Dialectics

[Coyote]

Can somebody please give me an "in a nutshell" explanation of Dialectics?

[Hit The North]

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#dialectical-materialism

[black magick hustla]

quick duck i can hear the floor rumble already

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Shouldn't this be in Learning?

Anyway, Comrade Z, I have written a basic introduction to this theory for absolute beginners, here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Anti-D_For_Dummies%2001.htm

The first half contains the summary; the second half is devoted to showing where it goes wrong.

[fa2991]

Rosa? Why are you posting about Dialectics? I don't think any of us knew you had an opinion about the subject. I'm just downright shocked is what I am.

[Coyote]

Thanks, everyone. The links were appreciated.

[Dean]

That's Rosa expanding her horizons. :D

That said, I've been reading Capital and I see some very explicit examples where Marx frames topics in terms of dialectics.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Indeed, but what is up for grabs here is what he meant by this word. I claim, and with good reason, he did not mean the same as the mystics who plague RevLeft (and elsewhere) do.

On that, see here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

And most recently, here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/does-anyone-actually-t137570/index7.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

fa2991:


Rosa? Why are you posting about Dialectics? I don't think any of us knew you had an opinion about the subject. I'm just downright shocked is what I am.

Well, the OP asked a question (and he certanly does not know what I believe), so I answered it.

But thanks for the sarcasm anyway.:)

[PirateJenny]

That said, I've been reading Capital and I see some very explicit examples where Marx frames topics in terms of dialectics. So what if Marx uses rhetoric borrowed from German idealism, Hegel specifically? Just because Marx thought of dialects as an integral part of his discoveries does not mean that it was. Authors and scientists can be mistaken about their own works. Newton, for example, thought his discoveries in physics were an elaborate proof of God's design -- that doesn't mean that it was nor does this detract from Newton's contribution to science. The question is whether or not Marx's important scientific discoveries depend on or imply dialectics in any strict sense. Or, is dialectics leftover metaphysics? I have not seen anything to convince me that dialects is of any use -- unless you count sophistry and rhetorical bullying as useful.

[ed miliband]

Dialectics is a set of ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the mind and body that were invented by the science ficti -- oh wait.

[chegitz guevara]

All communist revolutions have been led by people who accept dialectics as a valid form of logic. People who don't accept dialectics sit around whine about the revolutions the previous people made.

[PirateJenny]

All communist revolutions have been led by people who accept dialectics as a valid form of logic. People who don't accept dialectics sit around whine about the revolutions the previous people made.

The above quote is a great example of poor reasoning skills.

All communist-led revolutions have had male chairmen.. does that also mean that women chairmen can't lead successful revolutions according to the above quote?

Just because communist leaders have accepted dialectics does not mean dialectics contributed anything to the success of their revolutions. If dialectics did contribute anything to success, it contributed in the way that a personality cult or official myth does, but it did not contribute anything as a *science*. And, if you think it did, you should prove that it did.

[Zanthorus]

Basically, dialectics is Hegel's alternative to the Kantian project of critique.

For Kant, critique is an attempt to bring out the essential and a priori categories that are presupposed by a particular science or branch of knowledge. Kant says that this form of critique is something akin to a Copernican revolution. In the same way that Copernicus flipped the tables and made it so that the earth revolves around the sun, Kant challenges the traditional idea that the objective world outside us is knowable directly through sense-experience. The subject, in this view, is not a passive reciever of knowledge, but actively imposes structures and categories of experience onto the world in order to understand it. The way these categories are delimited is that to begin with, Kant will find a specific claim or set of claims which he believes that he has a right to take for granted. In the project to determine the necessary presuppositions of theoretical knowledge, for example, he begins with a proposition which he believes no even Hume can doubt, the fact that we are not just conscious of having sensations in succession but of percieving and experiencing certain objects. From these claims, Kant regresses from the claim to examine the necessary conditions under which this claim is possible.

What Hegel takes issue with is Kant's assumption of these claims as something which he can take for granted. In Hegel's view, Kant gives far too much weight to our powers of abstraction, he assumes that he can get to the root, the necessary conditions for the existence of any particular science, with an abstract and transhistorical perspective which stands above and escapes the influence of any particular actually-existing scientific practice or philosophical project. For Hegel, this abstract 'outside' perspective misunderstands the way we are all bound up in history, and therefore must necessarily start, not from a universal standpoint which stands outside particular standpoints, but from inside a particular standpoint. In Hegel's view, it is from this internal perspective that philosophy must precede and advance towards the absolute.

For Hegel, reason is not, as in the enlightenment view, something which stands outside time, rather, our mode of consciousness develops and becomes more sophisticated and substantial as it runs up against various barriers. This process of the development of thought is Hegel's dialectic.

To outline how dialectic works, we can take the first transition in the Phenomenology of Spirit between 'sense-certainty' and 'perception', as an example. According to the initial mode of consciousness examined by Hegel, 'sense-certainty', the immediate knowledge of the world we gain through our senses is exhaustive, authoritative and the richest source of knowledge we have. But sense-certainty runs into a boundary. The aim of sense-certainty, broadly, is to have knowledge of things, but it cannot satisfy this aim, it walks into a barrier of it's own creation. Whenever the 'naive empiricist' tries to point to an object to show he has knowledge of it, it becomes incredibly difficult to show that this is actually knowledge. Any knowledge of simples or complexes will require an examination of the requisite context, and this will involve bringing in categories which aren't derived from immediate sense-experience. Sense-certainty, then, cannot satisfy it's own aims. The main character of the Phenomenology, 'Consciousness', then strips off it's initial mode of consciousness and replaces it with a new one, perception, which retains broadly the positive aims and insights of sense-certainty, but acknowledges the role of universals and secondary qualities.

So from this we can outline something of a general formula for how dialectic proceeds. We start with an initial stage of harmony, for Hegel in the 'mode of consciousness', but this harmony is interrupted by dischord and contradiction as the mode of consciousness begins to run into internal contradictions, barriers of it's own creation. The previous mode of consciousness is then superceeded by a new mode of consciousness, which is a genuine resolution of the conflicts of the previous mode, which contains the previous mode and it's positive aspects as a 'moment' within itself, but which represents an advance on the prior stage.

The final thing to note is Hegel's conception of the end result of all this, the absolute. Hegel's conception of the absolute is essentially derived from Hermetic philosophy, according to which God creates the world in order to complete himself, and is completed by human knowledge of God, which is at the same time God's own self-knowledge. The absolute is, as Bertrand Russell remarked, the stereotypical God of the academic philosopher, thought which thinks itself.

