out of nothing', is as true of life as in physics: money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million.... The terms of the social compact between these two estates of man may be summed up in a few words: 'You have need of me, because I am rich and you are poor. We will therefore come to an agreement. I will permit you to have the honour of serving me, on condition that you bestow on me the little you have left, in return for the pains I shall take to command you.'

If this is the case, it cannot be surprising that the menacing shadow of an inevitable revolution appears in Rousseau's thought:

“Most peoples, like most men, are docile only in youth; as they grow old they become incorrigible. When once customs have become established and prejudices inveterate, it is dangerous and useless to attempt their reformation; the people, like the foolish and cowardly patients who rave at sight of the doctor, can no longer bear that any one should lay hands on its faults to remedy them. There are indeed times in the history of States when, just as some kinds of illness turn men's heads and make them forget the past, periods of violence and revolutions do to people what these crises do to individuals: horror of the past takes the place of forgetfulness, and the State, set on fire by civil wars, was born again, so to speak, from its ashes, and takes on anew, fresh from the jaws of death, the vigour of youth. .. The empire of Russia will aspire to conquer Europe, and will itself be conquered. The Tartars, its subjects or neighbours, will become its masters and ours, by a revolution which I regard as inevitable. Indeed, all the kings of Europe are working in concert to hasten its coming.”

Yet the same Rousseau also asserts, talking about himself, in his Third Dialogue, that “he always insisted on the preservation of the existing institutions”. And when he sets out the terms of his educational experiment, he writes: “The poor man has no need of education. The education of his own station is forced upon him, he can have no other; the education received by the rich man from his own station is least fitted for himself and for society. Moreover, a natural education should fit a man for any position. ... Let us choose our scholar among the rich; we shall at least have made another man; the poor may come to manhood without our help. (Accordingly, in the utopian community of his Nouvelle Héloîse there is no education for the poor.) The idealisation of nature thus, paradoxically, turned into an idealisation of the poor man's wretched conditions: the established order is left unchallenged; the poor man's subjection to the well-to-do is maintained, even if the mode of “commanding” becomes more “enlightened”. Thus in the end Rousseau is justified in his assertion about his insistence “on the preservation of the existing institutions”, notwithstanding his statements about social injustice and on the inevitability of a violent revolution.

But this idealisation of nature is not some intellectual “original cause. It is the expression of a contradiction unknown to the philosopher himself, carrying with it a stalemate, a static conception in the last analysis: a purely imaginary transference of the problems perceived in society onto the plane of the moral “ought” which envisages their solution in terms of a “moral education” of men. The fundamental contradiction in Rousseau's thought lies in his incommensurably sharp perception of the phenomena of alienation and the glorification of their ultimate cause. This is what turns his philosophy in the end into a monumental moral sermon that reconciles all contradictions in the ideality of the moral sphere. (Indeed the more drastic the cleavage between ideality and reality, the more evident it becomes to the philosopher that moral “ought” is the only way of coping with it. In this respect – as in so many others as well – Rousseau exercises the greatest influence on Kant, anticipating, not in words but in general conception, Kant's principle of the “primacy of Practical Reason”.)

Rousseau denounces alienation in many of its manifestations:

(1) He insists – in opposition to the traditional approaches to the “Social Contract” – that man cannot alienate his freedom. For “to alienate is to give or to sell . . . but for what does a people sell itself? ... Even if each man could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children: they are born man and free; their liberty belongs to them, and no one but they has the right to dispose of it.” (Moreover, he qualifies this statement by adding that there can be only one rightful way of disposing of one's inalienable right to liberty: “each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody” and therefore “in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assembly contains voters, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life, and its will”. Which means, in Rousseau's eyes, that the individual has not lost anything by contracting out of his “natural liberty”; on the contrary, he gains “civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses”. Furthermore, man also “acquires in the civil state, moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty.” As we can see, the argument progresses from reality to morality. By the time we reach the point of the Social Contract, we are confronted in the shape of the much idealised “assembly” – with a “moral construction.” The collective “moral body”, its “unity and common identity” etc., are moral postulates of a would-be legitimation of the bourgeois system. The moral construction of the “assembly” is necessary precisely because Rousseau cannot envisage any real (i.e. effective material) solution to the underlying contradictions, apart from appealing to the idea of an “obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves” in the general political framework of the “assembly” which radically transcends, in an ideal fashion, the “bad reality” of the established order while leaving it intact in reality.

(2) A corollary of the previous point is the insistence on the inalienability and indivisibility of Sovereignty. According to Rousseau Sovereignty “being nothing less than the exercise of the general will, can never be alienated, and the Sovereign, who is no less than a collective being, cannot be represented except by himself”. Again it is clear that we are confronted with a moral postulate generated in Rousseau's system by the recognition that “the particular will tends, by its very nature, to partiality, while the general will tends to equality”, and by the philosopher's inability to envisage a solution in any other terms than those of a moral “ought”. For while the particular will's tendency towards partiality is an ontological reality, the “general will's tendency to equality” is, in the given historical situation, a mere postulate. And only a further moral postulate can “transcend” the contradiction between the actual, ontological “is” and the moral “ought” of an equality inherent in the “general will”. (Of course in Rousseau's structure of thought this insoluble contradiction is hidden beneath the self-evidence of a dual tautology, namely that “the particular will is partial” and “the general will is universal”. Rousseau's greatness, however, breaks through the crust of this dual tautology paradoxically by defining “universality” – in an apparently inconsistent form – as “equality”. The same “inconsistency” is retained by Kant, mutatis mutandis, in his criterion of moral universality.)

(3) A constantly recurring theme of Rousseau's thought is man's alienation from nature. This is a fundamental synthesising idea in Rousseau's system, a focal point of his social criticism, and has many aspects. Let us briefly sum up its crucial points.

(a) “Everything is good when it leaves the hands of the Creator of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man” writes Rousseau in the opening sentence of Emile. It is civilisation which corrupts man, separating him from nature, and introducing “from outside” all the vices which are “alien to man's constitution”. The result is the destruction of the “original goodness of man”.

(b) In this development – away from nature by means of the vehicle of civilisation – we can see a “rapid march towards the perfection of society and towards the deterioration of the species,” i.e. this alienated form of development is characterised by the grave contradiction between society and the human species.

(c) Man is dominated by his institutions to such an extent that the sort of life he leads under the conditions of institutionalisation cannot be called by any other name than slavery : “Civilised man is born into slavery and he lives and dies in it: ... he is in the chains of our institutions.”

(d) Vice and evil flourish in large towns and the only possible antidote to this alienation, country life, is increasingly under the dominion of the big towns: “industry and commerce draw all the money from the country into the capitals ... the richer the city the poorer the country.” Thus the dynamic vehicles of capitalistic alienation – industry and commerce – bring under their spell nature and country life, ever intensifying the contradiction between town and country.

(e) The acquisition of artificial needs and the forced growth of “useless desires” characterises the life of both the individuals and the modern State. “If we ask how the needs of a State grow, we shall find they generally arise, like the wants of individuals, less from any real necessity than from the increase of useless desires.” Corruption in this sense starts at an early age. The natural impulses and passions of the child are suppressed and replaced by artificial modes of behaviour. The result is the production of an “artificial being” in place of the natural, “original” human being.

As we can see, in all these points the penetrating diagnosis of prevailing social trends is mixed with an idealisation of nature as the necessary premise of the Rousseauian form of criticism. We shall return to the complex determinants of this approach in a moment.

(4) In his denunciation of the roots of alienation, Rousseau attributes to money and wealth the principal responsibility “in this century of calculators”. He insists that one should not alienate oneself by selling oneself, because this means turning the human person into a mercenary. We have already seen that according to Rousseau “to alienate is to give or to sell”. Under certain special conditions – e.g. in a patriotic war when one is involved in defending one's own country – it is permissible to alienate oneself in the form of giving one's life for a noble purpose, but it is absolutely forbidden to alienate oneself in the form of selling oneself: “for all the victories of the early Romans, like those of Alexander, had been won by brave citizens, who were ready, at need, to give their blood in the service of their country, but would never sell it.” In accordance with this principle Rousseau insists that the first and absolute condition of an adequate form of education is that the laws of the market should not apply to it. The good tutor is someone who is “not a man for sale” and he is opposed to the prevailing practice that assigns the vitally important function of education “to mercenaries”. Human relations at all levels, including the intercourse of nations with each other, are subordinated to the only criterion of deriving profit from the other, and consequently they are impoverished beyond recognition: “Once they know the profit they can derive from each other, what else would they be interested in?”

As we can see even from this inevitably summary account, Rousseau's eye for the manifold phenomena of alienation and dehumanisation is as sharp as no one else's before Marx. The same cannot be said, however, of his understanding of the causes of alienation. In order to explain this paradox we have now to turn our attention. To questions that directly concern the historical novelty of his philosophical answers as well as their limitations. In other words, we have to ask what made possible Rousseau's great positive achievements and which factors determined the illusory character of many of his answers and suggestions.

As we have seen in the previous section, the philosophers' concept of equality was indicative, in the age of the Enlightenment, of the measure of their achievements as regards both a greater historical concreteness and a more adequate understanding of the problematics of alienation. The validity of this general point is clearly displayed in Rousseau's writing. His concept of equality is uncompromisingly radical for his age. He writes in a footnote to The Social Contract: “Under bad governments, this equality is only apparent and illusory; it serves only to keep the pauper in his poverty and the rich man in the position he has usurped. In fact, laws are always of use to those who possess and harmful to those who have nothing: from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all have something and none too much.

Since, however, the actual social relations stand, as Rousseau himself recognises, in a hostile opposition to his principle of equality, the latter has to be turned into a mere moral postulate “on which the whole social system should rest”. In a categorical opposition to the actual state of affairs Rousseau stipulates that “the fundamental compact substitutes, for such physical inequality as nature may have set up between men, an equality that is moral and legitimate, and that men, who may be unequal in strength or intelligence, become every one equal by convention and legal right”. Thus the terms of transcendence are abstract. There does not appear on the horizon a material force capable of superseding the relations in which the pauper is kept “in his poverty and the rich man in the position he has usurped”. Only a vague reference is made to the desirability of a system in which “all have something and none too much”, but Rousseau has no idea how it could be brought into being. This is why everything must be left to the power of ideas, to “education” above all: “moral education” – and to the advocacy of a legal system which presupposes in fact the effective diffusion of Rousseau's moral ideals. And when Rousseau, being the great philosopher he is who does not evade the fundamental issues even if they underline the problematic character of his whole approach, asks the question “how can one adequately educate the educator”, he confesses in all sincerity that he does not know the answer. But he emphasises that the characteristics of the good educator ought to be determined by the nature of the functions he ought to fulfil. Thus, again and again, Rousseau's analysis turns out to be an uncompromising reassertion of his radical moral postulates.

However uncompromising is Rousseau's moral radicalism, the fact that his concept of equality is basically a moral-legal concept, devoid of references to a clearly identifiable system of social relations as its material counterpart (the vision of a system in which “all have something and none too much” is not only hopelessly vague but also far from being egalitarian) carries with it the abstract and often rhetorical character of his denunciation of alienation. Thus we can see that while his grasp of the necessity of equality enables him to open many a door that remained closed before him, the limitations of his concept of equality prevent him from pursuing his enquiry to a conclusion that would carry with it the most radical social negation of the whole system of inequalities and dehumanising alienations, in place of the abstract moral radicalism expressed in his postulates.

The same point applies to the role of anthropological references in Rousseau's system. As we have seen, his conception of “healthy man” as a model of social development enables him to treat revolution as the only possible “reinvigorating force” of society under certain conditions. But such an idea is totally inadequate to explain the complexities of the historical situations in which revolutions occur. This we can see from the continuation of Rousseau's analysis of revolutions: “But such events are rare; they are exceptions, the cause of which is always to be found in the particular constitution of the State concerned. They cannot even happen twice to the same people, for it can make itself free as long as it remains barbarous, but not when the civic impulse has lost its vigour. Then disturbances may destroy it, but revolutions cannot mend it: it needs a master, not a liberator. Free peoples, be mindful of this maxim: 'Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered'.” The anthropological model, therefore, paradoxically helps to nullify Rousseau's insight into the nature of social development, by confining revolutions in the analogy of man's cycle of life – to a non-repeatable historical phase. Again it is clear that the ultimate reference is to the sphere of the moral “ought”: the whole point about violence and revolutions is made in order to shake men out of their callous indifference so that (“by becoming mindful of his maxim”) they can save themselves from the fate of “disturbances and destruction”.

But all this does not quite explain Rousseau's system of ideas. It simply shows why – given his concept of equality as well as his anthropological model of social development – Rousseau cannot go beyond a certain point in his understanding of the problematics of alienation. The ultimate premises of his system are: his assumption of private property as the sacred foundation of civil society on the one hand, and the “middle condition” as the only adequate form of distribution of property on the other. He writes: “It is certain that the right of property is the most sacred of all the rights of citizenship, and even more important in some respects than liberty itself; . . . property is the true foundation of civil society, and the real guarantee of the undertakings of citizens: for if property were not answerable for personal actions, nothing would be easier than to evade duties and laugh at the laws.” And again: “the general administration is established only to secure individual property, which is antecedent to it.” As to the “middle condition”, according to Rousseau it “constitutes the genuine strength of the State.” (Also, we ought to remember in this connection his insistence that “all ought to have something and none too much”, as well as his thundering against the “big towns” which undermine the type of property relations he idealises in many of his writings.) His justification for maintaining this type of private property is that “nothing is more fatal to morality and to the Republic than the continual shifting of rank and fortune among the citizens: such changes are both the proof and the source of a thousand disorders, and overturn and confound everything; for those who were brought up to one thing find themselves destined for another”. And he dismisses in a most passionate tone of voice the very idea of abolishing “mine” and “yours”: “Must meum and tuum be annihilated, and must we return again to the forests to live among bears? This is a deduction in the manner of my adversaries, which I would as soon anticipate as let them have the shame of drawing.”

These ultimate premises of Rousseau's thought determine the concrete articulation of his system and set the limits to his understanding of the problematics of alienation. He recognises that law is made for the protection of private property and that everything else in the order of “civil society” – including “civil liberty” – rests on such foundation. Since, however, he cannot go beyond the horizon of this idealised civil society, he must maintain not only that law is made for the benefit of private property but also that private property is made for the benefit of the law as its sole guarantee. Thus the circle is irrevocably closed; there can be no escape from it. Only those features of alienation can be noticed which are in agreement with the ultimate premises of Rousseau's system. Since private property is taken for granted as the absolute condition of civilised life, only its form of distribution is allowed to be queried, the complex problematics of alienation cannot be grasped at its roots but only in some of its manifestations. As to the question: which of the multifarious manifestations of alienation are identified by Rousseau, the answer is to be sought in the specific form of private property he idealises.

Thus he denounces, for instance, the corruption, dehumanisation, and alienation involved in the cult of money and wealth, but he grasps only the subjective side of the problem. He insists, rather naively, that the wealth which is being produced is “apparent and illusory; a lot of money and little effect”. Thus he displays no real understanding of the immense objective power of money in the “civil society” of expanding capitalism. His dissent from the alienated manifestations of this power is confined to noticing its subjective effects which he believes to be able to neutralise or counteract by means of the moral education he passionately advocates. The same goes for his conception of the “social contract”. He repeatedly stresses the importance of offering a “fair exchange” and an “advantageous exchange” to the people involved. The fact that human relations in a society based on the institution of “exchange” cannot conceivably be “fair” and “advantageous” to all, must remain hidden from Rousseau. In the end what is considered to be “fair” is the maintenance of a hierarchical system, a “social order” in which “all places are marked for some people, and every man must be educated for his own place. If a particular person, educated for a certain place, leaves it, he is good for nothing.”

What Rousseau opposes is not the alienating power of money and property as such, but a particular mode of their realisation in the form of the concentration of wealth and all that goes with social mobility produced by the dynamism of expanding and concentrating capital. He rejects the effects but gives his full support, even if unknowingly, to their causes. Since his discourse, because of the ultimate premises of his system, must be confined to the sphere of effects and manifestations, it must become sentimental, rhetorical and, above all, moralising. The various manifestations of alienation he perceives must be opposed in such a discourse – which necessarily abstracts from the investigation of the ultimate causal determinants – at the level of mere moral postulates: the acceptance of the system of “meum and tuum” together with its corollaries leaves no alternative to this. And precisely because he is operating from the standpoint of the same material base of society whose manifestations he denounces – the social order of private property and “fair and advantageous exchange” – the terms of his social criticism must be intensely and abstractly moralising. Capitalistic alienation as perceived by Rousseau in its particular manifestations – those, that is, which are harmful to the “middle condition” – is considered by him contingent, not necessary, and his radical moral discourse is supposed to provide, the non-contingent alternative so that the people, enlightened by his unmasking of all that is merely “apparent and illusory”, would turn their back on the artificial and alienated practices of social life.

These moralising illusions of Rousseau's system, rooted in the idealisation of a way of life allegedly appropriate to the “middle condition” in opposition to the actuality of dynamically advancing and universally alienating large-scale capitalistic production, are necessary illusions. For if the critical enquiry is confined to devising alternatives to the dehumanising effects of a given system of production while leaving its basic premises unchallenged, there remains nothing but the weapon of a moralising-“educational” appeal to individuals. Such an appeal directly invites them to oppose the trends denounced, to resist “corruption”, to give up “calculating”, to show “moderation”, to resist the temptations of “illusory wealth”, to follow the “natural course”, to restrict their “useless desires”, to stop “chasing profit”, to refuse “selling themselves”, etc., etc. Whether or not they can do all this, is a different matter; in any case they ought to do it. (Kant is truer to the spirit of Rousseau's philosophy than anyone else when he “resolves” its contradictions by asserting with abstract but bold moral radicalism: “ought implies can”.) To free the critique of alienation from its abstract and “ought-ridden” character, to grasp these trends in their objective ontological reality and not merely in their subjective reflections in the psychology of individuals, would have required a new social standpoint: one free from the paralysing weight of Rousseau's ultimate premises. Such a radically new socio-historical standpoint was, however, clearly unthinkable in Rousseau's time.