What Marx does is to flip this all upside down and, instead of examining modes of consciousness, examine modes of production. This is the materialist conception of history - we begin with a specific mode of production, and this mode of production runs into internal contradictions, conflicts of it's own creation, and is superseeded by a whole new mode of production. Thus, the capitalist mode of production runs up into barriers of it's own creation. "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." Likewise, capital's tendency towards crisis are products of it's own internal logic, the reall barrier to capital accumulation, according to Marx, is capital itself.

Another key for Marx here is Hegel's idea of an internal critique. Marx examines each mode of production on it's own basis, and not on the basis of any transhistorical concepts. Bourgeois political economy uses transhistorical concepts of 'capital' and 'labour', according to which the first man to kill a deer with a spear was the first capitalist. These transhistorical concepts are chided by Marx because they explain precisely nothing about the particular conditions of each specific mode of production. General concepts such as these can only be of the most banal and generally useless sort which even a child could work out.

The final aspect of Hegel's dialectic which Marx uses is the concept of the absolute, thought thinking itself, in his understanding of what 'scientific socialism' is. For Marx, 'scientific socialism', or Communism, is the self-comprehension of the proletarian movement, the understanding of the working-class movement in it's entire historical development, and of it's aims independent of any particular national or sectional interests. This idea of socialist theory as the highest form of consciousness of the proletariat, the proletariat's self-understanding, is what allows him to give an at least intellectually (If not organisationally) 'vanguardist' role to socialist theoreticians.

[Zanthorus]

If you're interested in a more in depth look at Hegel and dialectics by the way, I have to say that reading the endless discussions on this site hasn't helped me in any way, and in a good deal of ways just served to confuse me further, apart from some of ZeroNowhere's posts like this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/does-anyone-actually-t137570/index.html?p=1864910#post1864910) post, which certainly helped clarify a few things for me.

I reccomend just picking up a decent book on Hegel. I got Starting with Hegel by Craig Matarrese, which uses fairly straightforward language to explain Hegel's otherwise quite dense jargon.

My understanding of the relationship between Hegel and Kant was helped along by this (http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/earlymodphil//files/2008/10/sedgwick-hegel.pdf) article by Sally Sedgwick.

This article (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/millenni/smith4.htm) by Cyril Smith, exploring the respective conceptions of 'science' held by Hegel and Marx, was also extremely helpful.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Pirate Jenny:


So what if Marx uses rhetoric borrowed from German idealism, Hegel specifically? Just because Marx thought of dialects as an integral part of his discoveries does not mean that it was. Authors and scientists can be mistaken about their own works. Newton, for example, thought his discoveries in physics were an elaborate proof of God's design -- that doesn't mean that it was nor does this detract from Newton's contribution to science. The question is whether or not Marx's important scientific discoveries depend on or imply dialectics in any strict sense. Or, is dialectics leftover metaphysics? I have not seen anything to convince me that dialects is of any use -- unless you count sophistry and rhetorical bullying as useful.

In fact, a very good case can be made that Marx rejected 'the dialectic' as it has been conceived by most of his 'followers' since:

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

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

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

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

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

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

But, I agree with you about Newton. If it can be shown that Marx did accept this 'theory' as it has traditionally been characterised, it won't detract from the genuine insights encapsulated in Historical Materialism.

[PirateJenny]

I skimmed the other threads. I agree with you for the most part.

Marx's important discoveries stand alone; they don't rely on dialects in any important way. Dialectics is metaphysical baggage. And, often Marx's "reliance" on dialectics is more rhetorical than anything. It was the rhetorical style of the time to try to capture the dialectic in one's very writing, in the sentence structure and book layout -- to a certain extent, this goes back even before Hegel to Kant's 1st Critique.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chegitz:


All communist revolutions have been led by people who accept dialectics as a valid form of logic. People who don't accept dialectics sit around whine about the revolutions the previous people made.

And, in each case, the degeneration of these revolutions was led by those who were dialecticians, too.

But, it's not the case that they used this 'theory' in these revolutions. Take, for example, the most famous -- 1917; here's how I have put this in one of my essays:


When confronted with the above unwelcome facts, DM-fans sometimes respond with a "Well if dialectics is so dire, how come the Bolsheviks were able to win power in 1917?"

[Non-Leninist DM-fans, of course, do not even have this to point to as a 'success'!]

Oddly enough, as a Leninist myself, I find this 'objection' remarkably easy to answer: the Bolsheviks were successful because they could not and did not use dialectics (either in its DM- or in its 'Materialist Dialectics'-form).

To be sure, this claim is controversial, but only because no one has thought to question the role of dialectics before.

In fact, the material counterweight provided by working class soviets prevented the Bolsheviks from employing this useless 'theory'. Had they tried to propagandise/organise Russian workers with slogans such as: "Being is identical with but at the same time different from Nothing...", "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts...", or "Matter without motion is unthinkable" (and the like), they'd have been regarded as complete lunatics, and rightly so.

On the other hand, they could and did use ideas drawn from HM to help organise the soviets. [All this was covered in detail Part One of this Essay (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_01.htm).]

[HM = Historical Materialism; DM = Dialectical Materialism.]

And it is no use arguing that dialectical concepts were used 'implicitly' (or that they 'informed' the tactics that Lenin and his party adopted, somehow operating 'behind the scenes'). As we will see below, since dialectical concepts can be employed to justify anything and its opposite (being inherently and proudly contradictory), had they been employed, they could only have been used subjectively since there is no objective way to tell these incompatible applications apart.

Anyone who takes exception to the above will need to show precisely how Lenin and the Bolsheviks explicitly used dialectical-concepts --, as opposed to their actual employment of concepts drawn from HM (the latter based on a concrete class analysis of events in 1917, and on years of experience relating to the working class) -- in 1917.

They will thus need to produce documented evidence of the Bolshevik's use of dialectical ideas/theses, and then show how they could possibly have been of any practical benefit to workers in revolutionary struggle --, or even how they could have helped the Bolsheviks comprehend what was going on and know how to intervene successfully.

Now, I have trawled through the available minutes and decrees of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party (from August 1917 to February 1918), and have failed to find a single DM-thesis -- let alone one drawn from 'Materialist Dialectics' -- put to any use, or even referred to abstractly! [On this, see Bone (1974).] To be sure, it is always possible I have missed something, but even if I have, this Hermetic creed hardly forms a prominent part of the day-to-day discussions of active revolutionaries.

Added later: I have now gone though the available documents line by line twice -- still no sign of this Hermetic virus (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/glenn_magee.htm)!

In fact, it is conspicuous by its absence.

Hence, the available evidence suggests that active revolutionaries made no use of this 'theory'.

Added later still: I have now checked the Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of The Third International [Holt and Holland (1983)], and the only sign of dialectics is a couple of dozen mentions of the word "contradiction" in relation to capitalism (etc.) in over 400 pages. No other examples of dialectical jargon appear in the entire volume, and even then "contradiction" is not used to explain anything, nor does it seem to do any work. Furthermore, most of the uses of this word were made by Zinoviev; as far as I can tell, Lenin does not use the term anywhere in the book.

Moreover, in Trotsky's The Third International After Lenin [Trotsky (1974)], dialectics is mentioned only fourteen times in nearly 300 pages, and then only in passing. This theory does no work here either.

And it is even less use someone requiring of me to produce proof that Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not use dialectical ideas, since there is no written evidence that he/they did, as the above indicates. Hence, the contrary case goes by default. Of course, all this is quite independent of the proof offered in these Essays that not one single dialectical concept is useable. After all, as we saw earlier (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm), even Lenin got himself into a serious muddle when he tried to play around with such ideas, let alone when he attempted to apply them.

As we will soon find out (here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm) -- use the 'Quick Links' at the top to jump to Section 7, 'Case Studies'), when some attempt is made to apply dialectical ideas, they can be made to 'justify' anything whatsoever (no matter how contradictory that "anything whatsoever" might otherwise appear to be; in fact the more contradictory it is, the more 'dialectical' it seems!), and they can be, and have been used to rationalise any course of action, and its opposite -- including strategies and tactics that are both counter-revolutionary and anti-Marxist.

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

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

So, 1917 cannot be chalked-up as a success for this strain of Hermetic Mysticism.

However, we will see that the disintegration of the results of 1917 can partly be put down to dialectics.

Bakhurst, D. (1991), Consciousness And Revolution In Soviet Philosophy. From The Bolsheviks To Evald Ilyenkov (Cambridge University Press).

Bone, A. (1974), The Bolsheviks And The October Revolution. Central Committee Minutes Of The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolshevik) August 1917-February 1918 (Pluto Press).

Graham, L. (1971), Science And Philosophy In The Soviet Union (Allen Lane).

Holt, A., and Holland, B. (1983), Theses, Resolutions And Manifestos Of The First Four Congresses Of The Third International (Ink Links).

Joravsky, D. (1961), Soviet Marxism And Natural Science 1917-1932 (Routledge).

Trotsky, L. (1974), The Third International After Lenin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/index.htm) (New Park).

Wetter, G. (1958), Dialectical Materialism (Routledge).

Anyone who doubts that this theory seriously affects the brains of otherwise excellent comrades need look no further than the writings of Ai Ssu-ch'i (who was highly influential on Mao). Check this out:


The law of identity is a rule of the abstract, absolute unity; it sees in identical things only the aspect of absolute identity, recognising this aspect alone and disregarding its own contradictory and antagonistic aspects. Since an object can only be absolutely identical to itself, it therefore cannot be identical to another aspect. One expresses this with the formula: A is not Not-A, or A is B (sic) and simultaneously it cannot be Not-B.... For example, 'retreat is not attack' (A is Not-A (sic)), concentration is limitation of democracy (A is B), one cannot in this case develop democracy (simultaneously 'not is Not-B' (sic)). In this definition, an object (concept, thing, etc.) is confronted absolutely with another object, which lies beyond the actual object, a consequence of which is that an object (A) and the others (Not-A) have no relations at all with each other.... The law of identity thus only recognises abstract identity, and the law of contradiction only recognises an absolute opposite. [Ai Ssu-ch'i, 'Formal Logic And Dialectic', quoted in Meissner (1990), p.107.]

And:


"The law of the excluded third specifies: either there is an absolute identity (A is B) or an absolute opposition (A is not B); an object cannot be simultaneously identical and at the same time be antagonistic. For example 'concentration' is either limited democracy or unlimited democracy; it cannot at the same time be limited and a developed democracy. A government in which the people participate is either a democratic organ or it is not a democratic organ. It cannot be simultaneously democratic and insufficiently democratic. Therefore the law of the excluded third only recognises opposition or unity, and struggles against the 'unity of opposites'. This meant that it ['formal logic'] and the dialectic are diametrically opposed." [Ibid.]

Ai used this 'theory to 'prove' that to retreat was also to attack, and that to deny democracy was to enhance it!

As Meissner explains:


"1. What is the meaning of 'Retreat is not attack'? As we will see in more detail below, this formulation referred to the strategic principles of the long-protracted war....

"For Mao Tse-Tung...the defence of Wuhan had no special meaning. Instead he advocated surrendering the city and building up the resistance in the countryside. Ai Ssu-ch'i thus defended Mao's tactics, in that he dismissed the phrase 'Retreat is not attack' as 'formal logically'. To consider the 'retreat' from Wuhan solely as a retreat or non-attack corresponded, according to Ai, to the first law of 'formal logic' and was in no way seen as 'dialectical'. On the other hand, Ai wanted to show that the retreat was at one and the same time both a retreat and not a retreat.... The retreat thus contained an attack.

"2. The explanations of 'democratisation' and 'concentration' were also a criticism of Wang Ming's concepts of setting back 'democratisation' in favour of the 'concentration' of all political and military forces, and of attempting to commit the CCP exclusively to the support of the national government. Behind this was hidden the consideration that a possible 'democratisation' of Kuomintang control could lead to an impairment of the military effectiveness of the United Front. Ai criticised this view a 'formal logically', because 'democratisation' and 'concentration' were seen as mutually exclusive contradictions....

"3. However, Ai Ssu-ch'i' made a further observation concerning the relationship between the CCP and the Kuomintang by speaking of the 'unification of several objects identical to themselves' and by characterising them as a 'formal-logical' combination of independent, mutually unrelated objects, which thus represented a state of rest. The 'formal-logical identity' served him as an example of how the relationship between the two parties should not be constituted....

"Through the example of the 'law of identity', Ai also grappled with the question of how far the CCP should acquiesce in the Kuomintang's demand to base itself on the 'Three principles of the people', without endangering the independence of the CCP....


'Since the law of identity only recognises the absolute aspect of identity, one can maintain in the United Front that all parties and factions have now already given up their independence and have only one goal; consequently, many people say that the CP has given up Marxism. Since, on the other hand, the law of contradiction only recognises the absolute opposite, some people advocate the view that every party and faction must retain its own independent programme and organisation'. [Ai Ssu-ch'i, ibid.]