But no matter how problematic are Rousseau's solutions, his approach dramatically announces the inevitable end of the earlier generally prevailing “uncritical positivism”. Helped by his standpoint rooted in the rapidly disintegrating “middle condition” at a time of great historical transformation, he powerfully highlights the various manifestations of capitalistic alienation, raising alarm about their extension over all spheres of human life, even if he is unable to identify their causes. Those who come after him cannot ignore or sidestep his diagnoses, though their attitude is often very different from his. Both for his own achievements in grasping many facets of the problematics of alienation and for the great influence of his views on subsequent thinkers Rousseau's historical importance cannot be sufficiently stressed.

There is no space here to follow in any detail the intellectual history of the concept of alienation after Rousseau. We must confine ourselves to a very brief survey of the main phases of development leading to Marx.

The historical succession of these phases can be described as follows:

1. The formulation of a critique of alienation within the framework of general moral postulates (from Rousseau to Schiller).

2. The assertion of a necessary supersession of capitalistic alienation, accomplished speculatively (“Aufhebung” = “a second alienation of human existence = an alienation of alienated existence”) i.e. a merely imaginary transcendence of alienation), maintaining an uncritical attitude towards the actual material foundations of society (Hegel).

3. The assertion of the historical supersession of capitalism by socialism expressed in the form of moral postulates intermingled with elements of a realistic critical assessment of the specific contradictions of the established social order (the Utopian Socialists).

The moralising approach to the dehumanising effects of alienation seen in Rousseau persists, on the whole, throughout the eighteenth century. Rousseau's idea of “moral education” is taken up by Kant and is carried, with great consistency, to its logical conclusion and to its highest point of generalisation. Towards the end of the century, however, the sharpening of social contradictions, coupled with the irresistible advancement of capitalistic “rationality”, bring out into the open the problematic character of a direct appeal to the “voice of conscience” advocated by the propounders of “moral education”. Schiller's efforts at formulating his principles of an “aesthetic education” – which is supposed to be more effective as a floodgate against the rising tide of alienation than a direct moral appeal – reflect this new situation, with its ever intensifying human crisis.

Hegel represents a qualitatively different approach, insofar as he displays a profound insight into the fundamental laws of capitalistic society. We shall discuss Hegel's philosophy and its relation to Marx's achievements in various contexts. At this point let us briefly deal with the central paradox of the Hegelian approach. Namely that while an understanding of the necessity of a supersession of the capitalistic processes is in the foreground of Hegel's thought, Marx finds it imperative to condemn his “uncritical positivism”, with full justification, needless to say. The moralising criticism of alienation is fully superseded in Hegel. He approaches the question of a transcendence of alienation not as a matter of moral “ought” but as that of an inner necessity. In other words the idea of an “Aufhebung” of alienation ceases to be a moral postulate: it is considered as a necessity inherent in the dialectical process as such. (In accordance with this feature of Hegel's philosophy we find that his conception of equality has for its centre of reference the realm of “is”, not that of a moral-legal “ought”. His “epistemological democratism” – i.e. his assertion according to which all men are actually capable of achieving true knowledge, provided that they approach the task in terms of the categories of the Hegelian dialectic, is an essential constituent of his inherently historical conception of philosophy. No wonder, therefore, that later the radically ahistorical Kierkegaard denounces, with aristocratic contempt, this “omnibus” of a philosophical understanding of the historical processes.) However, since the socio-economic contradictions themselves are turned by Hegel into “thought-entities”, the necessary “Aufhebung” of the contradictions manifest in the dialectical process is in the last analysis nothing but a merely conceptual (“abstract, logical, speculative”) supersession of these contradictions which leaves the actuality of capitalist alienation completely unchallenged. This is why Marx has to speak of Hegel's “uncritical positivism”. Hegel's standpoint always remains a bourgeois standpoint. But it is far from being an unproblematical one. On the contrary, the Hegelian philosophy as a whole displays in the most graphic way the gravely problematic character of the world to which the philosopher himself belongs. The contradictions of that world transpire through his categories, despite their “abstract, logical speculative” character, and the message of the necessity of a transcendence counteracts the illusory terms in which such a transcendence is envisaged by Hegel himself. In this sense his philosophy as a whole is a vital step in the direction of a proper understanding of the roots of capitalistic alienation.

In the writings of the Utopian Socialists there is an attempt at changing the social standpoint of criticism. With the working class a new social force appears on the horizon and the Utopian Socialists as critics of capitalistic alienation try to reassess the relation of forces from a viewpoint which allows them to take into account the existence of this new social force. And yet, their approach objectively remains, on the whole, within the limits of the bourgeois horizon, though of course subjectively the representatives of Utopian Socialism negate some essential features of capitalism. They can only project a supersession of the established order of society by a socialist system of relations in the form of a largely imaginary model, or as a moral postulate, rather than an ontological necessity inherent in the contradictions of the existing structure of society. (Characteristically enough: educational utopias, oriented towards the “workman”, form an essential part of the conception of Utopian Socialists.) What makes their work of an enormous value is the fact that their criticism is directed towards clearly identifiable material factors of social life. Although they do not have a comprehensive assessment of the established social structures, their criticism of some vitally important social phenomena – from a critique of the modern State to the analysis of commodity production and of the role of money greatly contributes to a radical reorientation of the critique of alienation. This criticism, however, remains partial. Even when it is oriented towards the “workman”, the proletarian social position appears in it only as a directly given sociological immediacy and as a mere negation. Thus the Utopian critique of capitalist alienation remains – however paradoxical this may sound – within the orbit of capitalistic partiality which it negates from a partial standpoint. Because of the inescapable partiality of the critical standpoint the element of “ought”, again, assumes the function of constructing “totalities” both negatively – i.e. by producing the overall object of criticism in want of an adequate comprehension of the structures of capitalism – and positively, by providing the utopian counter examples to the negative denunciations.

And this is the point where we come to Marx. For the central feature of Marx's theory of alienation is the assertion of the historically necessary supersession of capitalism by socialism freed from all the abstract moral postulates which we can find in the writings of his immediate predecessors. The ground of his assertion was not simply the recognition of the unbearable dehumanising effects of alienation – though of course subjectively that played a very important part in the formation of Marx's thought – but the profound understanding of the objective ontological foundation of the processes that remained veiled from his predecessors. The “secret” of this elaboration of the Marxian theory of alienation was spelled out by Marx himself when he wrote in his Grundrisse:

“this process of objectification appears in fact as a process of alienation from the standpoint of labour and as appropriation of alien labour from the standpoint of capital.”

The fundamental determinants of capitalistic alienation, then, had to remain hidden from all those who associated themselves knowingly or unconsciously, in one form or in another – with “the standpoint of capital”.

A radical shift of the standpoint of social criticism was a necessary condition of success in this respect. Such a shift involved the critical adoption of the standpoint of labour from which the capitalistic process of objectification could appear as a process of alienation. (In the writings of thinkers before Marx, by contrast, “objectification” and “alienation” remained hopelessly entangled with one another.)

But it is vitally important to stress that this adoption of labour's standpoint had to be a critical one. For a simple, uncritical identification with the standpoint of labour – one that saw alienation only, ignoring both the objectification involved in it, as well as the fact that this form of alienating-objectification was a necessary phase in the historical development of the objective ontological conditions of labour – would have meant hopeless subjectivity and partiality.

The universality of Marx's vision became possible because he succeeded in identifying the problematics of alienation, from a critically adopted standpoint of labour, in its complex ontological totality characterised by the terms “objectification”, “alienation”, and “appropriation”. This critical adoption of the standpoint of labour meant a conception of the proletariat not simply as a sociological force diametrically opposed to the standpoint of capital – and thus remaining in the latter's orbit – but as a self-transcending historical force which cannot help superseding alienation (i.e. the historically given form of objectification) in the process of realising its own immediate ends that happen to coincide with the “reappropriation of the human essence”.

Thus the historical novelty of Marx's theory of alienation in relation to the conceptions of his predecessors can be summed up in a preliminary way as follows:

1. the terms of reference of his theory are not the categories of “Sollen” (ought), but those of necessity (“is”) inherent in the objective ontological foundations of human life;

2. its point of view is not that of some utopian partiality but the universality of the critically adopted standpoint of labour;

3. its framework of criticism is not some abstract (Hegelian) “speculative totality”, but the concrete totality of dynamically developing society perceived from the material basis of the proletariat as a necessarily self-transcending (“universal”) historical force.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/works/alien/meszaro1.htm

[S.Artesian]

I thought I made it clear that Marx is using it, the word contradiction, in an "unusual" sense, and that distinction is in the historical process. Wage-labor and capital are created in, and re-create, the separation, the opposition of labor from and to the conditions of labor. Each, wage-labor and capital, exists only through the organization of the other.


This separation and opposition forms the touchstone, the home base, to which Marx constantly returns, reiterates, in his analysis of the development of capitalism, of accumulation.


_________

On another issue, since I'm committed to being civil [relatively, of course],I think the passage you reproduce from István Mészáros is very interesting [And it took me back to those bad old days of 40 years ago. I remember some friends of mine writing me, all excited about this work. I was, however, a bit busy at the time, and never got around to reading the book].

Mészáros clearly awards Hegel a special place in the history of the analysis of "alienation," a fundamentally different approach, almost a "calculus" of capitalism in his [Hegel's] investigation.

And Mészáros makes it clear that Marx's breakthrough in the consideration of alienation is in the analysis of the labor process-- kind of my point of emphasis in all this.


This evaluation by Mészáros corresponds pretty well with Marx's evaluation of Hegel as being the first to provide a comprehensive, conscious expression of dialectics; of Hegel's dialectic being the basic form of the dialectic.

[A.R.Amistad]

Now, imagine someone who thinks that chess pieces have lives of their own and begins to ask questions about them. For example: "Who performed the marriage ceremony between the King and the Queen?" Or, "I wonder who built the castle -- and did they get planning permission?" Or, "Can there be off-side in chess, perhaps in a different reality?"


So, human beings are analogous to chess pieces? Again, how is this not fatalism? And how is it not philosophy?

See, this is what worries me. Human Beings are nothing like chesspeices. So the questions you pose can't be "psuedo-questions," (which also, to me, makes no sense because any question, good, bad, pseudo or legitamite is a question nonetheless, so dismissing it as "pseudo" just seems like a cop-out for not being able to give a straight answer.) Chess paieces are created by a creator (a subject, to be precise) and have a set essence to them. Chess peices cannot make decisions. Hell, they lack any sign of life whatsoever. So, unless one is a fatalist or someone who believes "God put us here for a reason (or no reason)" 1. it is still philosophy that you are engaging in and 2. you are making what i believe is a very dangerous comparison of objects to subject-objects, to human beings with real lives, etc.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


I thought I made it clear that Marx is using it, the word contradiction, in an "unusual" sense, and that distinction is in the historical process. Wage-labor and capital are created in, and re-create, the separation, the opposition of labor from and to the conditions of labor. Each, wage-labor and capital, exists only through the organization of the other.

This separation and opposition forms the touchstone, the home base, to which Marx constantly returns, reiterates, in his analysis of the development of capitalism, of accumulation.

Then why use this word? It relates neither to Hegel's misuse of it nor to that employed by logicians, nor yet how we use it in ordinary language.

And even the way you use it makes little sense, since your phrases say nothing -- as I noted, they can neither be true nor false. You have to turn them into clauses for that. And as soon as you do that, you lose the equal sign that began the whole affair.

What possible rationale is there then for this odd use of this word?

Well, as I have pointed out before, the only possible rationale derives from Hegel's defective logic. There is no other reason to use this word (other than a slavish adherence to tradition -- or possibly because it allows Dialectical Marxists to rationalise anything they like and its opposite.)

So, you can see why I agree with Marx, that the only thing you can do with this word is 'coquette' with it.


On another issue, since I'm committed to being civil [relatively, of course],I think the passage you reproduce from István Mészáros is very interesting [And it took me back to those bad old days of 40 years ago. I remember some friends of mine writing me, all excited about this work. I was, however, a bit busy at the time, and never got around to reading the book].

Mészáros clearly awards Hegel a special place in the history of the analysis of "alienation," a fundamentally different approach, almost a "calculus" of capitalism in his [Hegel's] investigation.

And Mészáros makes it clear that Marx's breakthrough in the consideration of alienation is in the analysis of the labor process-- kind of my point of emphasis in all this.

This evaluation by Mészáros corresponds pretty well with Marx's evaluation of Hegel as being the first to provide a comprehensive, conscious expression of dialectics; of Hegel's dialectic being the basic form of the dialectic.

We have already seen that Marx does not say this -- and no wonder, as we have also seen, Kant was the first to do this -- about which fact Marx was well aware.

Of course, you and I agree about Meszaros, except I would remove all reference to Hegel (except to point out that that mystical idiot's work slowed Marx down).

Perhaps you missed this from earlier:


Here is a summary of Kant's Historical Materialism, written by Marxist philosopher Allen Wood (not to be confused with Alan Woods):


"Kant's historical conjectures are inspired less by Scripture than by the model of Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. But Kant's philosophy of history also goes beyond Rousseau in many ways.... As should be evident by now, Kant's theory of the human race's development bears more than a casual resemblance to the materialist conception of history later worked out by Karl Marx. Kant's vision of humanity's historical future as well as its past has more in common with its greatest nineteenth-century descendant than has usually been appreciated.

"Kant's Idea for a Universal History proposes to view history as the process through which human beings develop their species-capacities. As we have seen, for Kant the decisive trait of the human species -- the original empirical meaning of its rationality and freedom -- is its ability to devise its own way of life. Thus along with Marx, Kant understands the basis of history as the development of people's socially productive powers, their collective capacities to produce their means of subsistence. In history, these capacities change and grow, and the historical process follows on this growth. As becomes clear in the Conjectural Beginning [of Human History -- RL], history for Kant has passed through several different stages, each of which corresponds to the then dominant modes of productive activity. If the key to historical development is the growth of human species powers, the fundamental determining powers are productive ones. What fundamentally characterizes each historical epoch is not only the mode of material production characteristic of it, but also the social conflicts this mode of production involves....

"Like Marx, Kant regards history as a scene not only of conflict and strife, but also of deepening inequality and oppression.... As in Marx's theory of history, the root of social antagonism is a struggle between groups of people with opposed economic interests, where the different groups represent different stages in humanity's economic development. And in both theories the victory in this struggle tends to belong to the group whose mode of production more fully develops the productive powers of humanity.

"Marx's theory of history is 'materialist' in more than one sense. First, it treats 'the mode of production in material life' as the key to humanity's historical development. Second, and perhaps more significantly, it understands the social 'form' of human society as grounded on its economic 'matter'. Kant's theory of history is materialist in both these senses. It treats humanity's activities in producing their means of subsistence as the historical basis for the development of all their capacities.... And Kant regards the employment of these capacities as conditioning the social relations -- in particular, the property relations and political forms -- that characterise a given historical epoch. Kant's theory of history, therefore, is correctly described as a form of 'historical materialism.'" [Wood (1998), pp.25-27.]

Bold emphasis alone added.

Wood, A, (1998), 'Kant's Historical Materialism' in Kneller and Axinn, Chapter Five.

Kneller, J., and Axinn, S, (1998), Autonomy And Community: Readings In Contemporary Kantian Social Philosophy (State University of New York Press).

This is the 'rational core' (which appears in embryonic form in Aristotle, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Ferguson, Millar, Robertson, Smith, Hume and Stewart (see the above links), but more overtly in Kant) which Hegel appropriated, and then proceeded to mystify. So, no wonder Marx waved it 'goodbye'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

A R Amistad:


So, human beings are analogous to chess pieces? Again, how is this not fatalism? And how is it not philosophy?

Where on earth did you get that odd idea?

There is nothing in what I posted that even remotely suggests this -- except to someone the worse for drink.

[A.R.Amistad]

A R Amistad:



Where on earth did you get that odd idea?

There is nothing in what I posted that even remotely suggests this -- except to someone the worse for drink.

The explain to me in terms of human being what "pseudo questions" are

[Zanthorus]

So, human beings are analogous to chess pieces? Again, how is this not fatalism? And how is it not philosophy?

If you'd actually read the paragraph you quoted, you would've noticed that the chess pieces were supposed to be analogous to philosophical questions not human beings.

[S.Artesian]

Then why use this word? It relates neither to Hegel's misuse of it nor to that employed by logicians, nor yet how we use it in ordinary language.

Because that is how Marx used the word to describe the conflicts, antagonisms, oppositions of capitalism; because those conflicts, antagonisms, oppositions are inherent to the make-up, are the logic, the reason of capitalism-- reason being a historical process.


And even the way you use it makes little sense, since your phrases say nothing -- as I noted, they can neither be true nor false. You have to turn them into clauses for that. And as soon as you do that, you lose the equal sign that began the whole affair.You are stating that the historical process that creates capitalism, and that capital recreates in every phase of its reproduction, the separation or opposition of labor and the conditions of labor, "makes little sense." That's where I think your train derails.