"Ai characterised the adherents of the first view as 'right deviationists' and those of the second as 'left deviationists'.... Both groups...are, according to Ai, 'formal-logical' in their thought; they consider one aspect of the whole and make it absolute.... 'Formal logic' recognises only attack and/or retreat, only concentration and/or democracy, only the 'three principles of the people' and/or communism. However, it is not capable of comprehending the existing relationships between those respective pairs of objects....

"Thus, in concrete terms, 'dialectical logic' can be explained thus: the United Front is accepted and at the same time rejected, in that the struggle against the Kuomintang is to be continued within the United Front." [Meissner (1990), pp.107-110.]

As we can see, this 'theory;' was thus used to 'justify' class collaboration with the Guomindang!

Meissner, W. (1990), Philosophy And Politics In China. The Controversy Over Dialectical Materialism In The 1930s (Hurst & Company).

Loads more gobbledygook like this can be found in Meissner's book.

As I said, this 'theory' can be used to 'prove' anything you like and its opposite.

Plenty more examples of that here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1885000&postcount=317

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1885003&postcount=318

In which case, it's a good job we can find no examples of this 'theory' actually being employed in revolutionary situations -- that would be like Astronomers using Astrology to predict, say, eclipses or to study the motion of an asteroid.:lol:

[PirateJenny]

During the Cultural Revolution decade, there were obscure debates about whether "one divides into two or whether two combine into one." The former was said to be the philosophic basis of the class struggle line and the latter a call for class capitulation. However, all of this was meaningless because even those who called for "dividing one into two" did not mean it to be a call for boundless, endless struggle. All groups call for some degree of unity and some degree of struggle. Just as "the center" could criticize those to its right as "combining two into one," so too could the "ultra-left" criticize "the center." In the end, nothing is really explained by all this dialectical hermeticism. This kind of obscurantism allows opportunism to flourish. It is like when people say "it's dialectical" when they can't explain a mechanistic or functional system in any detail. Rather than accusing anyone to one's right of "combining two into one," one should skip the dialectical mumbojumbo and just explain why their line, their policies, lead to class capitulation and revolutionary defeat. In other words, nothing useful is added with the dialectical obscurantism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


Basically, dialectics is Hegel's alternative to the Kantian project of critique.

Why are you bothering with this confused incompetent, Hegel? His ideas are based on a series of crass logical blunders; on that, see here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1871471&postcount=66

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PirateJenny:


During the Cultural Revolution decade, there were obscure debates about whether "one divides into two or whether two combine into one." The former was said to be the philosophic basis of the class struggle line and the latter a call for class capitulation. However, all of this was meaningless because even those who called for "dividing one into two" did not mean it to be a call for boundless, endless struggle. All groups call for some degree of unity and some degree of struggle. Just as "the center" could criticize those to its right as "combining two into one," so too could the "ultra-left" criticize "the center." In the end, nothing is really explained by all this dialectical hermeticism. This kind of obscurantism allows opportunism to flourish. It is like when people say "it's dialectical" when they can't explain a mechanistic or functional system in any detail. Rather than accusing anyone to one's right of "combining two into one," one should skip the dialectical mumbojumbo and just explain why their line, their policies, lead to class capitulation and revolutionary defeat. In other words, nothing useful is added with the dialectical obscurantism.

Indeed. I have recorded one or two of those 'debates' in Essay Nine Part Two (link in my long post above).

[Zanthorus]

Marx's important discoveries stand alone; they don't rely on dialects in any important way. Dialectics is metaphysical baggage. And, often Marx's "reliance" on dialectics is more rhetorical than anything.

Except, Marx doesn't rely on Hegel's dialectics at all. Marx's dialectics are, as he himself remarks in the afterword to the second German edition of Capital, the direct opposite of the Hegelian. Still, Marx's work is clearly reliant on Hegel's influence, and on Marx's critical engagement with Hegel, as Marx makes repeatedly clear. The whole method that Marx uses in Das Kapital, the rigorously scientific way in which he goes about things, tracing the internal workings of capitalism, his constant intertwining of theory and history, shows the stamp of Hegelianism clearly. His methodological critique of Bourgeois political economy in many ways mirrors Hegel's methodological critique of Kant.


Why are you bothering with this confused incompetent, Hegel?

I was advised by someone I know whose pretty knowledgable about such things that if I really wanted to be a serious student of Marx I should at least familiarise myself with Hegel.

[black magick hustla]

dialectics are the deadweight of old dead german white people who abstracted words to the point that they were so empty they could say whatever the hell they wanted and still starry eyed students would suck their cock/vaginae. long case in point, read the laughable book abc of dialectics by trotsky when he said a pound of salt is not a pound of salt :laugh:

[ckaihatsu]

---





Can somebody please give me an "in a nutshell" explanation of Dialectics?





[In my perception] dialectics is like having *two* variables in an algebraic equation. The two variables, or unknowns, are related and thus dependent on each other, and working with either will help you towards figuring out the other, and the equation as a whole.

In more real-world settings the unknowns and the overall environment are much more "fuzzy" and nonlinear. Nonetheless the relation between the two unknowns exists and efforts towards illuminating *any* of the components will be additive and most likely constructive. I like to think of a pinball machine that is stripped of *all* elements from its playing field so that there is only the blank surface, the two flippers, and the drain. Efforts made at the flippers to keep one or more pinballs in play will serve to carve out "pathways" through the unknown, between the twin "dialectics" of the *sides* of the pinball machine. One could argue that resolving the *full* surface of the table through cumulative pinball pathways could take awhile using this method, since there's only the two sides for the balls to bounce off of.

This is where I would say to introduce *complexity theory* -- add *more* elements, or "variables", to the playing field so as to make the dialectics "multipolar":





Complex systems is a new approach to science that studies how relationships between parts give rise to the collective behaviors of a system and how the system interacts and forms relationships with its environment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity_and_chaos_theory


With more stuff on the table the pinballs will experience more kinetic energy and the pathways will carve out more illumination, faster.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ckaihatsu:


[In my perception] dialectics is like having *two* variables in an algebraic equation. The two variables, or unknowns, are related and thus dependent on each other, and working with either will help you towards figuring out the other, and the equation as a whole.

In more real-world settings the unknowns and the overall environment are much more "fuzzy" and nonlinear. Nonetheless the relation between the two unknowns exists and efforts towards illuminating *any* of the components will be additive and most likely constructive. I like to think of a pinball machine that is stripped of *all* elements from its playing field so that there is only the blank surface, the two flippers, and the drain. Efforts made at the flippers to keep one or more pinballs in play will serve to carve out "pathways" through the unknown, between the twin "dialectics" of the *sides* of the pinball machine. One could argue that resolving the *full* surface of the table through cumulative pinball pathways could take awhile using this method, since there's only the two sides for the balls to bounce off of.