We have already seen that Marx does not say this -- and no wonder, as we have also seen, Kant was the first to do this -- about which fact Marx was well aware. Marx does say exactly this-- about Hegel's dialectic being the basic dialectic in his correspondence. And while you have your own highly personalized and idiosyncratic interpretation of the passage in the afterward where Marx indicates that Hegel's idealism does not prevent him, Hegel, from being the first to give dialectics a comprehensive expression, Marx does say exactly that about Hegel.


Of course, you and I agree about Meszaros, except I would remove all reference to Hegel (except to point out that that mystical idiot's work slowed Marx down).Kind of hilarious no, since even in this passage Meszaros indicates how important Hegel is to Marx's work, and how Meszaros will be discussing this extensive importance throughout this work on Marx?

I think Meszaros is still alive. Maybe we should ask him what he thinks would be left of his work if we excised all references to Hegel.


Perhaps you missed this from earlier:Didn't miss it. I found it quite interesting. But Marx himself doesn't acknowledge a debt to, a connection with Kant's "materialism."

Marx, after all, writes his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right not Kant's Universal History as the overture to the development of his social materialism.

I like István, at least that part of it. And as soon as I get through with these 300 volumes or so I'm a little late in reading, I intend to settle down and read it.

And by the way, I don't use the word "contradiction" when analyzing capitalism, or at least I try to keep it to the bare minimum, since the word has been abused and pretty much emptied of all Marxist content. It's used like an incantation; a talisman; a magic amulet.

So if the point being made is that Marxists using the word contradiction in their analysis of capital distorts more than it illuminates; has an ideological purpose of anointing the analysis as the "correct" analysis not because of the content, the accuracy, the materiality of the analysis, but because it is the "official" published analysis of the Hegel-Marx Universitatus Absolutum, I quite agree.

Doesn't mean, however, that Marx didn't use the word, was only kidding when he used the word, or excised Hegel.

Which gets me back to the beginning-- Marx spends not too much time on the issue of distorted language because he Marx is going to demonstrate that the "undistorted language" is in fact in the labor process, in the analysis of the social organization of labor. Now if I had been able to formulate that conclusion sooner, maybe Chris and I wouldn't have slaughtered each other 5 times a day for 3 days and in public. But then, look how much entertainment value would have been lost to revleft.

Actually, I wouldn't have ever reached that conclusion about why Marx makes this rapid shift without having battled, and to be honest been a bit bloodied by, Chris.

[Zanthorus]

I think Meszaros is still alive.

He'd better be. If not someone should probably call the organisers of Marxism 2010 and tell them that the guy who was supposed to be giving a talk on alternatives to parliamentarianism won't be able to make it.

[A.R.Amistad]

If you'd actually read the paragraph you quoted, you would've noticed that the chess pieces were supposed to be analogous to philosophical questions not human beings.

But the analogy to the questions of the chess board still seems absurd because those questions are ridiculous only because the answer is obvious and was determined by a creator. But I adhere to the belief that human beings have no "creator." So the questions seem perfectly legit for human beings, not chess peices:


In fact, when we pose philosophical questions, language has already 'gone on holiday' (to quote Wittgenstein). Chris has illustrated this in relation to 'being', but this also applies to 'philosophical concepts' like 'mind', 'consciousness', 'cause', 'concept', 'idea', 'identity', 'difference', 'reality', 'existence', 'essence', 'appearance', 'determine', 'free will', and a host of other familiar terms-of-art.


All of which are questions about knowledge. Chess pieces don't posess or utilize the capacity for knowledge. People (i believe) do. As much as one plays with language, it seems like the questions are still there no matter what.

[S.Artesian]

He'd better be. If not someone should probably call the organisers of Marxism 2010 and tell them that the guy who was supposed to be giving a talk on alternatives to parliamentarianism won't be able to make it.


See? I can't keep up.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Because that is how Marx used the word to describe the conflicts, antagonisms, oppositions of capitalism; because those conflicts, antagonisms, oppositions are inherent to the make-up, are the logic, the reason of capitalism-- reason being a historical process.

1) Except he stopped doing this in Das Kapital, content merely to 'coquette' with it.

2) But, even if you are right, this means that you are continuing to use a word that has no rationale behind it, and are simply following tradition.


You are stating that the historical process that creates capitalism, and that capital recreates in every phase of its reproduction, the separation or opposition of labor and the conditions of labor, "makes little sense." That's where I think your train derails.

In fact, I was referring to your attempt to provide us with some sort of explanation of the rationale underlying the use of this word, from earlier:



S Artesian:


For Marx there is the critical component of history, of "becoming" as a material force. So that we get not contradiction where each facet always excludes the other,[ which I guess is contradiction A=not A], but rather , let's call it conflict [I'd say opposition, but as I remember similar conflicts JazzRemington over that word, let's avoid that too]. This conflict is where the origins of A-- wage-labor WL, and not A, not WL, Capital C are in the shared historical process, are different facets of the same identity.

But, you have failed to tell us what this "A" refers to. Is it a predicate letter? A name variable? A propositional variable? A phrase variable? Or what?

If it's a propositional variable (which it will have to be in order for your schema to be counted as a contradiction), then it cannot feature either side of an "=" sign. [The identity sign only takes names and other singular expressions as arguments. An explanation will be supplied on request.]

On the other hand, if these "A"s aren't propositions, then your schema isn't a contradiction.

Now, your own interpretation has an "A" as noun phrase "wage labour", so that your "A and not-A" becomes "Wage labour and not-wage labour". But his can neither be true nor false (since it contains no verb), hence it cannot be a contradiction.

If you now insert a verb, to obtain something like "F is wage labour and not wage labour" you will indeed have an example of a colloquial contradiction (where "F" is a singular expression (or demonstrative) variable of your choice, giving, say, "This is wage labour and it isn't wage labour"). But, in that case you will have lost your identity sign, and hence you are no further forward.

This is the brick wall that Hegel's 'theory' hit (except no one spotted it, since those who study Hegel seem to know no logic).

If this is an explanation you wish to advocate, then, as I said, your 'contradictions' say nothing (or you have to transform them from phrases into clauses, dropping the identity sign -- [I]undermining even that threadbare rationale). In order to make yourself understood, you find you have to supply us with an ordinary language explanation, from Historical Materialism.

The question, therfore, imposes itself upon us once more: why continue to use this word (when not even you can provide us with a coherent rationale for it), and when there are perfectly adequate words in ordinary language that will do the job for you, and far better (as your attempted explication implicitly concedes)?


Marx does say exactly this-- about Hegel's dialectic being the basic dialectic in his correspondence. And while you have your own highly personalized and idiosyncratic interpretation of the passage in the afterward where Marx indicates that Hegel's idealism does not prevent him, Hegel, from being the first to give dialectics a comprehensive expression, Marx does say exactly that about Hegel.

Well, the only summary of 'the dialectic method' ever published by Marx contains not one atom of Hegel, so this leads us to interpret the following words of his rather differently from the traditional, mystical way:


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.

As Marx knew, since he was familiar with the work of Aristotle, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Ferguson, Millar, Robertson, Smith, Hume, Stewart and Kant, that Hegel wasn't the first to do this (in fact he didn't do it at all).

So, that's what "prevents" Hegel from being the first, not the fact that he mystified the whole thing. Unless, of course, you want to attribute to Marx a crass error (and one that is inconsistent with 'the dialectic method' he endorsed on the same page).


Kind of hilarious no, since even in this passage Meszaros indicates how important Hegel is to Marx's work, and how Meszaros will be discussing this extensive importance throughout this work on Marx?

Well, of course, like you he endorses the traditional, mystical view of Marx's work, but there is no evidence to support it.


Maybe we should ask him what he thinks would be left of his work if we excised all references to Hegel.

He is indeed alive, but even he will struggle to find a passage, published by Marx that is contemporaneous with or subsequent to Das Kapital that supports your/his fanciful, traditional interpretation of Marx's work.

After all, you have yet to come up with such a passage, despite being asked many times, over several months.

And no wonder, no such passage exists.

Meanwhile, we do have a passage published by Marx, which he (not me) calls 'the dialectic method', in which there is no trace of Hegel at all.


But Marx himself doesn't acknowledge a debt to, a connection with Kant's "materialism."

Nor does he acknowledge a debt to Hegel.


Marx, after all, writes his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right not Kant's Universal History as the overture to the development of his social materialism.

1) Marx did not derive his Historical/Social Materialism from that work.

2) Even if he had, by the time he came to write Das Kapital, he had waved this logical incompetence 'goodbye'.

3) Marx attributes the discovery of the historical method in materialism to the Scottish School, who influenced both Kant and Hegel.

4) Marx was familiar with Kant's work (indeed, Hegel got many of his best ideas from Kant and the Scottish School), so he was well aware that the most sophisticated version of historical materialism was to be found in Kant's work.


And by the way, I don't use the word "contradiction" when analyzing capitalism, or at least I try to keep it to the bare minimum, since the word has been abused and pretty much emptied of all Marxist content. It's used like an incantation; a talisman; a magic amulet.

So if the point being made is that Marxists using the word contradiction in their analysis of capital distorts more than it illuminates; has an ideological purpose of anointing the analysis as the "correct" analysis not because of the content, the accuracy, the materiality of the analysis, but because it is the "official" published analysis of the Hegel-Marx Universitatus Absolutum, I quite agree.

Doesn't mean, however, that Marx didn't use the word, was only kidding when he used the word, or excised Hegel.

1) Once more, why use that word, then?

2) But, Marx himself -- not me -- told us he was merely 'coquetting' with this word.

3) The only summary of 'the dialectic method' endorsed and published by Marx has indeed had Hegel excised.


Which gets me back to the beginning-- Marx spends not too much time on the issue of distorted language because he Marx is going to demonstrate that the "undistorted language" is in fact in the labor process, in the analysis of the social organization of labor. Now if I had been able to formulate that conclusion sooner, maybe Chris and I wouldn't have slaughtered each other 5 times a day for 3 days and in public. But then, look how much entertainment value would have been lost to revleft.

Interesting comment, but alas it gains no support from anything Marx wrote.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

A R Amistad:


But the analogy to the questions of the chess board still seems absurd because those questions are ridiculous only because the answer is obvious and was determined by a creator. But I adhere to the belief that human beings have no "creator." So the questions seem perfectly legit for human beings, not chess peices:


In fact, when we pose philosophical questions, language has already 'gone on holiday' (to quote Wittgenstein). Chris has illustrated this in relation to 'being', but this also applies to 'philosophical concepts' like 'mind', 'consciousness', 'cause', 'concept', 'idea', 'identity', 'difference', 'reality', 'existence', 'essence', 'appearance', 'determine', 'free will', and a host of other familiar terms-of-art.

All of which are questions about knowledge. Chess pieces don't posess or utilize the capacity for knowledge. People (i believe) do. As much as one plays with language, it seems like the questions are still there no matter what.

You miss the point of that analogy, even though I made it pefectly clear. It was aimed at showing how empty questions arise if we misconstrue language. I made the examples patently absurd to illustrate the point. It is less easy to see this with the empty theses traditional philosophers dream up, but not impossible (as various Wittgensteinians have shown since he died -- and as I have done in relation to dialectical materialism).

Now, my analogy was not aimed at making points about the human condition or the nature of humanity, as you seem to think. Which is why I was so perplexed at your earlier comment. And, I still fail to see how you arrived at these rather odd conclusions.

Nor was I making a point about what chess pieces might or might not know.

Recall, I am merely telling an unlikely story about what a confused chess player might comclude about chess pieces. They aren't my beliefs!


As much as one plays with language, it seems like the questions are still there no matter what

Again, you miss the point; such 'questions' are based on a distortion of language, and as such are as empty as the rather odd questions this confused chess player might ask.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

A R Amistad:


The explain to me in terms of human being what "pseudo questions" are

Do you mean?


Then explain to me in terms of what human beings know/understand what "pseudo questions" are

A pseudo-question is one that looks like an ordianry question, but which is based on a mis-use or distortion of language -- hence it has no answer (which explains why philosophy has got nowhere in 2400+ years).

A good example would be: Is human action determined or is it free?

I have shown how empty this question is here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/freedom-state-mind-t56836/index.html?t=56836

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=894937&postcount=2

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1575116&postcount=1

[S.Artesian]

Most of what you reproduce, Rosa, you have reproduced before, verbatim, and frequently. Marx did say...., you claim, and then when there are areas where Marx doesn't say things-- a la Kant, you say Marx was "familiar with" Marx was "aware." Indeed he may have been, but he doesn't say that which you says he says... And we want to stick with what Marx said, don't we?

A couple of examples:



3) Marx attributes the discovery of the historical method in materialism to the Scottish School, who influenced both Kant and Hegel.

4) Marx was familiar with Kant's work (indeed, Hegel got many of his best ideas from Kant and the Scottish School), so he was well aware that the most sophisticated version of historical materialism was to be found in Kant's work.

Re point 3: Marx doesn't say that, not in those words. He says in an 1845 essay, part of the essays written for the Holy Family:

"Materialism is the born son of Britain. Even one of his great schoolmen, Duns Scotus, asked himself ‘whether matter cannot think.’ In performing this wonder, Duns had recourse to God’s omnipotence, that is, he made theology itself preach materialism. He was, moreover, Nominalist. Nominalism is one of the main elements of the English materialists, as it is indeed the first expression of materialism in Christian Europe."

BUT


"The difference between French and English materialism is the difference between the two nationalities. The French endowed English materialism with esprit and eloquence, with flesh and blood, with temperament and grace.
In Helvetius, who likewise starts from Locke, materialism receives its proper French character. He envisages it in relation to social life. The sensuous qualities and self-love, enjoyment, and the well-understood personal interest are made into the foundations of morality. The natural equality of the human intelligence, the harmony between the progress of reason and the progress of manufactures, the natural goodness of man, the omnipotence of education, are the main points of his system...."


When discussing historical materialism Marx and Engels state:


"The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry."

The French and the English, Rosa, not just the English-- first attempts, and extremely one-sided. This is definitely not attributing the "discovery" of historical materialism to the Scottish school.

In his Theories of Surplus Value, another unpublished work like The German Ideology, Marx examines Adam Smith in great detail, and Steuart, but he does attribute the "discovery" of the materialist analysis of history to them. With regard in Smith in particular, Marx points out how Smith is trapped into creating contradictions in that he cannot account for the precise historical origin of capital, and therefore, value.

Re point 4: If Marx was well aware that Kant provided the most "sophisticated version" of historical materialism then why doesn't he say that? In unpublished works, in correspondence, on a cocktail napkin for all I care-- it could be anywhere, but Marx never says that.

Marx continues to grapple with Hegel-- well not really Hegel, with dialectic, continues to regard Hegel as a mighty thinker, continues to find Hegel helpful in writing his work on capital, but of Kant? He says nothing.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Most of what you reproduce, Rosa, you have reproduced before, verbatim, and frequently. Marx did say...., you claim, and then when there are areas where Marx doesn't say things-- a la Kant, you say Marx was "familiar with" Marx was "aware." Indeed he may have been, but he doesn't say that which you says he says... And we want to stick with what Marx said, don't we?

And you have made this point several times, even though what Marx actually says constantly undermines it.

But you argue as follows:


Re point 3: Marx doesn't say that, not in those words. He says in an 1845 essay, part of the essays written for the Holy Family:


"Materialism is the born son of Britain. Even one of his great schoolmen, Duns Scotus, asked himself ‘whether matter cannot think.’ In performing this wonder, Duns had recourse to God’s omnipotence, that is, he made theology itself preach materialism. He was, moreover, Nominalist. Nominalism is one of the main elements of the English materialists, as it is indeed the first expression of materialism in Christian Europe."

Pointedly ignoring this comment of his (however, you allude to it in passing later):


Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises, we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to “make history.” But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life. Even when the sensuous world is reduced to a minimum, to a stick as with Saint Bruno , it presupposes the action of producing the stick. Therefore in any interpretation of history one has first of all to observe this fundamental fact in all its significance and all its implications and to accord it its due importance. [B]It is well known that the Germans have never done this, and they have never, therefore, had an earthly basis for history and consequently never an historian. The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm

You:


When discussing historical materialism Marx and Engels state:


"The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry."

The French and the English, Rosa, not just the English-- first attempts, and extremely one-sided. This is definitely not attributing the "discovery" of historical materialism to the Scottish school.

Re-read what I said earlier (only with your eyes open this time):


As Marx knew, since he was familiar with the work of Aristotle, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Ferguson, Millar, Robertson, Smith, Hume, Stewart and Kant, that Hegel wasn't the first to do this (in fact he didn't do it at all).

I think you'll find that those highlighted were French or wrote in French (in Rousseau's case).

Once more you show you are totally incapable of reading and/or reporting what I have argued with any care.

Now, if I were to treat what you post in the same cavalier way, you'd be screaming blue murder.


In his Theories of Surplus Value, another unpublished work like The German Ideology, Marx examines Adam Smith in great detail, and Steuart, but he does attribute the "discovery" of the materialist analysis of history to them. With regard in Smith in particular, Marx points out how Smith is trapped into creating contradictions in that he cannot account for the precise historical origin of capital, and therefore, value.

Where have I argued otherwise?

You'll be telling me grass is green next.:lol:


Re point 4: If Marx was well aware that Kant provided the most "sophisticated version" of historical materialism then why doesn't he say that? In unpublished works, in correspondence, on a cocktail napkin for all I care-- it could be anywhere, but Marx never says that.

Are you suggesting Marx was ill-educated?


Marx continues to grapple with Hegel-- well not really Hegel, with dialectic, continues to regard Hegel as a mighty thinker, continues to find Hegel helpful in writing his work on capital, but of Kant? He says nothing.

He put this in the past tense, as you have been told several times -- just as you have been told that it is possible to call someone a 'mighty thinker' and totally disagree with they say. For example, I think Anselm is a 'mighty thinker', but totally misguided.

However, the rock upon which all your speculation founders is the fact that the only summary of 'the dialectical method' that Marx published and endorsed contains not one atom of Hegel -- but instead uncannily resembles what Kant had to say.

Now, if you have a passage published by Marx, contemporaneous with or subsequent to Das Kapital, that supports your fanciful re-write of his work, let's see it.

Oh wait, you haven't...

[S.Artesian]

No, Rosa, I'm not suggesting Marx is ill-educated. I'm stating Marx does not state what you want him to state, and you have no evidence for your inferences about the influence of Kant.

I'm also stating that based on Marx's words, and I did specifically cite that passage in The German Ideology, he does not credit the Scottish materialists or the English school for the "discovery" of historical materialism as you claim and wish. He states the English and the French make the first attempts-- and very one-sided attempts. Bit of difference there.

The "first" you are claiming and that I am responding to is your claim that the English/Scottish "discovered" historical materialism; not Marx's statement that everyone but you understand as Marx identifying Hegel as the first to give dialectics a comprehensive formulation.

We've been through this before about those paragraphs in the afterward, and you miss the point. The method Marx actually refers to as his own is the method he outlines in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, a work written when Marx, according to you, was still wasting time with Hegel when of course Marx was doing no such thing-- since he had completed his materialist critique of Hegel some 12 years prior.

Obviously, you're the person who has trouble reading, and separating your fantasy of your wished-for Marx from the real Marx, warts, carbuncles, homage to Hegel and all.

There are eyeglasses for that-- try-focals. Try and read what is actually written focals.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


No, Rosa, I'm not suggesting Marx is ill-educated. I'm stating Marx does not state what you want him to state, and you have no evidence for your inferences about the influence of Kant.

Apart from the fact that Marx was familiar with Kant's work (and even more so was Hegel) and the fact that the summary of the 'dialectic method' Marx published in Das Kapital mirrors Kant's uncannily closely, of course.

But, even if you are right, Marx did attribute to the Scottish School the discovery of the historical method in materialism -- whereas you have no evidence at all that the Marx of Das Kapital owed a single idea to Hegel.

In fact, the exact opposite is the case, since we know from the summary of the 'dialectic method' in the Postface to the second edition that Marx had excised Hegel from his work.

Of course, if you have access to another summary of 'the dialectic method, published and endorsed by Marx -- that is contemporaneous with or subsequent to Das Kapital --, and which supports your mystical interpretation of his work, then please share it with us.

Oh wait -- you can't.


I'm also stating that based on Marx's words, and I did specifically cite that passage in The German Ideology, he does not credit the Scottish materialists or the English school for the "discovery" of historical materialism as you claim and wish. He states the English and the French make the first attempts-- and very one-sided attempts. Bit of difference there.

Well, here's that quotation again:


Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises, we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to “make history.” But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life. Even when the sensuous world is reduced to a minimum, to a stick as with Saint Bruno , it presupposes the action of producing the stick. Therefore in any interpretation of history one has first of all to observe this fundamental fact in all its significance and all its implications and to accord it its due importance. [B]It is well known that the Germans have never done this, and they have never, therefore, had an earthly basis for history and consequently never an historian. The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

"The first" to do this... Now what can that possibly mean?

It can't mean they discovered it, can it?

Perish the thought...

Alas for you, however, even a 'one-sided' discovery is still a discovery.


The "first" you are claiming and that I am responding to is your claim that the English/Scottish "discovered" historical materialism; not Marx's statement that everyone but you understand as Marx identifying Hegel as the first to give dialectics a comprehensive formulation.

And Marx agrees with me.

But what about this?


not Marx's statement that everyone but you understand as Marx identifying Hegel as the first to give dialectics a comprehensive formulation

Well, I'd hardly call it the 'traditional view' if few people had actually swallowed it.

Most people used to think the earth was flat and that earthquakes were sent by 'god'. I rather suspect you'd be in that category, too, with your attitude to 'independence of thought'.


We've been through this before about those paragraphs in the afterward, and you miss the point. The method Marx actually refers to as his own is the method he outlines in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, a work written when Marx, according to you, was still wasting time with Hegel when of course Marx was doing no such thing-- since he had completed his materialist critique of Hegel some 12 years prior.

Did Marx call this 'the dialectic method'?

No.

Did he call the summary he added to the Postface to the second edition of Das Kapital 'the dialectic method'?

Yes.

There's your answer.

Get over it...

Unless, of course, you have access to another summary of 'the dialectic method', published by Marx contemporaneous with or subsequent to Das Kapital, which supports your attempt to mystify Marx's work...

Oh wait -- you haven't.


Obviously, you're the person who has trouble reading, and separating your fantasy of your wished-for Marx from the real Marx, warts, carbuncles, homage to Hegel and all.

There are eyeglasses for that-- try-focals. Try and read what is actually written focals.

Maybe so, maybe not -- but as poor as my eyesight is or isn't, at least I can recognise a summary of 'the dialectic method' when I see one -- and guess what?

It contains not one atom of Hegel....

Who'd have thought it?:rolleyes:

[Hyacinth]

Just to throw in my two cents into this discussion. While I agree with Rosa et al. on the interpretation of Marx, let's for a moment grant, for the sake of argument, that this interpretation is mistaken and that Marx was committed to Hegelian dialectics in one form or another. So what? In this instance, so much the worse for Marx. Insofar as Marx was a dialectician in the Hegelian sense he was mistaken, it isn't as though Marx's words are holy writ. And an appeal to Marx certainly doesn't do anything to rescue the confused concept of dialectical materialism. Moreover, this leaves historical materialism untouched given that dialectics is not essential to historical materialism insofar as it can be [re]interpreted in systems theoretic terms.

[Zanthorus]

Just to throw in my two cents into this discussion. While I agree with Rosa et al. on the interpretation of Marx, let's for a moment grant, for the sake of argument, that this interpretation is mistaken and that Marx was committed to Hegelian dialectics in one form or another. So what? In this instance, so much the worse for Marx. Insofar as Marx was a dialectician in the Hegelian sense he was mistaken, it isn't as though Marx's words are holy writ. And an appeal to Marx certainly doesn't do anything to rescue the confused concept of dialectical materialism. Moreover, this leaves historical materialism untouched given that dialectics is not essential to historical materialism insofar as it can be [re]interpreted in systems theoretic terms.

I don't know whose arguing that Marx was a dialectician in the Hegelian sense. Certainly I've never said that, nor has S. Artesian. What is disputed is the role that Hegel played in Marx's development. Rosa seems to want to completely oust Hegel in favour of Kant and the Scottish Materialists claiming that Marx also did so in the postface to the second german edition of Das Kapital.

What Hegel did was to show that in order for labour to be a fully developed human activity it first has to go through a process of self-estrangement to develop the productive forces. He only concieves this in terms of the "absolute idea" but when we look at the real world we can see that this is the role that capitalism plays in history. The "rational kernel" of Hegel's dialectic is the foundation of the critique of political economy (Or "historical materialism" if you like).

[S.Artesian]

Just to throw in my two cents into this discussion. While I agree with Rosa et al. on the interpretation of Marx, let's for a moment grant, for the sake of argument, that this interpretation is mistaken and that Marx was committed to Hegelian dialectics in one form or another. So what? In this instance, so much the worse for Marx. Insofar as Marx was a dialectician in the Hegelian sense he was mistaken, it isn't as though Marx's words are holy writ. And an appeal to Marx certainly doesn't do anything to rescue the confused concept of dialectical materialism. Moreover, this leaves historical materialism untouched given that dialectics is not essential to historical materialism insofar as it can be [re]interpreted in systems theoretic terms.

"So what?" OK, here's my take:

1. First there's the question of historical accuracy. If "what" is exactly what, given Marx's overall precision in his analysis of capital, then his "fidelity" to dialectics-- not to Hegel, but to that rational kernel of dialectics that Marx extracts from Hegel's mystification-- is meaningful, as process and product are fused, interdependent, in the critique of capital as well as capitalism itself.

2. Which gets us to the next point, if indeed Marx's "fidelity" to dialectics is "what" and you would like to claim that that is so much the worse for Marx, then it behooves you to show how Marx's analysis of capitalism is flawed based on that fidelity. Marx shows how the analysis of Smith, Ricard, Bastiat, even Jones is flawed based on its material content, its inability to account for expanded reproduction, accumulation, crises, overproduction, declining rates of profits on the very basis of what those analyses claim for the functioning of capital. So if it's "so much the worse" for Marx, you need to show exactly how Marx's analysis of capitalism is flawed by his use of dialectics.

3. Rosa posits some sort of "pre-Capital" Marx, [where Marx is "slowed down," and encumbered by his failure to extirpate Hegel] and a "Capital and post-Capital" Marx, where Marx, free at last thank god almighty, from the burden of dialectics produces his "masterpiece"-- as unfinished and introductory a masterpiece as it may be and definitely is. The challenge I pose to Rosa, or to you, or to Chris, is to find a material difference in the analysis of capitalism, or in Marx's pre-Capital analysis of the forces at work in...anywhere, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, India, the US that can be attributed to Marx's dialecticism, a difference that is then corrected, improved by Marx's "extirpation" of Hegel's influence post Capital.

4. I expect that neither Rosa nor anyone else will accept that challenge. And if that's the case, I don't blame him or her. I know I can't find one. But if you can't, then it means that there is no material evidence for your proposition that Marx experienced some sort of epiphany and cast out the demon of Hegel's dialectic in the writing of volume 1. And if there is no material evidence, your propositions regarding this are meaningless, non-sensical-- they are the very thing you wish to eliminate-- distortions of language rather than concrete historical analysis.

5. Regarding this issue of historical materialism-- who discovered it, and its supposed independence from Hegel's dialectic: What is the essential content, the relationship that distinguishes Marx's historical materialism from the "one-sided" attempts of the French and English [and really let's give the French equal billing here, as much as that may offend our British cousins. Marx certainly did]? Class struggle.

Marx's historical materialism, the historical materialism he developed is based on the struggle of classes; the struggle between property, and those classes representing that property, and labor, those classes representing that specific social organization of labor.

The struggle is inherent, part of the very makeup of the economics of the reproduction of that property.

The struggle is the opposition of that organization of labor to that form of property, property which is, in essence, that labor estranged, expropriated, and arrayed against the satisfaction of the needs of the laborers.

Claiming that the English materialists "discovered" historical materialism when they could not account for the very history that produced the labor and the property of their system is an oxymoron. It's like, no, not like, it's like claiming Smith recognized the cause of overproduction because he advocated a labor theory of value.

Abstracting the dialectic means abstracting the opposition of labor to the conditions of labor and eliminating the shared identity of private property and the wage-labor, from historical materialism. It means enervating, hollowing out historical materialism from the inside.


Here's hoping someone decides to take up the challenge in item 3.

[Zanthorus]

Reading through some of Loren Goldner's articles on his website I found this piece which is particularly relevant to the current debate:

http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/prodorreprod.html

His basic argument is that the lack of any acquaintance with the concept of "immanent critique" developed by classical german philosophy whereby you start from the exact same viewpoint as your opponent and then attack their ideas from within leads to reductionist readings of Das Kapital and particularly a lack of any understanding of the significance of the move from simple reproduction to expanded reproduction at the end of the Volume II.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


3. Rosa posits some sort of "pre-Capital" Marx, [where Marx is "slowed down," and encumbered by his failure to extirpate Hegel] and a "Capital and post-Capital" Marx, where Marx, free at last thank god almighty, from the burden of dialectics produces his "masterpiece"-- as unfinished and introductory a masterpiece as it may be and definitely is. The challenge I pose to Rosa, or to you, or to Chris, is to find a material difference in the analysis of capitalism, or in Marx's pre-Capital analysis of the forces at work in...anywhere, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, India, the US that can be attributed to Marx's dialecticism, a difference that is then corrected, improved by Marx's "extirpation" of Hegel's influence post Capital.

The difference is that from Das Kapital onward, Marx put his ideas on a fully scientific basis when he extirpated Hegel's Hermetic ideas from his work.

In a similar way, had Newton done likewise, there'd only be a rhetorical difference in his work (except, he'd probably have dropped all reference to 'forces'), but the scientific basis of his work did not depend on his own mystical, Hermetic ideas.

All that mystical concepts do it screw around with the science - slowing Marx down, for example, by at least 20 years. [Newton never advanced so far, and clung onto his own mystical ideas until he died -- physicists are still trying to make sense of Newtonian 'forces'.]

Since such concepts make no sense at all, they can't make a material difference -- other than, of course, to cloud the issues.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


His basic argument is that the lack of any acquaintance with the concept of "immanent critique" developed by classical german philosophy whereby you start from the exact same viewpoint as your opponent and then attack their ideas from within leads to reductionist readings of Das Kapital and particularly a lack of any understanding of the significance of the move from simple reproduction to expanded reproduction at the end of the Volume II.

I fail to see how this makes one iota of difference, still less what it has got to do with this thread.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian (just seen this):


Claiming that the English materialists "discovered" historical materialism when they could not account for the very history that produced the labor and the property of their system is an oxymoron. It's like, no, not like, it's like claiming Smith recognized the cause of overproduction because he advocated a labor theory of value.

In fact, Marx claimed this.

[Zanthorus]

I fail to see how this makes one iota of difference, still less what it has got to do with this thread.

Because the main thrust of the article is that you can't understand Marx or the real dynamics of capitalism without understanding classical German philosophy (That means the mystical bumbler).


In fact, Marx claimed this.

From what I recall, all he claimed was that they were the first to write histories of commerce and civil society. Not necessarily to work out historical materialism.

[S.Artesian]

S Artesian (just seen this):



In fact, Marx claimed this.

Where did Marx claim Smith recognized the source of overproduction?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


Because the main thrust of the article is that you can't understand Marx or the real dynamics of capitalism without understanding classical German philosophy (That means the mystical bumbler).

Too bad for him that Marx waved this mystical incompetent 'goodbye', then isn't it?


From what I recall, all he claimed was that they were the first to write histories of commerce and civil society. Not necessarily to work out historical materialism

Here is what Marx said:


Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises, we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to “make history.” But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life. Even when the sensuous world is reduced to a minimum, to a stick as with Saint Bruno , it presupposes the action of producing the stick. Therefore in any interpretation of history one has first of all to observe this fundamental fact in all its significance and all its implications and to accord it its due importance. It is well known that the Germans have never done this, and they have never, therefore, had an earthly basis for history and consequently never an historian. [B]The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

Notice, they were the first to "give the writing of history a materialistic basis" -- i.e., they were the first historical materialists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Where did Marx claim Smith recognized the source of overproduction?

Where did I say he did?

[Zanthorus]

Too bad for him that Marx waved this mystical incompetent 'goodbye', then isn't it?

See, at first I thought those who were calling you a "troll" just couldn't take the heat. But I think I'm beginning to understand. The plain fact is that all you can do is ramble on about the bloody postface to the second German edition while ignoring anyone who tries to engage with you on the content of Marx's critique of political economy.


Notice, they were the first to "give the writing of history a materialistic basis" -- i.e., they were the first historical materialists.

No, they were the first to attempt to give the writing of history a materialistic basis. Attempt is the key word here. They have no concept of alienated/self-estranged labour. And they proceed at all times from the standpoint of political economy.

[ChrisK]

No, they were the first to attempt to give the writing of history a materialistic basis. Attempt is the key word here. They have no concept of alienated/self-estranged labour. And they proceed at all times from the standpoint of political economy.

But that is what Marx says that he himself does. He does not write of historical materialism, he writes about a "materialist conception of history."

[Zanthorus]

But that is what Marx says that he himself does. He does not write of historical materialism, he writes about a "materialist conception of history."

I think you missed the bit where I put emphasis on the word "attempts" which Marx uses to describe the writing of the Scottish school.

[ChrisK]

I think you missed the bit where I put emphasis on the word "attempts" which Marx uses to describe the writing of the Scottish school.

I didn't. The use of the word attempts does not negate an influence, nor their being historical materialists. Newton attempted to provide a perfect account of motion in all instances. His attempt failed, but that does not mean that he didn't create theories of motion that are usable.

In this instance, they attempted to use a materialist conception of history. They weren't perfect at it, but they still did it and were thus historical materialists.

[S.Artesian]

S Artesian:

The difference is that from Das Kapital onward, Marx put his ideas on a fully scientific basis when he extirpated Hegel's Hermetic ideas from his work.

In a similar way, had Newton done likewise, there'd only be a rhetorical difference in his work (except, he'd probably have dropped all reference to 'forces'), but the scientific basis of his work did not depend on his own mystical, Hermetic ideas.

All that mystical concepts do it screw around with the science - slowing Marx down, for example, by at least 20 years. [Newton never advanced so far, and clung onto his own mystical ideas until he died -- physicists are still trying to make sense of Newtonian 'forces'.]





You argument is then that there is no material difference between Marx's analysis when he is encumbered with what you call "Hegelianism" and Marx's analysis after what you call the "extirpation" of Hegelianism. I guess your argument is rather like one that says Einstein's belief in god had nothing to do one way or the other with his analysis of gravity and the speed of light. OK. We ignore Einstein's belief in god, and deal with gravity and light, because those are material forces.