This is where I would say to introduce *complexity theory* -- add *more* elements, or "variables", to the playing field so as to make the dialectics "multipolar":

But why is this 'dialectical'? You just assert this but do not justify it.

[S.Artesian]

So what if Marx uses rhetoric borrowed from German idealism, Hegel specifically? Just because Marx thought of dialects as an integral part of his discoveries does not mean that it was. Authors and scientists can be mistaken about their own works. Newton, for example, thought his discoveries in physics were an elaborate proof of God's design -- that doesn't mean that it was nor does this detract from Newton's contribution to science. The question is whether or not Marx's important scientific discoveries depend on or imply dialectics in any strict sense. Or, is dialectics leftover metaphysics? I have not seen anything to convince me that dialects is of any use -- unless you count sophistry and rhetorical bullying as useful.

Right. Tell that to the "anti-dialecticians" whose entire argument is that Marx extirpated the influence of Hegel on his work.

Right, again. Does Marx's critical analysis of capitalism, not depend, but demonstrate a) a self-organization in capital of contradiction, opposition, antagonism, leading to negation, abolition, transcendence and b) is that demonstration accurate, correct?

I think the answers to both questions is yes, and I think if you study the entirety of Marx's work-- not every word he ever written-- but the development of his analysis from the Critique of Hegel.. to and beyond the Economic Manuscripts of 1857-1864, Capital, and the various drafts and iterations of that work, and include his correspondence-- then you see that yes, Marx demonstrates that self-organization in capital of contradiction, and yes, it does correspond to the reality of capitalism, the reality of its cycles, its development, its "underdevelopment," its crises, and most importantly, its reproduction which is all of those things.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Smarty Pants:


Right. Tell that to the "anti-dialecticians" whose entire argument is that Marx extirpated the influence of Hegel on his work.

Then he/she will have to tell Marx, since he is the source of this allegation, as you have been told many times.


Right, again. Does Marx's critical analysis of capitalism, not depend, but demonstrate a) a self-organization in capital of contradiction, opposition, antagonism, leading to negation, abolition, transcendence and b) is that demonstration accurate, correct?

Except, you once again help yourself to the word 'contradiction' without once justifying it.

And the other jargon words, too. In which case you might just as well have posted:


Right, again. Does Marx's critical analysis of capitalism, not depend, but demonstrate a) a self-organization in capital of coffee grinders, opposition, antagonism, leading to mashed potatoes, abolition, Route 66 and b) is that demonstration accurate, correct?

I think the answers to both questions is yes, and I think if you study the entirety of Marx's work-- not every word he ever written-- but the development of his analysis from the Critique of Hegel.. to and beyond the Economic Manuscripts of 1857-1864, Capital, and the various drafts and iterations of that work, and include his correspondence-- then you see that yes, Marx demonstrates that self-organization in capital of coffee grinders, and yes, it does correspond to the reality of capitalism, the reality of its cycles, its development, its "underdevelopment," its crises, and most importantly, its reproduction which is all of those things.

[S.Artesian]

dialectics are the deadweight of old dead german white people who abstracted words to the point that they were so empty they could say whatever the hell they wanted and still starry eyed students would suck their cock/vaginae. long case in point, read the laughable book abc of dialectics by trotsky when he said a pound of salt is not a pound of salt :laugh:


Don't hold back, please. Say exactly what's on your mind. I don't understand why someone claiming to be a forum moderator would use images of sexual activity to denounce, diminish, or attack an issue, when all that does is denounce, attack sexual activity itself.

I mean I imagine if I said,' "anti-dialectics" is the self-corn-holing of a bunch syphilitic old whores.'? That wouldn't be very helpful, would it.

And what if I said, "anti-dialectics" is the product of some very immature very white Western European privileged elites, bribed by the crumbs of superprofits extracted from the labor of the dark-skinned masses of the third world. How would that sound?

Other than that, I think you made a real and very valuable contribution to the discussion. And now, if you'll just take the needle out your arm, and put the pacifier back in your mouth to stop your whining, perhaps others can continue a real discussion.

Nothing personal, mind you.

[S.Artesian]

Except we are not confined to your definitions Boza. We are dealing with actual relations of labor and the expropriation of labor in the material world. So if we demonstrate that contradiction, how in fact the accumulation of capital opposes the continued accumulation of capital; how the very source of value produces devaluation of accumulated value, then we've established contradiction as Marx demonstrated it in his analysis of capital.

To get back to the OP and the question-- I would not, at the outset, recommend studying "dialectics" in and of themselves, separate from Marx's analysis of capitalism, an analysis that begins with his critique of Hegel. So I would recommend reading, first of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, particularly his critique of Hegel, and then go to The German Ideology.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Smarty Pants:


Except we are not confined to your definitions Boza.

Where did I say you were? What I asked you to do was to justify your use of this word.


We are dealing with actual relations of labor and the expropriation of labor in the material world.

Indeed, but then why use the word 'contradiction' here?


So if we demonstrate that contradiction,

But you haven't, you have once again helped yourself to this word without a scrap of justification.


how in fact the accumulation of capital opposes the continued accumulation of capital; how the very source of value produces devaluation of accumulated value, then we've established contradiction as Marx demonstrated it in his analysis of capital.

Once again, you insert that word in here with no justification. In which case, my use of 'coffee grinder' is equally valid.

[S.Artesian]

I have "justified" my use of the words contradiction, negation, opposition, antagonism-- in numerous posts in other threads. You don't accept those definitions, or usages. That's OK with me. We aren't in the Boza Lichtenstein universe where you get to rule on what's "justified" and what is not.

None of this is the point. Arguing with you is like arguing with a psychotic who believes he or she is Napoleon that in fact he or she isn't Napoleon.

Argument is irrelevant because reality is irrelevant to the psychotic.

Thus you never engage in any material analysis of the reproduction of capitalism, of the relations of capitalism, of the relation of the labor process to the valorisation process-- in the relations that reveal the dialectic of capital as Marx's demonstrates in his critiques.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Smarty Pants:


I have "justified" my use of the words contradiction,

Not so; all you have done is attempt to 'define' it -- all the while ignoring the fact that the "mutually exclusive" 'halves' of one of these contradictions' of yours mean they cannot co-exist, and so cannot 'contradict' one another.

In fact, what you have done is appropriate what you take to be Marx's use of this word, and you have not once showed why this use is appropriate or correct.