So does Marx's use of the words "contradiction" "negation" "inversion" "opposition" make any difference to his analysis of capitalism, pre or post volume 1? Are there material forces identified by those words? If there are such forces, such relations, can their characterization be indeed material when the qualities of those forces is represented by "mystical" words?

If my understanding of your response that the words make no material difference is correct, then what evidence is there for anything "slowing Marx down?" We know poverty, carbuncles, the death of his children, excessive use of tobacco, slowed Marx down. But of these words which have "no meaning," what evidence is there for them slowing Marx down, obscuring issues requiring investigation, detracting from the issues Marx did investigate?


This entire notion of Marx being slowed down is truly non-sensical, assuming some standard by which Marx would have produced volume 1 sooner rather than later, and moreover, works subsquent to volume 1 sooner, not to mention other works sooner.

You argue that this fidelity to Hegel slowed Marx down by "20 years." Really? Let's see 20 years before the publication of volume 1 puts us to.... 1847. So.. in the world according to you, if only Marx had never embraced Hegel, he would have produced Capital prior to the revolutions of 1848, prior to the manifesto, prior to The German Ideology.

This a-historicity is truly remarkable and the real measure of a mind closed off against the intrusions of the real world.

Marx would have produced Capital all at once from... from exactly what? Indeed, if Hegel is what slowed Marx down, then what prevented our Scottish materialists, our French and English schools, from having produced a fuller, deeper, "Marxist" analysis and exploration of capitalism?

Of course what prevented them was their fidelity to their class, to their capitalism, to their ANTI-historical materialism, to value as a natural condition.

Marx's engagement with Hegel is his engagement with the material of the reproduction of human history-- of the history of human beings "making themselves at home" in the world. It is precisely from that engagement, from that critique of Hegel's estranged presentation of an estranged history that Marx can even begin to undertake the next step, the critique of political economy.

What Marx's engagement with Hegel did provide him, and did help separate his materialism from that of the Scots, the English, the French, from Kant, was the tools to penetrate the value relationships at the core, the historical core of capitalism. It's precisely in that penetration of value that Marx states he "coquettes" with forms of expression peculiar to Hegel.

Now as Marx's manuscripts show, he certainly had grasped, and explored the value relations, and their historical core, prior to volume 1. In fact, what the manuscripts show is that it is precisely through his use of "Hegelian" terms, the terms that you find so non-sensical, that he is able to unravel this knot of capital.


There is no, and can be no, retarding impact of the influence of Hegel on Marx, because Marx begins his engagement with materialism through his critique of Hegel.


Then in a remarkable bit of bald-faced sophistry, you come up with this:


Since such concepts make no sense at all, they can't make a material difference -- other than, of course, to cloud the issues.

The concepts make no sense, therefore they can't make a material difference? Well let's look at this. What concepts of Marx's make no sense? Could you please identify those concepts of Marx as he develops them in every work prior to volume 1 that don't make sense? Marx never uses the concepts of dialectic divorced from the material relations of labor and property, so please identify what is non-sensical in Marx's formulations of those relations of capitalism.

If they don't make sense, since Marx's conceptual target is always capital, then those concepts most distort that actual, material methods, mediations by which capital does reproduce itself. Could you please show how his scientific formulations differ after he puts his work on a thoroughly "scientific basis" as opposed to the unscientific basis and language used in say, The Grundrisse?

You are making things up Rosa, engaging in the long-standing bourgeois vocation of speculation in which you hope to garner some profit based on the ignorance, and lack of understanding of your opposites in the market. Your working your own version of the "bigger fool" theory.

[S.Artesian]

S Artesian:



Where did I say he did?

Here:






Claiming that the English materialists "discovered" historical materialism when they could not account for the very history that produced the labor and the property of their system is an oxymoron. It's like, no, not like, it's like claiming Smith recognized the cause of overproduction because he advocated a labor theory of value.[emphasis added,SA]



In fact, Marx claimed this.

[S.Artesian]

I didn't. The use of the word attempts does not negate an influence, nor their being historical materialists. Newton attempted to provide a perfect account of motion in all instances. His attempt failed, but that does not mean that he didn't create theories of motion that are usable.

In this instance, they attempted to use a materialist conception of history. They weren't perfect at it, but they still did it and were thus historical materialists.


This is wrong. The materialist conception of history is not divorced, not abstracted from the actual core to the materialist conception of history, which is the organization of the labor process, the conflict between the labor and conditions of labor, the opposition of classes.

So, attempting to write a materialist conception of history while not apprehending, grasping, and utilizing that core, is more than a failure, it is not the "discovery" of the materialist conception of history-- no more than the Physiocrats are discovering the labor theory of value, or the social distinction between productive and unproductive labor.

[ChrisK]

This is wrong. The materialist conception of history is not divorced, not abstracted from the actual core to the materialist conception of history, which is the organization of the labor process, the conflict between the labor and conditions of labor, the opposition of classes.

So, attempting to write a materialist conception of history while not apprehending, grasping, and utilizing that core, is more than a failure, it is not the "discovery" of the materialist conception of history-- no more than the Physiocrats are discovering the labor theory of value, or the social distinction between productive and unproductive labor.

In physics there has been a history of theories being refined, having exceptions found to them, etc. Ie, Newton was a physicist even though some of his theories were incorrect. Others built on them and others expanded ideas.

In historical materialism, it is an evolved theory. It started with its roots in Rousseau and evolved through the Scottish materialists and Kant. Marx took it the final step. These were all historical materialists, but Marx was the superior one who built on their ideas and perfected them.

[S.Artesian]

In physics there has been a history of theories being refined, having exceptions found to them, etc. Ie, Newton was a physicist even though some of his theories were incorrect. Others built on them and others expanded ideas.

In historical materialism, it is an evolved theory. It started with its roots in Rousseau and evolved through the Scottish materialists and Kant. Marx took it the final step. These were all historical materialists, but Marx was the superior one who built on their ideas and perfected them.


I disagree on this. First, historical materialism is not a natural science; it's an area of social investigation. Secondly, it quite clearly is not a theory that evolves naturally from its precursors, no more than Marx's critique of political economy evolves from political economy.

The critique-- and this is where Zanthorus' reference to Loren's work is important-- is an immanent critique, based on the material organization of the object of the critique itself, the logic of the organization of material production. Rousseau engages in no such critique. The English and French materialists engage in no such critique. They attempt to explain civil society, but fail-- failing in the explanation in this case is failing in historical materialism, as their explanation fails precisely because they cannot perceive the historical basis for the organization of the property of civil society.


This, historical materialism, like Marx's exposition of capital, is not an evolution, it is a rupture.

[S.Artesian]

Off topic, but to our British comrades--

Hey, is there even going to be a Britain when Osborne gets through with his cuts? 25% reduction in departmental budgets? Cuts that total 8% of the current budget? Makes Maggie Thatcher look like Mother Theresa.

[ChrisK]

I disagree on this. First, historical materialism is not a natural science; it's an area of social investigation. Secondly, it quite clearly is not a theory that evolves naturally from its precursors, no more than Marx's critique of political economy evolves from political economy.

1) You are right, it is a social science. But social sciences were created by applying scientific method to things applying to humans. The analogy works.

2) How so?


The critique-- and this is where Zanthorus' reference to Loren's work is important-- is an immanent critique, based on the material organization of the object of the critique itself, the logic of the organization of material production. Rousseau engages in no such critique. The English and French materialists engage in no such critique. They attempt to explain civil society, but fail-- failing in the explanation in this case is failing in historical materialism, as their explanation fails precisely because they cannot perceive the historical basis for the organization of the property of civil society.

You are forgetting Kant. Kant gave this to historical materialism long before Marx did. Marx perfected what Kant had started.

[Zanthorus]

Off topic, but to our British comrades--

Hey, is there even going to be a Britain when Osborne gets through with his cuts? 25% reduction in departmental budgets? Cuts that total 8% of the current budget? Makes Maggie Thatcher look like Mother Theresa.

haha.

The sad thing is that most of the left including most of the so-called "socialist" parties are stooped in the mire of labourism and are stuck putting forward essentially trade-unionist demands. That plus sectarianism and the lack of any initiative to create a broad independent party of the working-class means that the next five years looks set to be the country being raped by the Tories while everyone flocks to the Labour party :(

[S.Artesian]

1) You are right, it is a social science. But social sciences were created by applying scientific method to things applying to humans. The analogy works.

2) How so?

You are forgetting Kant. Kant gave this to historical materialism long before Marx did. Marx perfected what Kant had started.

I think it's clear in The German Ideology and subsequent early works how profoundly different the materialist conception of history is from 'regular' history. The materialist conception of history is based on critique of the social relations of production and in a sense, is not simply an objective description, but a partisan, a "combat methodology" of linking economic interests with social struggle.

As for Kant-- I've been looking at Marx's references to Kant, both in my volumes at home, and on the Marxist Internet Archive, and Marx makes no reference that I can find to Kant's contributions to a historical materialism.

Engels' makes reference, and praises, Kant's scientific work in Dialectic of Nature but Marx doesn't acknowledge Kant's work in historical materialism, so I can't really buy into the notion that Marx is perfecting something of Kant's.

[ChrisK]

I think it's clear in The German Ideology and subsequent early works how profoundly different the materialist conception of history is from 'regular' history. The materialist conception of history is based on critique of the social relations of production and in a sense, is not simply an objective description, but a partisan, a "combat methodology" of linking economic interests with social struggle.

This is almost exactly what Kant writes.


As for Kant-- I've been looking at Marx's references to Kant, both in my volumes at home, and on the Marxist Internet Archive, and Marx makes no reference that I can find to Kant's contributions to a historical materialism.

Engels' makes reference, and praises, Kant's scientific work in Dialectic of Nature but Marx doesn't acknowledge Kant's work in historical materialism, so I can't really buy into the notion that Marx is perfecting something of Kant's.

I am making an inference based on a few facts.

Marx had a PhD
Marx was German
Kant was the German Philosopher
Because Marx had a PhD he would have been familiar with Kant
Hegel mystified Kant's ideas
Marx demystifed Hegel's ideas
Marx writes things extemely like Kant wrote.

[S.Artesian]

Marx certainly was familiar with Kant. Remarks on Kant appear in Marx's Ph.d submission, In his critique on the program of the law school, in his correspondence-- but there's nothing that refers to Kant's importance to historical materialism.

That's the sole point I'm making. Marx acknowledges no real connection; there is no critique of Kant's writings on historical materialism, no references to it in correspondence-- there's just no "there" there.

[ChrisK]

I am aware of that. The point I am making is that it can be infered based on the facts listed that Marx was influenced by Kant's historical materialism.

[S.Artesian]

I am aware of that. The point I am making is that it can be infered based on the facts listed that Marx was influenced by Kant's historical materialism.

I think we can make an argument that goes the other way. Those things that "influenced" Marx were "measured" by Marx's critique of them. That critique was Marx's "method of learning."

For example he kept detailed notebooks working through the iterations of his critique of the political economists of and before his time.

We, to date, have not seen any such notebooks, no such detailed critique of Kant's writings on historical materialism.

I think based on what we know of Marx's methodology in historical analysis, the lack of engagement with Kant isn't just an oversight. I think we can infer that either Marx did not read it, or did not think it significant enough to comment upon, much less "co-opt" into his own analysis.

[ChrisK]

I think we can make an argument that goes the other way. Those things that "influenced" Marx were "measured" by Marx's critique of them. That critique was Marx's "method of learning."

For example he kept detailed notebooks working through the iterations of his critique of the political economists of and before his time.

We, to date, have not seen any such notebooks, no such detailed critique of Kant's writings on historical materialism.

I think based on what we know of Marx's methodology in historical analysis, the lack of engagement with Kant isn't just an oversight. I think we can infer that either Marx did not read it, or did not think it significant enough to comment upon, much less "co-opt" into his own analysis.

How do you explain the unreasonable similarity in their analysis?

[S.Artesian]

How do you explain the unreasonable similarity in their analysis?


I don't.

"Great minds think alike"? I don't know. Objective chance? It's puzzling.

Can't explain it anymore than if in fact it is the influence of Kant, I can explain no written text from Marx analyzing, critiquing, parsing Kant as he does with so many others.

[ChrisK]

To me it seems clear. The rational kernel that Marx extracted from Hegel, was, for the most part, Kant's historical materialism. Further, Marx admits that his method is that of the English school and as such, admits to their materialist conception of history. This, oddly, was an influence on Kant.

[S.Artesian]

Have you read Kant's Universal History? I haven't, and what I've read about it doesn't exactly mesh with Wood's take-- not to mention Kant's unyielding teleology and belief in "progress" not exactly agreeing with Marx's take on historical materialism

I sure don't look forward to having to go back and read it... but if I must-- well I'll have to extract some suitable revenge.

[ChrisK]

That is why I say that Marx progressed. He stripped the teleology and other crap and advanced the idea. We also have Marx's endorsement of his using the method that inspired Kant.

[S.Artesian]

OK, I've just read it-- Kant's Idea for a Universal History from Cosmopolitan Point of View-- it's on the Marxist Internet Archive at:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/kant/universal-history.htm


This essay is no more historical materialism than Hobbes Leviathan [war of all against all] or the US Declaration of Independence [When in the course of human events....] are historical materialism.

The essay certainly is concerned with the strife of human society, but it regards that strife as inherent to humanity-- the "unsocial sociabilty"-- and as a complement to that "human nature" we get also the telos of nature-- that nature has a plan for the progress of human beings.

Kant's 6th thesis-- where he discusses the most difficult problem--is a discussion of the human being who, when living among other humans requires a master, but who could that master be except another human being. The solution is found not in the material reproduction of society but in man obtaining "great experience," "good will," "correct conception of a possible constitution."

The eight thesis has this as its lead-in: "The history of mankind can be seen, in the large, as the realization of Nature's secret plan to bring forth a perfectly constituted state as the only condition in which the capacities of mankind can be fully developed, and also bring forth that external relation among states which is perfectly adequate to this end."

Talking about developing the capacities of mankind does not automatically qualify the talker as being an historical materialist. A teleologist, maybe. And, given that this is written in 1784, when the Atlantic slave trade is at its peak, maybe a blind talker.

Actually I think the text is a "philosophical" exploration for freedom of commerce. The fact that I can see the historical material forming the basis for the text, does not make the text itself a pre-cursor of historical materialism.

[S.Artesian]

That is why I say that Marx progressed. He stripped the teleology and other crap and advanced the idea. We also have Marx's endorsement of his using the method that inspired Kant.


But he never says that, Chris. He says he de-mystified Hegel's dialectic. He says' he stood it on its feet so to speak. He said he extracted a rational kernel, but he never says " I read Kant's Idea for a Universal History and stripped the telos and the other mystical bunk from it."

That lack, coupled with the actual content of Kant's essay really makes me doubt that Marx even gave it the slightest thought.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Your argument is then that there is no material difference between Marx's analysis when he is encumbered with what you call "Hegelianism" and Marx's analysis after what you call the "extirpation" of Hegelianism. I guess your argument is rather like one that says Einstein's belief in god had nothing to do one way or the other with his analysis of gravity and the speed of light. OK. We ignore Einstein's belief in god, and deal with gravity and light, because those are material forces.

So does Marx's use of the words "contradiction" "negation" "inversion" "opposition" make any difference to his analysis of capitalism, pre or post volume 1? Are there material forces identified by those words? If there are such forces, such relations, can their characterization be indeed material when the qualities of those forces is represented by "mystical" words?

If my understanding of your response that the words make no material difference is correct, then what evidence is there for anything "slowing Marx down?" We know poverty, carbuncles, the death of his children, excessive use of tobacco, slowed Marx down. But of these words which have "no meaning," what evidence is there for them slowing Marx down, obscuring issues requiring investigation, detracting from the issues Marx did investigate?

No, and that is why he found that he could 'coquette' with Hegelian jargon without affecting his argument. Marx was plainly slowed down since it took him 20 years to realise this, having wasted those years trying to squeeze historical materialism into a Hegelian boot it would not fit. Similarly, Newton's mystical ideas (and his use of meaningless language) slowed him down too. Had he been an atheist, we'd have had a more fully scientific theory of gravity many years earlier.

May I also remind you that for Einstein, gravity is not a force.


This entire notion of Marx being slowed down is truly non-sensical, assuming some standard by which Marx would have produced volume 1 sooner rather than later, and moreover, works subsequent to volume 1 sooner, not to mention other works sooner.

You argue that this fidelity to Hegel slowed Marx down by "20 years." Really? Let's see 20 years before the publication of volume 1 puts us to.... 1847. So.. in the world according to you, if only Marx had never embraced Hegel, he would have produced Capital prior to the revolutions of 1848, prior to the manifesto, prior to The German Ideology.

This a-historicity is truly remarkable and the real measure of a mind closed off against the intrusions of the real world.

Marx would have produced Capital all at once from... from exactly what? Indeed, if Hegel is what slowed Marx down, then what prevented our Scottish materialists, our French and English schools, from having produced a fuller, deeper, "Marxist" analysis and exploration of capitalism?

Of course what prevented them was their fidelity to their class, to their capitalism, to their ANTI-historical materialism, to value as a natural condition.

You seem to be in the grip of yet another of your odd ideas, namely, that the opposite of my use of 'slowed down' implies instantaneous discovery. All it implies is that Marx would have arrived at his more scientific ideas that much quicker. Nowhere have I implied that he'd have hit on them over-night.

But we already know you like to read your own fantasies into my words, don't we?




Marx's engagement with Hegel is his engagement with the material of the reproduction of human history-- of the history of human beings "making themselves at home" in the world. It is precisely from that engagement, from that critique of Hegel's estranged presentation of an estranged history that Marx can even begin to undertake the next step, the critique of political economy.

What Marx's engagement with Hegel did provide him, and did help separate his materialism from that of the Scots, the English, the French, from Kant, was the tools to penetrate the value relationships at the core, the historical core of capitalism. It's precisely in that penetration of value that Marx states he "coquettes" with forms of expression peculiar to Hegel.

Now as Marx's manuscripts show, he certainly had grasped, and explored the value relations, and their historical core, prior to volume 1. In fact, what the manuscripts show is that it is precisely through his use of "Hegelian" terms, the terms that you find so non-sensical, that he is able to unravel this knot of capital.

There is no, and can be no, retarding impact of the influence of Hegel on Marx, because Marx begins his engagement with materialism through his critique of Hegel.

He'd have arrived at all this far quicker had he paid more attention to Kant and Rousseau, and less to that Hermetic Harebrain, Hegel.

Which, of course, explains why he excised Hegel from [i]Das Kapital, as we now know -- confining the latter's influence to the sporadic use of his jargon, with which he merely 'coquetted'.


Then in a remarkable bit of bald-faced sophistry, you come up with this:


Since such concepts make no sense at all, they can't make a material difference -- other than, of course, to cloud the issues

The concepts make no sense, therefore they can't make a material difference? Well let's look at this. What concepts of Marx's make no sense? Could you please identify those concepts of Marx as he develops them in every work prior to volume 1 that don't make sense? Marx never uses the concepts of dialectic divorced from the material relations of labor and property, so please identify what is non-sensical in Marx's formulations of those relations of capitalism.


Simple, the one's he decided merely to 'coquette with in Das Kapital. I'm sure you can figure what these are for yourself. [Let me know if you need my assistance...:)]


If they don't make sense, since Marx's conceptual target is always capital, then those concepts most distort that actual, material methods, mediations by which capital does reproduce itself. Could you please show how his scientific formulations differ after he puts his work on a thoroughly "scientific basis" as opposed to the unscientific basis and language used in say, The Grundrisse?

Simple, if you re-read Das Kapital, and every time you come across one of these 'coquetted' terms/phrases, and you remind yourself that Marx was not using them seriously, you'll see the difference for yourself.


You are making things up Rosa,

That's a bit rich coming from someone who has been making stuff up about Marx since he arrived here (and plainly for many years prior to that).


engaging in the long-standing bourgeois vocation of speculation

Well, unlike you, I'm not trying to sell a mystical, ruling-class interpretation of Das Kapital.


in which you hope to garner some profit based on the ignorance, and lack of understanding of your opposites in the market. You're working your own version of the "bigger fool" theory.

Armchair psychology now, I see.:lol:

Having lost the argument, you are still trying to divert attention from that fact by attacking me.

Fine by me if you keep that up, since it will confirm I am right.:)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


See, at first I thought those who were calling you a "troll" just couldn't take the heat. But I think I'm beginning to understand. The plain fact is that all you can do is ramble on about the bloody postface to the second German edition while ignoring anyone who tries to engage with you on the content of Marx's critique of political economy.

Oh dear! I see your obssessive desire to mystify Marx has led you into cursing his own words (since they refute this Hermetic 'theory' of yours)!

And you have the cheek to call me a 'troll'.:lol:


No, they were the first to attempt to give the writing of history a materialistic basis. Attempt is the key word here. They have no concept of alienated/self-estranged labour. And they proceed at all times from the standpoint of political economy.

Even so, they still discovered this method, which is all I need.

[ChrisK]

But he never says that, Chris. He says he de-mystified Hegel's dialectic. He says' he stood it on its feet so to speak. He said he extracted a rational kernel, but he never says " I read Kant's Idea for a Universal History and stripped the telos and the other mystical bunk from it."

That lack, coupled with the actual content of Kant's essay really makes me doubt that Marx even gave it the slightest thought.

But there is an uncanny similarity between Marx's historical materialism and Kant's writing in Conjectural Beginning that stages of history are determined by the productive forces of society and an early form of class conflict. This similarity is less likely coincidence and more likely influence.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Originally Posted by Rosa Lichtenstein


Where did I say he did?


Here:


Originally Posted by S.Artesian

Claiming that the English materialists "discovered" historical materialism when they could not account for the very history that produced the labor and the property of their system is an oxymoron. It's like, no, not like, it's like claiming Smith recognized the cause of overproduction because he advocated a labor theory of value.[emphasis added,SA]


Originally Posted by ROSA:

In fact, Marx claimed this.

As my earlier posts show, I was in fact referring to this comment of Marx's:


Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises, we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to “make history.” But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life. Even when the sensuous world is reduced to a minimum, to a stick as with Saint Bruno , it presupposes the action of producing the stick. Therefore in any interpretation of history one has first of all to observe this fundamental fact in all its significance and all its implications and to accord it its due importance. It is well known that the Germans have never done this, and they have never, therefore, had an earthly basis for history and consequently never an historian. [B]The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

[S.Artesian]

No, and that is why he found that he could 'coquette' with Hegelian jargon without affecting his argument. Marx was plainly slowed down since it took him 20 years to realise this, having wasted those years trying to squeeze historical materialism into a Hegelian boot it would not fit. Similarly, Newton's mystical ideas (and his use of meaningless language) slowed him down too. Had he been an atheist, we'd have had a more fully scientific theory of gravity many years earlier.

Plainly slowed down? How? Only if you think the drafts of Capital were flawed by the fact that Marx despite having initiated and completed his materialist critique of Hegel in 1845, has diverted himself from that materialist critique, or you think that critique is incorrect, or you think that critique is not thorough.

So has Marx diverted from his critique of Hegel? Please show us the "wandering" of Marx through this Hegelian desert; his straying from his critique; OR show us where Marx's critique of Hegel, 1843-1845, is incorrect; OR show us where that critique is not thorough, complete-- and if you select that option, option C, please show us how substantively, in his analysis of material society, Marx completes that critique.

As it stands now, the basis for both your arguments for Marx "being delayed," and Marx "extirpating" Hegel comes down to-- prior to X, Marx uses the words "contradiction" "negation" "inversion" etc. etc. in a non-flirtatious, philosophical manner; after X, Marx uses exactly the same words in a flirtatious manner. The substance of Marx's critique is unchanged by the use of the words in either manner.

That's not a real argument, and it certainly isn't one based on any historical evidence that Marx himself provides. What you offer is non-sensical, meaningless speculation.

In your speculation, the drafts of Capital either would have been written earlier, or wouldn't even have been drafts if only Marx had used certain words flirtatiously.

As for "wasting those years..." "trying to fit historical materialism into Hegel's boot..," the development of historical materialism requires a bit of history itself-- like the failed revolutions of 1848, like the periodic panics and speculations of each decade. This isn't speed-dating we're talking about.

I suggest anyone who thinks Marx was slowed down in his elaboration of the materialist critique of capitalism do what Rosa obviously hasn't done-- and read Marx's output between 1845 and 1867; and when and if you do read it try and find the concepts, categories, tools of historical materialism that are delayed in their elaboration due to the use of "distorted language," "Hegelianism," etc.



You seem to be in the grip of yet another of your odd ideas, namely, that the opposite of my use of 'slowed down' implies instantaneous discovery. All it implies is that Marx would have arrived at his more scientific ideas that much quicker. Nowhere have I implied that he'd have hit on them over-night.

OK, not overnight. How much time, then. How much was Marx slowed down? To say he is being delayed includes a quantity, not just the quality. How do you make a determination, if we're using ordinary language about being delayed if you can't provide a measure, a quantity of that delay?

In ordinary language, when I was told a train was being delayed, my immediate response was "by how much?" If the train was still stopped, or unable to operated at the maximum authorized speed-- the answer was "right now by X minutes, but....." Once the train was moving, or had resumed normal speeds, or if moving but at a slower rate, we could then make sense out of "the train is delayed," but measuring the delay, understanding the quantity that is the material manifestation, the "use-value" so to speak of the exchange word "delay."

So where's the measure for the delay in Marx's work-- other than where everything else is for you, Rosa-- in and only in your fanciful speculations about Marx.

Once again you provide a meaningless phrase, one that lacks any material content, and try to pass it off as "logic" "erudition."

You're rapidly becoming the Ponzi of pseudo-analysis of Marx's works.



Simple, if you re-read Das Kapital, and every time you come across one of these 'coquetted' terms/phrases, and you remind yourself that Marx was not using them seriously, you'll see the difference for yourself.I have a better idea. Let's go back to Marx's A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, to his Grundrisse, and to the 1861-1864 Economic Manuscripts, and to vol 3 of Capital and do that and see if there's any difference whatsoever. Let's look at the works you think are flawed, burdened, hampered by the unflirtatious use of these words, and "deflirt" those words. Let's see if it makes any difference what's so ever.



Well, unlike you, I'm not trying to sell a mystical, ruling-class interpretation of Das Kapital.Once again Rosa you show your complete lack of understanding of Marx's materialist method. For a "ruling idea" to be a ruling class idea, for an interpretation to be a ruling class interpretation, that idea or interpretation must have a connection, a correspondence, to that ruling class' property. It must serve as buttress to the continued domination of that property.

To call anybody's interpretation of Capital a ruling class interpretation you have to show how that interpretation negates Marx's critique of capitalist property; how that interpretation "violates" the immanent critique of capital which Marx seizes upon for his extensive analysis of the accumulation of capital; you have to show the reproduction of the ideology of a property form.

But by your own admission-- there is no material consequence to Marx's analysis in what you mis-identify as a fidelity to Hegel.

A ruling class idea regarding the organization of the economy, regarding the reproduction of social life has a linkage, expresses a vested, propertied interest in that reproduction. Where is the expression of that propertied interest in my interpretation of Marx's work?

There is no such link in those who disagree with your claims that Marx "extirpated" Hegel in volume 1, and maintain that Marx's critique of Hegel took place 25 years earlier and extracted the rational kernel, the real content of history, from Hegel's mystification.


The fact that you use that slur-- accusing others of selling a ruling class interpretation-- when you're the one engaging in the ruling class' favorite vocation-- naked speculation, with no money down-- is part of the reason so many people think you are a troll, Rosa.

They're not wrong.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I have checked the Marxist Internet Archive's version of Kant's Ideas for a Universal History against the Cambridge University Edition, and it's quite clear that the former leaves whole sections of Kant's work out.

I have to be away for a few days, so I will comment on Kant's ideas when I get back, and on S Artesian's latest attempt to defend the mystical version of 'Marxism'.

[S.Artesian]

I have checked the Marxist Internet Archive's version of Kant's Ideas for a Universal History against the Cambridge University Edition, and it's quite clear that the former leaves whole sections of Kant's work out.

I have to be away for a few days, so I will comment on Kant's ideas when I get back, and on S Artesian's latest attempt to defend the mystical version of 'Marxism'.


How will the wolf survive?

[S.Artesian]

Couldn't help thinking about this thread, and all that has transpired regarding ordinary language, Marx, any supposed extirpation of Hegel by Marx sometime after the Grundrisse, as I was reading volume 34 of the Collected Works. This volume has the proposed second part of the already published A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, and the second draft of volume 1 of Capital, with the manuscript containing both these written between 1861 and 1864.

Marx, discussing the reconversion of surplus value into capital writes [pages 233-235]:

"...hence a consequence of that first relationship [that between labour and capital]--the right of property on the side of capital is dialectically transformed into the right to alien products or into the right of property in alien labour; the right to appropriate alien labour without equivalent; and on the side of the worker it is transformed into the duty to relate himself towards his own labour and its product as alien labour. But the exchange of equivalents which appeared as the initial operation has been reversed in such a way that on the one side only an apparent exchange takes place, in that the part of capital exchanged for labour capacity is, in the first place, itself alien labour appropriated without equivalent.... The relationship of exchange is therefore a mere semblance, which belongs to the circulation process. Furthermore, the right to property originally appeared to be based on one's own labor. Now property appears as the right to alien labour and the impossibility of labour to appropriate its own product. The separation of property or wealth, and labour, now appears as a consequence of the law which arose from their identity. "

Reads a lot like identity, opposites, identity of opposites to me-- dialectical transformation and all that, a transformation grounded in the social labor process.

Marx goes on:

"Each side reproduces itself by reproducing its other, its negation. The capitalist produces labour as alien; labour produces the product as alien. The capitalist produces the worker, and the worker the capitalist.."

Negations, transformation of unity into opposition, we're pretty close to Hegel's dialectic here, although at the same time, we're miles away, because we are analyzing the material conditions of the reproduction of capital, of the social labor process under capitalism.

Wait... there's more. Marx continues:

"If e.g. the flight of serfs into the cities was one of its historical conditions and presuppositions for the development of the medieval city, it is not a condition, a moment, of the reality of fully developed city life, but belongs its past presuppositions, to the presuppositions of its becoming, which are superseded in its being. But the conditions of the becoming, the emergence, of capital imply that it is not yet in being but is only becoming. Hence they disappear with the development of real capital, the capital which, setting out from its own reality, itself posits the conditions for its realisation.."

Becoming? Being? Realisation? Hey, that is philosophical language, or it was. That was Hegel's language wasn't it?

Published or unpublished, this amounts to historical evidence Marx's "break" with Hegel did not occur between the Grundrisse and Capital as these manuscripts are that between. Rather, Marx's "break" occurs as he describes it, some 15-16 years earlier, when he, Marx, extracted the rational kernel from the mystical shell-- the rational kernel being precisely the dialectic itself between appearance and essence, becoming and being; the dialectic of transformations and oppositions and negations. The mystical shell was presentation of history as the history of consciousness, of self-consciousness becoming conscious of its self. Marx moves the dialectic into the real history, the material reproduction of social beings... into the labor process.

Now I suppose someone could argue that Marx, in 1873, now no longer the "mature" Marx, but rather the really, really, much more mature Marx, has in 1873 decided on an extirpation of Hegel, such extirpation to be accomplished in the afterward to the 2nd edition... but there's no evidence for that either in any of Marx's writings and particularly since in that afterword itself as Marx confirms dialectic as a combat weapon against capitalism.

That Marx looked kindly on the sophomoric writings of a 2nd rate reviewer explaining his methodology should be regarded as in keeping with Marx's intention of presenting volume 1 as an introduction, for the layperson.

[ChrisK]

Couldn't help thinking about this thread, and all that has transpired regarding ordinary language, Marx, any supposed extirpation of Hegel by Marx sometime after the Grundrisse, as I was reading volume 34 of the Collected Works. This volume has the proposed second part of the already published A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, and the second draft of volume 1 of Capital, with the manuscript containing both these written between 1861 and 1864.

Marx, discussing the reconversion of surplus value into capital writes [pages 233-235]:

"...hence a consequence of that first relationship [that between labour and capital]--the right of property on the side of capital is dialectically transformed into the right to alien products or into the right of property in alien labour; the right to appropriate alien labour without equivalent; and on the side of the worker it is transformed into the duty to relate himself towards his own labour and its product as alien labour. But the exchange of equivalents which appeared as the initial operation has been reversed in such a way that on the one side only an apparent exchange takes place, in that the part of capital exchanged for labour capacity is, in the first place, itself alien labour appropriated without equivalent.... The relationship of exchange is therefore a mere semblance, which belongs to the circulation process. Furthermore, the right to property originally appeared to be based on one's own labor. Now property appears as the right to alien labour and the impossibility of labour to appropriate its own product. The separation of property or wealth, and labour, now appears as a consequence of the law which arose from their identity. "

Reads a lot like identity, opposites, identity of opposites to me-- dialectical transformation and all that, a transformation grounded in the social labor process.

Marx goes on:

"Each side reproduces itself by reproducing its other, its negation. The capitalist produces labour as alien; labour produces the product as alien. The capitalist produces the worker, and the worker the capitalist.."

Negations, transformation of unity into opposition, we're pretty close to Hegel's dialectic here, although at the same time, we're miles away, because we are analyzing the material conditions of the reproduction of capital, of the social labor process under capitalism.

Wait... there's more. Marx continues:

"If e.g. the flight of serfs into the cities was one of its historical conditions and presuppositions for the development of the medieval city, it is not a condition, a moment, of the reality of fully developed city life, but belongs its past presuppositions, to the presuppositions of its becoming, which are superseded in its being. But the conditions of the becoming, the emergence, of capital imply that it is not yet in being but is only becoming. Hence they disappear with the development of real capital, the capital which, setting out from its own reality, itself posits the conditions for its realisation.."

Becoming? Being? Realisation? Hey, that is philosophical language, or it was. That was Hegel's language wasn't it?

Published or unpublished, this amounts to historical evidence Marx's "break" with Hegel did not occur between the Grundrisse and Capital as these manuscripts are that between. Rather, Marx's "break" occurs as he describes it, some 15-16 years earlier, when he, Marx, extracted the rational kernel from the mystical shell-- the rational kernel being precisely the dialectic itself between appearance and essence, becoming and being; the dialectic of transformations and oppositions and negations. The mystical shell was presentation of history as the history of consciousness, of self-consciousness becoming conscious of its self. Marx moves the dialectic into the real history, the material reproduction of social beings... into the labor process.

Marx changed what was written for a reason. If that draft said what he wanted it to say he wouldn't have taken out all of that language. He took out most of the philosophical language, indicating a break with those thoughts. It seems to me that he had a change of heart and began to coquette with Hegelian language.