But, we already know why you are so shy in this regard; it's because this use of 'contradiction' was derived from Hegel and his crass confusion of the alleged negative form of the 'law of identity' with the 'law of non-contradiction'.

So, there is no way you could justify your use of this word.

But you are quite happy to keep on using it when there is no rationale for it.


You don't accept those definitions, or usages. That's OK with me. We aren't in the Boza Lichtenstein universe where you get to rule on what's "justified" and what is not.

So, your only 'justification' is that it is traditional for you mystics to use it this way. What great science this is! :lol:

Moreover, it's no use 'defining' a word that has no rationale behind it.

Otherwise, capitalists could simply 're-define' their system as 'just, stable and fair', and then complain when challenged:


You don't accept those definitions, or usages. That's OK with me. We aren't in the Smarty Pants universe where you get to rule on what's "justified" and what is not.

Are you likely to accept that excuse?

Same with you.


None of this is the point. Arguing with you is like arguing with a psychotic who believes he or she is Napoleon that in fact he or she isn't Napoleon.

You tried that before, and had to be reminded that I'm not the least bit like you.


Argument is irrelevant because reality is irrelevant to the psychotic.

Well, I'm sure you are happy you have got that off your chest. When were you diagnosed?


Thus you never engage in any material analysis of the reproduction of capitalism, of the relations of capitalism, of the relation of the labor process to the valorisation process-- in the relations that reveal the dialectic of capital as Marx's demonstrates in his critiques.

No need to, Marx and other comrades have done a pretty good job so far.

As I have told you many times: it's far more important for me to try to stem the flow of Hermetic poison into Marxism.

Mystical numpties like you are not helping, either!:lol:

[Yazman]

I would like to remind users in this thread that name-calling will not be tolerated in any case. This is the Learning forum - its here for education. It isn't here for jokes and sarcastic comments. If you want that sort of environment, go to Chit Chat please.

[ckaihatsu]

But why is this 'dialectical'? You just assert this but do not justify it.


My description is meant to *illustrate* the use of the dialectic.

The dialectical process is a *tool* -- like any other tool one may decide to use it or not use it, and its use will be entirely dependent on the skill of the person using it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ckaihatsu:


My description is meant to *illustrate* the use of the dialectic.

The dialectical process is a *tool* -- like any other tool one may decide to use it or not use it, and its use will be entirely dependent on the skill of the person using it.

Yes, I got that, it's just that I fail to see how it could possibly illustrate an unworkable theory/method?

It seems to me that a better way to illustrate it would be to post a picture of a blown up humvee.

[EvilRedGuy]

I heard Dialectics is silly and waste of time.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^That's only the half of it.

[ckaihatsu]

It seems to me that a better way to illustrate it would be to post a picture of a blown up humvee.


Okay -- I think we'd *all* get a kick out of that…. Have you heard of Google Images?





Yes, I got that, it's just that I fail to see how it could possibly illustrate an unworkable theory/method?


Well, that's a bit harsh. I'm sure you could think of an example in which it would be applicable….

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ckaihatsu:


Okay -- I think we'd *all* get a kick out of that…. Have you heard of Google Images?

Indeed, but the last time I posted a picture here, I got a warning piont, so I steer clear now.


I'm sure you could think of an example in which it would be applicable….

No I can't since this 'theory' is not only unworkable, it makes not one ounce of sense.

It would be easier to illustrate the round square in comparison.

[Thirsty Crow]

I have "justified" my use of the words contradiction, negation, opposition, antagonism-- in numerous posts in other threads. You don't accept those definitions, or usages. That's OK with me. We aren't in the Boza Lichtenstein universe where you get to rule on what's "justified" and what is not.
I swear, it really seems to me that the issue atr hand is the issue of non-literal word use (in other words, metaphorical use - the real opposition and antagonism between labour and capital is expressed as a "contradiction").

It is a matter of two or three lexical items.
Is it not, Rosa? (honest question)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

No, since there is no metaphorical sense to be made of this word -- or, none we have had expalined to us so far.

A metaphor must at some point have a 'cash value', to use William James's happy metaphor. So, if a man is described as a pig, then we can cash this out to mean he is uncouth, slovenly, unwashed and possesses digusting eating habits, at least.

But what is the cash value of this metaphor, if it is one?

And why use it anyway? It derives from a series of crass errors committed by Hegel.

Is there any other branch of learning where the crass errors of one generation are preserved in all their glory and defended with such emotion and irrationality?

[S.Artesian]

I skimmed the other threads. I agree with you for the most part.

Marx's important discoveries stand alone; they don't rely on dialects in any important way. Dialectics is metaphysical baggage. And, often Marx's "reliance" on dialectics is more rhetorical than anything. It was the rhetorical style of the time to try to capture the dialectic in one's very writing, in the sentence structure and book layout -- to a certain extent, this goes back even before Hegel to Kant's 1st Critique.

That's not at all what Marx says in his economic manuscripts written 1857-1864, which include drafts of Capital, extensive analysis of the conversion of surplus value into capital, the contradiction between the valorisation process and the labor process.

And his reliance is hardly rhetorical. He demonstrates this dialectic exactly in that contradiction of the labor process and the valorisation process.

It certainly was not the rhetorical style of the time to try to capture the dialectic in one's very writing, not when Marx is writing after 1848. Hegel was considered a "dead dog."

It certainly was Marx's intent to capture, demonstrate that dialectic of capital in his writings of it, but one man does not make a style of the time. Look for example at Engels' letter to Marx questioning the difficulty in the dialectical transitions Marx analyzes and expresses in the first chapters of Capital that Marx sent him.

It is more accurate to say, since Marx says it, that volume 1 is intended as an introduction for the layperson and Marx intentionally removed language from that introduction that might deter, or prove too difficult for the layperson. Marx says he does that as best he can..... expect for his discussion on value in which he trusts the reader is not adverse to learning a little something new to deepen the comprehension of the subject.

[S.Artesian]

A metaphor must at some point have a 'cash value', to use William James's happy metaphor. So, if a man is described as a pig, then we can cash this out to mean he is uncouth, slovenly, unwashed and possesses digusting eating habits, at least.

But what is the cash value of this metaphor, if it is one?



Spoken like a true shopkeeper.

[Thirsty Crow]

No, since there is no metaphorical sense to be made of this word -- or, none we have had expalined to us so far.

A metaphor must at some point have a 'cash value', to use William James's happy metaphor. So, if a man is described as a pig, then we can cash this out to mean he is uncouth, slovenly, unwashed and possesses digusting eating habits, at least.

But what is the cash value of this metaphor, if it is one?

And why use it anyway? It derives from a series of crass errors committed by Hegel.

Is there any other branch of learning where the crass errors of one generation are preserved in all their glory and defended with such emotion and irrationality?
How has it not a "cash value"?
Maybe it's my own subjective "reading" of the "devices" of expression, but I'd say that it indeed possesses a "cash value":

1) consider the expression "antagonism between labour and capital"; it is a sceintific observation and an observation of the fact of class struggle (that is, it connotes the fact of class struggle). But the metaphor (it is a metaphor, and a condensed one if we keep in mind that the "device" of the metaphor functions on the basis of perceived similarity, no matter how strained, between two real phenomena or ideas) adds another "layer" of connoted meaning...

2)...and this layer rests on the similarity between real antagonism and argumentative/logical contradiction (which can only be attributed to statements). Now, the effect of this signification is in fact cumulative - it binds "contradictions" and "real antagonisms", offering an even more pronounced rhetorical emphasis on the notion of inherent "fallacoiusness" of capitalism

Now, this does not mean that I endorse this jargon.
But let me rephrase the original question: regarding your beef with S.Artesian, is it a matter of non-literal word use? Or, in other words, is it a matter of a certain number of problematic expressions? Or not? If not, what is the object of your criticism?

[ckaihatsu]

It would be easier to illustrate the round square in comparison.


Done, and done. You got your pick on this one, so here's the dialectic at work in the field of geometry:


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/Squircle_rounded_square.png


They even did a dialectic on the name itself -- "squircle"...!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S. Artesian (I'm not allowed to call you 'Smarty Pants' in this section):


Spoken like a true shopkeeper.

But, I'm not at all like you.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ckaihatsu:

Nice try, but a square has edges that intersect at right angles, and a circle has a constant diameter.

Your shape has neither.

[S.Artesian]

You're the one assessing cash value, cash out value... etc. Shopkeeper, or accountant, take your pick. A plague on, actually a plague is both your houses.

[ckaihatsu]

Nice try, but a square has edges that intersect at right angles, and a circle has a constant diameter.

Your shape has neither.





It would be easier to illustrate the round square in comparison.


Well, which *is* it -- do you want "a square [that] has edges that intersect at right angles", or "a circle [with] a constant diameter", or do you want "to illustrate the round square" -- ?

Note that these are *three* different things. It *was* easy to "illustrate the round square" because the graphic already existed, and so I just pointed to it on the web.

[RedMaterialist]

Can somebody please give me an "in a nutshell" explanation of Dialectics?

An acorn falls from a tree. With a lot of luck the acorn then germinates and a tree begins to grow. The original acorn no longer exists, it has been "negated." With a lot of luck an oak tree grows. (Unless a geneticist manipulates the acorn genetic structure and then the whole process is sped up.) The oak tree then produces acorns which fall to the ground. The tree then, after a hundred yrs dies. The tree, the original negation, then becomes negated. The whole process is repeated; however, every few hundred million yrs an acorn comes along which can live in drier or colder or more humid conditions. If the conditions are right it then becomes the dominant oak tree.

This example is used by F. Engels in The Anti-Duhring.

People have known about acorns and oak trees for, well, a long time. What is new is that we now know (thanks to Darwin) that acorn trees evolve from previous species of trees and plants. There is nothing universal, unchanging, fixed about the oak tree species. Thanks to Marx we now know that economic and social systems change, usually by revolution.


Whether the whole dialectic thing is valid, who knows? But economic and social revolution is valid, necessary and inevitable.

[ZeroNowhere]

Animals evolve more due to external circumstances than their own dialectics (whatever internal contradiction they may possess to give them this dialectic), especially as per punctuated equilibrium, so this isn't really a case of dialectics.

Anyhow, essentially capitalism has certain 'laws of motion' inherent to it, which act independent of any external influence; in other words, they form its immanent logic, or principle of self-movement. To phrase it differently, and perhaps more clearly, capitalism moves, changes, has crises, etc, by itself, rather than due to external influence, and in accordance with its laws of motion. Of course, it may also change due to external influence, but what Marx is investigating is capitalism's own dialectic, and its self-movement; this is more or less so that we can find out what is inherent to capitalism itself, abstracting from 'accidental' qualities, which is a necessary part of economic analysis.

Now, this dialectic originates through various contradictory aspects of capitalism, namely aspects which both form a part of the capitalist system, and yet are opposites in a sense. Their relation is not external (as, for example, the relationship of an asteroid to the Earth), but internal; they are both part of the capitalist system, and yet they are opposed. For example, capital and wage-labour: capital is defined through the buying of labour-power, wage-labour through its selling, and yet capitalism requires both to function, that value may be valorized, and it may move onwards.

I went into this in a fair bit more detail here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1864910&postcount=180), if you're interested.

[JazzRemington]

An acorn falls from a tree. With a lot of luck the acorn then germinates and a tree begins to grow. The original acorn no longer exists, it has been "negated." With a lot of luck an oak tree grows. (Unless a geneticist manipulates the acorn genetic structure and then the whole process is sped up.) The oak tree then produces acorns which fall to the ground. The tree then, after a hundred yrs dies. The tree, the original negation, then becomes negated. The whole process is repeated; however, every few hundred million yrs an acorn comes along which can live in drier or colder or more humid conditions. If the conditions are right it then becomes the dominant oak tree.

What's dialectical about this? It seems you're just applying terms blindly to something that's far more complicated than you seemingly put on. I could just replace your use of "negated" with "hububuhu" and thus remove any supposed implications of dialectics. What's troublesome here is that you're describing the process of negation in passive voice, so it's not exactly clear WHAT negates the acorn and the acorn tree when it dies.


People have known about acorns and oak trees for, well, a long time. What is new is that we now know (thanks to Darwin) that acorn trees evolve from previous species of trees and plants. There is nothing universal, unchanging, fixed about the oak tree species. Thanks to Marx we now know that economic and social systems change, usually by revolution.

What's dialectical about this, then? People knew economic and social systems change for thousands of years, and they even probably had an idea about species changing into others (e.g. selective breeding). All Marx and Darwin did was develop theories to explain these changes in an organized, disciplined, and systematic way. And whether or not something is "fixed" about oak tree species depends on whatyou mean by "universal, unchanging, fixed." If there REALLY wasn't anything fixed about oak tree species, you wouldn't be able to talk about acorn species meaningfully.

[S.Artesian]

Can somebody please give me an "in a nutshell" explanation of Dialectics?

Let's try this:

Human beings are a social species. They reproduce themselves not just "naturally," i.e multiplying in numbers, but socially, reproducing their relations to the society as a whole, and to others in the society. The pivot, fulcrum, center etc. for this social reproduction is mediation of the labor process, the organization of the production of objects of use and need .