Now I suppose someone could argue that Marx, in 1873, now no longer the "mature" Marx, but rather the really, really, much more mature Marx, has in 1873 decided on an extirpation of Hegel, such extirpation to be accomplished in the afterward to the 2nd edition... but there's no evidence for that either in any of Marx's writings and particularly since in that afterword itself as Marx confirms dialectic as a combat weapon against capitalism.

I'd argue that he changed it sometime around 1866, just before it was published, after he took out most of the Hegelian language.


That Marx looked kindly on the sophomoric writings of a 2nd rate reviewer explaining his methodology should be regarded as in keeping with Marx's intention of presenting volume 1 as an introduction, for the layperson.


That doesn't make sense. If the reviewer got it wrong, Marx wouldn't have quoted him. If anything, Marx quoted him because the review said exactly what Marx wanted it to say.

Further, why would he use Hegelian language in a serious way in the book, but then choose a writing that contradicts that language? And, why would he then endorse the claim that his method was that of the English economists?

[BAM]

[/FONT][/SIZE]He took out most of the philosophical language, indicating a break with those thoughts.

he repeatedly says in letters to Engels that his intention was to "conceal [his] method" (in fact, I think it is Engels who encourages him) for the benefit of the layperson and in the light of the reception of the earlier Zur Kritik.

[S.Artesian]

[/FONT][/SIZE]

Marx changed what was written for a reason. If that draft said what he wanted it to say he wouldn't have taken out all of that language. He took out most of the philosophical language, indicating a break with those thoughts. It seems to me that he had a change of heart and began to coquette with Hegelian language.

Yes, Marx would change things he wrote for a reason. But he didn't change these sections. These are not from a draft of Capital but from a completed essay which Marx intended, according to the researchers on the MEGA project, as a second, companion volume to A Contribution...

There are any number of reasons that Marx may have changed words. We can speculate all we want, but there is absolutely no evidence provided by Marx that "around 1866" he had some sort of epiphany and decided to excise Hegel from Capital, particularly as he refers to Hegel in that volume and even reproduces his, Marx's, own affirmation of Hegel's law on the transformation of quantity into quality. You can argue Marx is wrong in his application, understanding, use of that part of Hegel's analysis, but that's not the issue that you and Rosa claim is the essential issue-- that Marx extirpated Hegel.

In Marx's writings up to and beyond the publication of volume 1 there is not a word of any change in his, Marx's approach to Hegel, his regard, valuation, or his critique of Hegel.


That doesn't make sense. If the reviewer got it wrong, Marx wouldn't have quoted him. If anything, Marx quoted him because the review said exactly what Marx wanted it to say.

Further, why would he use Hegelian language in a serious way in the book, but then choose a writing that contradicts that language? And, why would he then endorse the claim that his method was that of the English economists?


First-- remember Marx is defending himself in BOTH instances from the accusation, the criticism that he is an Hegelian, that his method is the method of German idealism. We know that Marx is not an Hegelian, had critiqued Hegel in 1844-1845 and extended that critique to the "young Hegelians" in The Holy Family, The German Ideology and writings in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

His reference to the English school is a reference to 2 elements of the English economists-- 1] a labor theory of value 2]use of empirical data to validate his theoretical analysis.

Secondly, what language in Capital refutes, contradicts the language used in the sections that I reproduced? Where does Marx utilize language that refutes the claim that the equality of exchange is a mere semblance; that the wage-form is an appearance of full compensation, masking the essence of wages, which is the expropriation of unpaid labor?

Where does Marx utilize language that contradicts-- or "undistorts" his language that each side, capital and wage-labor, reproduces itself in and by the reproduction of the other; where does Marx provide language that contradicts the assertion that each side reproduces itself by reproducing its negation?

Where does Marx produce language that contradicts, or undistorts, his historical analysis of the development of the modern city-- from its presuppositions which are its becoming to its self-sustaining reproduction of the material conditions of labor which is its being?

Moreover, Marx is analyzing history, and if the language he is using is distorted, then the content of the history he is analyzing must also be distorted. The language must not be in conformity with that material history.

Is, for example, the material history of the development, and the transformation of the medieval city into the modern city in contradiction to what Marx provides?

Finally, you claim Marx took out "most" of that philosophical language, indicating a "break with those thoughts." So where is the break in Marx's actual analysis of labor, of the reproduction of capital, of history?

[BAM]

With regard to the development of the form of value, I have both followed and not followed your advice, thus striking a dialectical attitude in this matter, too. That is to say, 1. I have written an appendix in which I set out the same subject again as simply and as much in the manner of a school text-book as possible, and 2. I have divided each successive proposition into paras. etc., each with its own heading, as you advised. In the Preface I then tell the ‘non-dialectical’ reader to skip page x-y and instead read the appendix. It is not only the philistines that I have in mind here, but young people, etc., who are thirsting for knowledge.

Thus, the "de-Hegelling" is all to do with Marx's method of presentation, to make it easier to read, and not because he has totally rejected all Hegel (beyond the 1843, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, 1857 critiques). Indeed, further on in the letter, he repeats to Engels what he confirmed in chapter 11 of Capital Volume 1:


Incidentally, you will see from the conclusion to my Chapter III [this is in fact chapter 11 - BM] where I outline the transformation of the master of a trade into a capitalist — as a result of purely quantitative changes — that in the text there I quote Hegel’s discovery of the law of the transformation of a merely quantitative change into a qualitative one as being attested by history and natural science alike

[ChrisK]

Yes, Marx would change things he wrote for a reason. But he didn't change these sections. These are not from a draft of Capital but from a completed essay which Marx intended, according to the researchers on the MEGA project, as a second, companion volume to A Contribution...

There are any number of reasons that Marx may have changed words. We can speculate all we want, but there is absolutely no evidence provided by Marx that "around 1866" he had some sort of epiphany and decided to excise Hegel from Capital, particularly as he refers to Hegel in that volume and even reproduces his, Marx's, own affirmation of Hegel's law on the transformation of quantity into quality. You can argue Marx is wrong in his application, understanding, use of that part of Hegel's analysis, but that's not the issue that you and Rosa claim is the essential issue-- that Marx extirpated Hegel.

In Marx's writings up to and beyond the publication of volume 1 there is not a word of any change in his, Marx's approach to Hegel, his regard, valuation, or his critique of Hegel.

Nor does he give any word as to his understanding of materialist dialectics. At least, not until the postface of the second edition.


First-- remember Marx is defending himself in BOTH instances from the accusation, the criticism that he is an Hegelian, that his method is the method of German idealism. We know that Marx is not an Hegelian, had critiqued Hegel in 1844-1845 and extended that critique to the "young Hegelians" in The Holy Family, The German Ideology and writings in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

His reference to the English school is a reference to 2 elements of the English economists-- 1] a labor theory of value 2]use of empirical data to validate his theoretical analysis.

Not in both instances, he is only defending himself against the accusation of being a Hegelian when he cites the review. Why not use his own words? Why, in stead, quote a reviewer? The only reason would be because the reviewer said it better than he would have.

His reference to the English school is that he uses "the deductive method of the whole English school," The deductive method. That implies far more than just validation.


Secondly, what language in Capital refutes, contradicts the language used in the sections that I reproduced? Where does Marx utilize language that refutes the claim that the equality of exchange is a mere semblance; that the wage-form is an appearance of full compensation, masking the essence of wages, which is the expropriation of unpaid labor?

Where does Marx utilize language that contradicts-- or "undistorts" his language that each side, capital and wage-labor, reproduces itself in and by the reproduction of the other; where does Marx provide language that contradicts the assertion that each side reproduces itself by reproducing its negation?

Where does Marx produce language that contradicts, or undistorts, his historical analysis of the development of the modern city-- from its presuppositions which are its becoming to its self-sustaining reproduction of the material conditions of labor which is its being?

Moreover, Marx is analyzing history, and if the language he is using is distorted, then the content of the history he is analyzing must also be distorted. The language must not be in conformity with that material history.

Is, for example, the material history of the development, and the transformation of the medieval city into the modern city in contradiction to what Marx provides?

Finally, you claim Marx took out "most" of that philosophical language, indicating a "break with those thoughts." So where is the break in Marx's actual analysis of labor, of the reproduction of capital, of history?

First off, that last post is not written the way I'd want it too. My excuse is that I was falling asleep and drinking a bit, so bad posting.

Second, what contradicts what you wrote are Marx's own words on both his method and his willingness to tease with Hegel's terminology to defend Hegel from his most severe critics.

Further, most of Marx's writing can be rewritten without Hegelian language with no change in actual content. The problem is, his current language implies the dialectics of Engels, which I have a serious problem with.

[S.Artesian]

Nor does he give any word as to his understanding of materialist dialectics. At least, not until the postface of the second edition.

I disagree with that. He [and Engels] demonstrate the understanding of materialist dialectics in the analysis of the relations between capital and wage-labor; in the discussion of the labor-process, it's alienation, and estrangement [themes that persist throughout Marx's work].

I think we need to keep in sight that fact that with Marx, "dialectics" can no longer exist separately and apart as a methodology separate from its subject, which is the development, the material forces that drive human history.

In their writings on Feuerbach, in the early and much later economic manuscripts, in the tracts on the class struggle in France-- the dialectic is not separate and apart from the investigation.



First off, that last post is not written the way I'd want it too. My excuse is that I was falling asleep and drinking a bit, so bad posting.

That I understand.

This:


Second, what contradicts what you wrote are Marx's own words on both his method and his willingness to tease with Hegel's terminology to defend Hegel from his most severe critics.

I don't.


Further, most of Marx's writing can be rewritten without Hegelian language with no change in actual content. The problem is, his current language implies the dialectics of Engels, which I have a serious problem with.

Indeed it can. I believe specifically Marx wrote volume 1 in that spirit-- as an introduction for the layperson, so he avoids as much of the philosophical language

But suppose we do change the language-- does that mean that the estrangement of labor does not create a condition where labor and the products of labor exist in opposition, in conflict with each other? Does that mean that the capitalist and the laborer reproduce themselves in the production of each other, and as each other's negation? Does that mean that the presuppositions of the modern city, the flight of the serfs, the dispossession of subsistence producers from the land do not exist as those moments of "becoming," and that the modern city itself, in its being, reproduces that separation of labor from the conditions of labor without need, any longer, to that presupposition?

What was it that guy Shakespeare said about the rose by any other name?

I have a real problem with dialectical materialists, too. I think it, dialectical materialism, so expands the "boundaries," the focus of Marx's analysis as to make it, Marxism, "flabby" "blurry" and pretty much a justification for whatever people want to justify-- because the material criticism of the organization of labor, of the relations between labor and the conditions under which it operates, is lost in this gross "magnification."

I just don't think we can blame Marx's materialist dialectic-- the criticism of the labor-process --for that. And I like to think that I like Engels enough to think he would be appalled, absolutely appalled by what is rationalized, undertaken, excused, glorified under the label of "dialectical materialism."

Not that it matters of course, but Engels did take a beer tour of the US you know-- usually starting the first round around 10 AM-- which endears him to my dissipated heart.

[ChrisK]

I disagree with that. He [and Engels] demonstrate the understanding of materialist dialectics in the analysis of the relations between capital and wage-labor; in the discussion of the labor-process, it's alienation, and estrangement [themes that persist throughout Marx's work].

I think we need to keep in sight that fact that with Marx, "dialectics" can no longer exist separately and apart as a methodology separate from its subject, which is the development, the material forces that drive human history.

In their writings on Feuerbach, in the early and much later economic manuscripts, in the tracts on the class struggle in France-- the dialectic is not separate and apart from the investigation.

Of course its not seperate from the investigation. To have a method seperate from the investigation would be impossible. Marx tell's us his method, it is nothing like what Engels writes.



That I understand.

This:



I don't.


I'm saying that Marx claims that, in order to defend Hegel from his harshest critics, flirts with Hegel's terminology.


Indeed it can. I believe specifically Marx wrote volume 1 in that spirit-- as an introduction for the layperson, so he avoids as much of the philosophical language

The philosophical language would add, and adds, nothing to Capital.


But suppose we do change the language-- does that mean that the estrangement of labor does not create a condition where labor and the products of labor exist in opposition, in conflict with each other? Does that mean that the capitalist and the laborer reproduce themselves in the production of each other, and as each other's negation? Does that mean that the presuppositions of the modern city, the flight of the serfs, the dispossession of subsistence producers from the land do not exist as those moments of "becoming," and that the modern city itself, in its being, reproduces that separation of labor from the conditions of labor without need, any longer, to that presupposition?

No, what it means is that it validates dialectical materialism, a poison to the Marxist movement.


What was it that guy Shakespeare said about the rose by any other name?

I have a real problem with dialectical materialists, too. I think it, dialectical materialism, so expands the "boundaries," the focus of Marx's analysis as to make it, Marxism, "flabby" "blurry" and pretty much a justification for whatever people want to justify-- because the material criticism of the organization of labor, of the relations between labor and the conditions under which it operates, is lost in this gross "magnification."

I just don't think we can blame Marx's materialist dialectic-- the criticism of the labor-process --for that. And I like to think that I like Engels enough to think he would be appalled, absolutely appalled by what is rationalized, undertaken, excused, glorified under the label of "dialectical materialism."

Not that it matters of course, but Engels did take a beer tour of the US you know-- usually starting the first round around 10 AM-- which endears him to my dissipated heart.

I'm not really saying that Marx is to blame; I'm saying that the misinterpreation of the language validates Engels interpretation.

[S.Artesian]

No, what it means is that it validates dialectical materialism, a poison to the Marxist movement.

That's where I really disagree. Your assertion reminds me of those who back in the day, even before my time, held Hegel responsible for Hitler and the totalitarian state, arguing that Hegel's depiction of the state as the embodiment of absolute reason, subordinating all less absolute reasons to itself, was one of the sources for fascist power. That's making an abstraction responsible, accountable, MATERIALLY culpable for historical conditions, conditions which we know grow out of the social organization of labor, and the class struggle.

Materialist dialectic are not more responsible for "dialectical materialism" than Lenin's What is to be Done? is responsible for Stalin's ascendancy to control of the Bolshevik Party.



I'm not really saying that Marx is to blame; I'm saying that the misinterpreation of the language validates Engels interpretation.

Do you really mean that Marx's analysis of the becoming and being of capitalist social forms; his argument that the power of labor is dialectically transformed into its opposite; that capitalist and laborer each reproduce themselves in each other, in their negations, validates Engels' dialectic of nature and Engels' dialectic of nature validates the policies of the 3rd International, and the Bolshevik Party from 1928 on?

I know dialecticians are inclined to endorse "leaps" and "leaping" but the above, if that is your argument, is more than a leap, it's Evel Knievel on his rocket powered jet bike trying to make it across the Snake River Canyon.

Evel had a parachute on, just in case, as well as the one attached to the bike.

[ChrisK]

That's where I really disagree. Your assertion reminds me of those who back in the day, even before my time, held Hegel responsible for Hitler and the totalitarian state, arguing that Hegel's depiction of the state as the embodiment of absolute reason, subordinating all less absolute reasons to itself, was one of the sources for fascist power. That's making an abstraction responsible, accountable, MATERIALLY culpable for historical conditions, conditions which we know grow out of the social organization of labor, and the class struggle.

Materialist dialectic are not more responsible for "dialectical materialism" than Lenin's What is to be Done? is responsible for Stalin's ascendancy to control of the Bolshevik Party.

Do you really mean that Marx's analysis of the becoming and being of capitalist social forms; his argument that the power of labor is dialectically transformed into its opposite; that capitalist and laborer each reproduce themselves in each other, in their negations, validates Engels' dialectic of nature and Engels' dialectic of nature validates the policies of the 3rd International, and the Bolshevik Party from 1928 on?

I know dialecticians are inclined to endorse "leaps" and "leaping" but the above, if that is your argument, is more than a leap, it's Evel Knievel on his rocket powered jet bike trying to make it across the Snake River Canyon.

Evel had a parachute on, just in case, as well as the one attached to the bike.

I do not think I was being clear. To me, this is much like how the Nazi's (not comparing dialecticians to Nazi's, its just an analogy) used Neiztsche to support their view of a perfect race. They took some of Neiztsche's words and twisted them to their ends. In my mind, many dialectical materialists have misread Marx as having the same dialectical view as Engels and are thus willing to accept things like Engels' three laws, etc.

BTW, parachutes are for pussies, I go balls out when I jump the Columbia (much wider than that little Snake River).

[Zanthorus]

Materialist dialectic are not more responsible for "dialectical materialism" than Lenin's What is to be Done? is responsible for Stalin's ascendancy to control of the Bolshevik Party.

If this means what I think it means then you're simply wrong. Lenin clarified himself thousands of times that he never actually advocated an ultra-centralised party completely subordinate to the central committee. Marx never made any explicit statements of the kind "transforming my ideas into some quasi-religious doctrine called "dialectical materialism" would be a total distortion of everything I have written" whereas Lenin did just that (http://www.anonym.to/?http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1904/sep/15a.htm#bkV07P474F01).

[BAM]

I think he's saying the opposite of what you took him to say.

But what's the relevance of the piece you posted?

Was it just for this:


It is the worthy comrade’s own article that consists of nothing but manufactured * formulas and runs counter to the ABC of dialectics.

And actually Marx does decry the tendency to create a "super-historical" grand theory out of his ideas in, eg, the letter to Vera Zasulich.

[Zanthorus]

But what's the relevance of the piece you posted?

Because in it Lenin directly denies that he ever advocated any kind of "intransigent centralism", subordination of the local party sections to the central committee etc. A closer reading and contextualisation of What is to be Done? I think pretty much confirms that view, although we can go through all the parts in WITBD which contradict the traditional view if you want. Anyway, the point is that WITBD had about 0 relevance to Stalin's rise to power.