The organization, that mediation of the labor process, the property form of the social order, so that human beings in laboring, producing the objects of need and use are not just producing objects of need and use, but objects expressing a definite relation of ownership, a definite form of property.

So add to "natural" reproduction and the social reproduction of the relations to society, the reproduction of property forms, of the ownership of that production.

Capitalism originates in the separation of the direct producers from both the products and the instruments of direct production; from the ability to produce and consume directly for need, for use, for subsistence, or for "subsistence plus", i.e. surplus. Satisfaction of need, use, subsistence depends on the mediation of the market, of exchange, and since the direct producer has been dispossessed, all that person, that class in formation, has to exchange is-- its labor-- and not just its labor, its labor power. This is labor's capacity to satisfy requirement for its own subsistence in less tim that its total existence.

Now that labor power, that capacity is also dispossessed from the laborers. It becomes the property of the owners of the means of production. Capital confronts wage-labor as its opposite-- propertyless with no instruments of production, with no means of directly satisfying its needs. At the same time, capital shares an identity with wage-labor. It, capital, cannot exist without wage-labor, without aggrandizing the surplus labor capacity of the laborers. Capital cannot be reproduced without reproducing wage-labor, the conditions for aggrandizing wage-labor. The class of wage-laborers cannot satisfy their needs without giving up the ability of labor to produce surplus, capable of satisfying all needs, to the capitalists. Labor, instead of a source of enrichment, development for the laborer, becomes the source for the reproduction of the dispossession of the laborer from control of the products, the means of social enrichment, social development. The social labor of the class of laborers is inverted into the private property of the owners of the means of production and becomes a power over and against the laborers.

This is the historical, constantly reproduced contradiction, where capital and labor exist simultaneously in opposition, but linked as and in an identity, where each exists in, and only in, the reproduction of the other, that determines all the other contradictions of capitalism-- the contradiction between use value and exchange value, between the means of production and the relations of production, between the accumulation of capital and the ability to expand the accumulation of capital, between accrued profit and the rate of profit.

This is the dialectic that Marx explores and demonstrates in his analysis, his critique of capital based on its own immanent contradictions.

Dialectic is a historical, material, social process. It is a contradiction, a conflict, an antagonism inherent in the specific organization of labor under capitalism. It is the contradiction between the labor process, and its historical form, or rather deformation, in the value-creating process, which Marx calls the valorisation process.

Hope this helps. Best I can do on short notice.

[JazzRemington]

Let's try this:

Human beings are a social species. They reproduce themselves not just "naturally," i.e multiplying in numbers, but socially, reproducing their relations to the society as a whole, and to others in the society. The pivot, fulcrum, center etc. for this social reproduction is mediation of the labor process, the organization of the production of objects of use and need .

The organization, that mediation of the labor process, the property form of the social order, so that human beings in laboring, producing the objects of need and use are not just producing objects of need and use, but objects expressing a definite relation of ownership, a definite form of property.

So add to "natural" reproduction and the social reproduction of the relations to society, the reproduction of property forms, of the ownership of that production.

Capitalism originates in the separation of the direct producers from both the products and the instruments of direct production; from the ability to produce and consume directly for need, for use, for subsistence, or for "subsistence plus", i.e. surplus. Satisfaction of need, use, subsistence depends on the mediation of the market, of exchange, and since the direct producer has been dispossessed, all that person, that class in formation, has to exchange is-- its labor-- and not just its labor, its labor power. This is labor's capacity to satisfy requirement for its own subsistence in less tim that its total existence.

Now that labor power, that capacity is also dispossessed from the laborers. It becomes the property of the owners of the means of production. Capital confronts wage-labor as its opposite-- propertyless with no instruments of production, with no means of directly satisfying its needs. At the same time, capital shares an identity with wage-labor. It, capital, cannot exist without wage-labor, without aggrandizing the surplus labor capacity of the laborers. Capital cannot be reproduced without reproducing wage-labor, the conditions for aggrandizing wage-labor. The class of wage-laborers cannot satisfy their needs without giving up the ability of labor to produce surplus, capable of satisfying all needs, to the capitalists. Labor, instead of a source of enrichment, development for the laborer, becomes the source for the reproduction of the dispossession of the laborer from control of the products, the means of social enrichment, social development. The social labor of the class of laborers is inverted into the private property of the owners of the means of production and becomes a power over and against the laborers.

There is nothing dialectical about any of this. Period.


This is the historical, constantly reproduced contradiction, where capital and labor exist simultaneously in opposition, but linked as and in an identity, where each exists in, and only in, the reproduction of the other, that determines all the other contradictions of capitalism-- the contradiction between use value and exchange value, between the means of production and the relations of production, between the accumulation of capital and the ability to expand the accumulation of capital, between accrued profit and the rate of profit.

Cool story bro.


This is the dialectic that Marx explores and demonstrates in his analysis, his critique of capital based on its own immanent contradictions.

You don't seem to understand what "contradiction" means if you think anything other than a statement can "contain" contradictions. You're confusing a statement with the thing being talked about in said statement.


Dialectic is a historical, material, social process. It is a contradiction, a conflict, an antagonism inherent in the specific organization of labor under capitalism. It is the contradiction between the labor process, and its historical form, or rather deformation, in the value-creating process, which Marx calls the valorisation process.

Contradictions and antagonisms/conflict are two different concepts entirely. One does not imply the other.

[S.Artesian]

I understand contradiction as Hegel described it, and as Marx understood it, and demonstrated it in his critique of capital. What you describe as non-dialectical in the analysis of the relations between wage-labor and capital is described by Marx explicitly as dialectical throughout his economic manuscripts of 1857-1864. You should read them-- volumes 28, 30, 33, 34 of the Collected Works.

If you don't understand contradiction as Hegel, and Marx used it, well that's your problem. Really. It's simply your personal problem. If you don't like how Marx used the term contradiction.... again that's your personal problem. But that is actually how he uses it, how he defines it, and that use and that definition actually corresponds to the way capitalism is reproduced.

You think contradiction can only apply to statements. That is not Marx's use of the term. That's clearly not Marx's understanding of the term. There is a real material contradiction between the labor process and the valorisation process. Marx describes it as a contradiction, demonstrates it as a contradiction. Again, if you don't like that, or agree with it, then you have a personal problem.

I don't have that personal problem with Marx's use of the term. I think Marx is right in his use of the term because it captures, expresses exactly how capitalism is reproduced.

[Thirsty Crow]

I understand contradiction as Hegel described it, and as Marx understood