And actually Marx does decry the tendency to create a "super-historical" grand theory out of his ideas in, eg, the letter to Vera Zasulich.

Forgot about that one :blushing:

[S.Artesian]

I do not think I was being clear. To me, this is much like how the Nazi's (not comparing dialecticians to Nazi's, its just an analogy) used Neiztsche to support their view of a perfect race. They took some of Neiztsche's words and twisted them to their ends. In my mind, many dialectical materialists have misread Marx as having the same dialectical view as Engels and are thus willing to accept things like Engels' three laws, etc.

BTW, parachutes are for pussies, I go balls out when I jump the Columbia (much wider than that little Snake River).

I understand that-- basically same point I was trying to make about the propaganda in WW2 that Hegel was the source of German fascism.

But I think there's a bigger issue here. You state:

I'm not really saying that Marx is to blame; I'm saying that the misinterpreation of the language validates Engels interpretation.

I don't think this "squares up" with your earlier arguments about distorted language, and that philosophical language is non-sensical and meaningless.

If Marx used such distorted language in his analysis of capital, of the labor process and its alienation, of the reproduction of the capitalist and the worker "in the existence of each other," of the "becoming" and "being" of the modern city, then the content of that analysis-- the actual mediations, mechanisms by which labor becomes alienated and become capital, the actual reproduction of the capitalist and the worker in the labor process, the actual history of the modern city-- must be distorted; must in fact distort the real history.

The issue is not that others can interpret the language in a distorted fashion, and manufacture an ideology from their distortions-- humans can always do that.. It's like lying. Comes with the "territory" of being human. Just ask Dr. House.

The issue is that Marx's own language must give us a distorted, non-sensical history of the subjects under analysis. I do not believe that Marx's language distorts that history, makes it non-sensical. On the contrary, I think it is precisely through that language that Marx makes sense of the history, and makes accessible to all of us.

Re canyons and parachutes-- I worked for railroads. We built bridges across these canyons. Much easier to get across that way. Plus if you run out of fuel, nobody has to scrape you off the side of the canyon.

[S.Artesian]

Thanks to BAM. I couldn't figure out comrade Zanthorus' point. I am saying that Lenin's, or Marx's writings can be distorted by those with an agenda; but the agenda's meaning, and significance, and source, are in the historical circumstances that it reflects, not Lenin's, or Marx's. books.

[BAM]

I didn't see the relevance to what you said about Marx and dialectics.


we can go through all the parts in WITBD

No thanks!:D

[ChrisK]

I understand that-- basically same point I was trying to make about the propaganda in WW2 that Hegel was the source of German fascism.

But I think there's a bigger issue here. You state:


I don't think this "squares up" with your earlier arguments about distorted language, and that philosophical language is non-sensical and meaningless.

If Marx used such distorted language in his analysis of capital, of the labor process and its alienation, of the reproduction of the capitalist and the worker "in the existence of each other," of the "becoming" and "being" of the modern city, then the content of that analysis-- the actual mediations, mechanisms by which labor becomes alienated and become capital, the actual reproduction of the capitalist and the worker in the labor process, the actual history of the modern city-- must be distorted; must in fact distort the real history.

The issue is not that others can interpret the language in a distorted fashion, and manufacture an ideology from their distortions-- humans can always do that.. It's like lying. Comes with the "territory" of being human. Just ask Dr. House.

The issue is that Marx's own language must give us a distorted, non-sensical history of the subjects under analysis. I do not believe that Marx's language distorts that history, makes it non-sensical. On the contrary, I think it is precisely through that language that Marx makes sense of the history, and makes accessible to all of us.

Re canyons and parachutes-- I worked for railroads. We built bridges across these canyons. Much easier to get across that way. Plus if you run out of fuel, nobody has to scrape you off the side of the canyon.

It squares up because I view Marx's use of such language as his coquetting of that language.

When speaking about pre-capital works, well, I'll get back to you on that one tomorrow. No way the post will be coherent right now.

[Zanthorus]

Thanks to BAM. I couldn't figure out comrade Zanthorus' point. I am saying that Lenin's, or Marx's writings can be distorted by those with an agenda; but the agenda's meaning, and significance, and source, are in the historical circumstances that it reflects, not Lenin's, or Marx's. books.

Fair enough.


I didn't see the relevance to what you said about Marx and dialectics.

S. Artesian seemed to be implying that Marx's use of dialectical terminology was as responsible for dialectical materialism as Lenin's "bending the bow" in WITBD. I simply noted that Lenin directly repudiated any claim that he advocated "intransigent centralism" etc.


No thanks!:D

Infantile ultra-leftist! :lol:

[S.Artesian]

Fair enough.



S. Artesian seemed to be implying that Marx's use of dialectical terminology was as responsible for dialectical materialism as Lenin's "bending the bow" in WITBD. I simply noted that Lenin directly repudiated any claim that he advocated "intransigent centralism" etc.



Infantile ultra-leftist! :lol:


I meant just the opposite: Marx's language is as little responsible as was Lenin's.

[S.Artesian]

It squares up because I view Marx's use of such language as his coquetting of that language.

When speaking about pre-capital works, well, I'll get back to you on that one tomorrow. No way the post will be coherent right now.


But the examples I cited are from the manuscripts of 1861-1864, before the supposed 1866 "epiphany," and the 1873 afterword.

So we still have to deal with the actual content of Marx's analysis from that period.

[ChrisK]

But the examples I cited are from the manuscripts of 1861-1864, before the supposed 1866 "epiphany," and the 1873 afterword.

So we still have to deal with the actual content of Marx's analysis from that period.

Well, what you are dealing with are Marx's drafts from that period. We still know that he changed it, without changing content. If anything, this is just a futher argument that Marx did not take Hegel that seriously.

Further, let us take the 18th Brumaire of Louise Bonaparte. That work is of historical analysis that barely mentions Hegelian concepts. They are clearly not important for his analysis of history.

[S.Artesian]

Well, what you are dealing with are Marx's drafts from that period. We still know that he changed it, without changing content. If anything, this is just a futher argument that Marx did not take Hegel that seriously.

Further, let us take the 18th Brumaire of Louise Bonaparte. That work is of historical analysis that barely mentions Hegelian concepts. They are clearly not important for his analysis of history.


No it doesn't Chris; the issue is the "distorted language" in those drafts. If the language is distorted, and Marx is analyzing concrete history, then that analysis has to be distorted. So is it? Is his description of the transformation of labor from a source of power and wealth for the laborers into its opposite incorrect? Is his description of the capitalist and the laborer reproducing themselves in the existence of each other, reproducing themselves in the their negation, distorted, mystical, logically incompetent? Is Marx's analysis of the distinction in the becoming and the being of the modern city philosophical hogwash?

Now as for the 18th Brumaire...geezus Chris, the book opens with an homage to Hegel. Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice....

Remember that Hic Rhodus, hic salta. Here is the rose, here dance! ?? That's from Hegel's Introduction to The Philosophy of Right.

[ChrisK]

No it doesn't Chris; the issue is the "distorted language" in those drafts. If the language is distorted, and Marx is analyzing concrete history, then that analysis has to be distorted. So is it? Is his description of the transformation of labor from a source of power and wealth for the laborers into its opposite incorrect? Is his description of the capitalist and the laborer reproducing themselves in the existence of each other, reproducing themselves in the their negation, distorted, mystical, logically incompetent? Is Marx's analysis of the distinction in the becoming and the being of the modern city philosophical hogwash?

Why does it have to be distorted? Flawed reasoning can come up with the correct answer. When he moves away from those distortions and still has the same answer, then he is still correct.


Now as for the 18th Brumaire...geezus Chris, the book opens with an homage to Hegel. Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice....

We aren't talking about his references to Hegel, we are talking about language used in his use of historical materialism. Quoting something you agree with does not mean that you agree with or accept everything that person wrote.

Further, you are quoting a bit of wit.


Remember that Hic Rhodus, hic salta. Here is the rose, here dance! ?? That's from Hegel's Introduction to The Philosophy of Right.

He liked Hegel's pun, so what? He also quotes Faust. His quoting in this chapter doesn't seem to mean anything other than the words fit.

[S.Artesian]

Why does it have to be distorted? Flawed reasoning can come up with the correct answer. When he moves away from those distortions and still has the same answer, then he is still correct.

Yes, I supposed flawed reasoning can come up with correct answers. The issue is -- Is Marx's reasoning flawed in the drafts of Capital, in his Economic Manuscripts, in the Grundrisse, in all his work prior to the work that supposedly has changed all the flawed reasoning?

Clearly there is no change in Marx's reasoning from 1857 to 1867; there's an extension, deepening, development of his critique, but it remains a critique with his analysis of labor and the conditions of labor expressing an essential continuity and coherence throughout that period.

Moreover, the analysis of estrangement, of alienation, which too is continuous is taken over directly from Hegel, and constitutes part of the rational kernel, which Marx regrounds in the material labor process.

When Marx describes identifies all those things he calls contradictions of capital, contradictions in the nature of money, in the production of value-- is his reasoning wrong? Are those not contradictions of capital's own organization? And if they are not contradictions, how do those "things"-- actually relations of capital-- actually come into being? How do they develop? And does their very development form a barrier to their "parent," capital?

[ChrisK]

Yes, I supposed flawed reasoning can come up with correct answers. The issue is -- Is Marx's reasoning flawed in the drafts of Capital, in his Economic Manuscripts, in the Grundrisse, in all his work prior to the work that supposedly has changed all the flawed reasoning?


Clearly there is no change in Marx's reasoning from 1857 to 1867; there's an extension, deepening, development of his critique, but it remains a critique with his analysis of labor and the conditions of labor expressing an essential continuity and coherence throughout that period.

I'll be more clear; his method can be incorrect and still come up with the right answer. His method, at the time, could be incorrect and when he reconciled it was still correct.

There could be another explanation of course, as we are both speculating.


Moreover, the analysis of estrangement, of alienation, which too is continuous is taken over directly from Hegel, and constitutes part of the rational kernel, which Marx regrounds in the material labor process.

He does not right about this in Kaptial. It could be reasonably infered that Marx moved away from such analysis.


When Marx describes identifies all those things he calls contradictions of capital, contradictions in the nature of money, in the production of value-- is his reasoning wrong? Are those not contradictions of capital's own organization? And if they are not contradictions, how do those "things"-- actually relations of capital-- actually come into being? How do they develop? And does their very development form a barrier to their "parent," capital?

In this his reasoning is not wrong. He is misusing the word contradiction. We've been over this.

[S.Artesian]

He does not right about this in Kaptial. It could be reasonably infered that Marx moved away from such analysis.

You can only infer that by ignoring everything Marx has written which details his reasoning process that gets him to the finished draft of volume 1, which volume in Marx's own evaluation is an introductory volume, written in language to not frighten or tax the layperson.

Ignoring that is not a reasonable process of inference. Historical analysis by definition can't ignore the history internal to the development of the "final" product, especially when the product is introductory, and truly unfinished in itself.




In this his reasoning is not wrong. He is misusing the word contradiction. We've been over this.We have been over this. How is Marx using the word contradiction, and how is that use improper?

And.. how does his improper use of the word in the work prior to, and subsequent to the publication of volume1, differ from his use of the word in volume 1? We are talking about substantive differences, differences that involve more than irony, flirtation, etc.

[ChrisK]

You can only infer that by ignoring everything Marx has written which details his reasoning process that gets him to the finished draft of volume 1, which volume in Marx's own evaluation is an introductory volume, written in language to not frighten or tax the layperson.

Ignoring that is not a reasonable process of inference. Historical analysis by definition can't ignore the history internal to the development of the "final" product, especially when the product is introductory, and truly unfinished in itself.

But, what you are ignoring is that if Marx changed the language to what it is in the final draft, then that language perfectly describes what Marx was saying. At that point, we can infer Marx was changing his views on the subject.

We could infer another thing by looking at his other works. It could be infered that Marx was actually coquetting Hegel in those drafts as well. The change was Marx trying to decided how far to go in, "[coquetting] with the modes of expression peculiar to him."

As evidence, we look at his works like the 18th Brumaire and see how unimportant Hegelian modes of expression are. Rather, he appears to be coquetting with them even earlier than that.


We have been over this. How is Marx using the word contradiction, and how is that use improper?

And.. how does his improper use of the word in the work prior to, and subsequent to the publication of volume1, differ from his use of the word in volume 1? We are talking about substantive differences, differences that involve more than irony, flirtation, etc.

He uses contradiction to mean conflict, it actually means A = not A

[S.Artesian]

But, what you are ignoring is that if Marx changed the language to what it is in the final draft, then that language perfectly describes what Marx was saying. At that point, we can infer Marx was changing his views on the subject.

However, that's exactly my point: there is no change in the substance, the actual content of his views. Not a bit. There's no change in the content of his discussion on the roles, functioning, and in his word--contradictions of money, within money, between money and commodities. There's no change in the substance of his discussion of the value relations that determine the production of commodities. There are no changes in the substance of his analysis.

Going back to the "lodestone," IMO, of Rosa's analysis-- that poor overworked afterword to the 2nd edition of volume 1, Marx says that he, more or less, undertakes the defense of Hegel against those who would dismiss Hegel as a dead dog. And he says that he had completed his own critique of Hegel some 30 years earlier.

He makes no mention of changing any of his views on Hegel, or on his critique of Hegel between, say the Grundrisse, or the Economic Manuscripts of 1861-1864 [which contain various drafts of Capital, Theories of Surplus Value, a companion 2nd volume to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy] and the publication of volume 1.

He says he was a student of that "mighty thinker." He says he extracted the rational kernel of Hegel's dialectic. He then proclaims dialectic's continued viability as a weapon of merciless criticism and opposition to capitalism and the swaggering German capitalists.

What he does not say is that he's changed his view on Hegel from that earlier critique, or that he changed any substance of his analysis of capital from the works prior to the publication of volume 1.

He does not say he was or is a student of the "might thinkers" of the Scottish materialists. He does not say that the dialectic he wields as a weapon is no longer the dialectic of Hegel, which he, Marx, refers to as the basis for all dialectics right in volume 1. He does not say that his, Marx's dialectic, is now that of the "English School."

So I don't think it's reasonable to conclude he changed any of his views. I think it's very reasonable to conclude that he specifically tried, as much as possible, to simplify the language and the presentation in Capital [reasonable because Marx practically says that in just that language]


He uses contradiction to mean conflict, it actually means A = not A

Well, here's where we agree; he is definitely using it to mean conflict-- but it is a conflict generated out the internal organization, the relations inherent to the very existence of the object under study, and which lead to its negation, its overthrow, its abolition. So contradiction doesn't mean A=not A; but that A will lead to, will become anti-A.

It is a conflict that is self-generated, and self-negating. That is also how Hegel utilized contradiction.


This takes us right back to where we always begin... so I'll just let it ride for the time being, and we'll see what happens in reality when capital hits the floor of its double-dip contraction-- coming to a theater near you. You heard it here.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Going back to the "lodestone," IMO, of Rosa's analysis-- that poor overworked afterword to the 2nd edition of volume 1, Marx says that he, more or less, undertakes the defense of Hegel against those who would dismiss Hegel as a dead dog. And he says that he had completed his own critique of Hegel some 30 years earlier.

Well, if it was a 'defence' of Hegel, it was particularly inept since he added a summary of the 'dialectic method' from which every trace of Hegel had been removed -- no 'contradictions', not 'quantity passing over into quality', no 'unity of opposites', no 'negation of the negation'...

And this is the only published summary of 'the dialectic method' that Marx endorsed.

Moreover, he rubbed this in by merely 'coquetting' with what few Hegelian jargon words he chose to insert into Das Kapital.

Hardly a ringing endorsement of this mystical bumbler, is it?


He makes no mention of changing any of his views on Hegel, or on his critique of Hegel between, say the Grundrisse, or the Economic Manuscripts of 1861-1864 [which contain various drafts of Capital, Theories of Surplus Value, a companion 2nd volume to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy] and the publication of volume 1.

He publsihed none of these, but he did publsih this summary -- and that constitutes his indication that he had finally waved 'goodbye' to that Hermetic idiot.

So this is wrong:


He makes no mention of changing any of his views on Hegel,

You:


He does not say he was or is a student of the "might thinkers" of the Scottish materialists. He does not say that the dialectic he wields as a weapon is no longer the dialectic of Hegel, which he, Marx, refers to as the basis for all dialectics right in volume 1. He does not say that his, Marx's dialectic, is now that of the "English School."

Who said the did? But he pointedly put his praise for Hegel in the past tense.


Well, here's where we agree; he is definitely using it to mean conflict-- but it is a conflict generated out the internal organization, the relations inherent to the very existence of the object under study, and which lead to its negation, its overthrow, its abolition. So contradiction doesn't mean A=not A; but that A will lead to, will become anti-A

But, what we still do not know is why you call this a 'contradiction'.

Or rather, we do know -- it's because Hegel did:


It is a conflict that is self-generated, and self-negating. That is also how Hegel utilized contradiction.

But Hegel derived this from demonstrably defective, sub-Aristotelian 'logic':

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

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

So, there are only two reasons why you insist on using this inappropriate word:

1) Hegel did so, and you are just copying him, ignoring the defective reasons he gave for doing so.

2) It's traditional to do it.

No wonder Marx began to 'coquette' with this word.

So, if you insist on copying Marx, you should 'coquette' with this word, too.

Or better still, emulate us genuine materialists, and drop the term altogether.:cool: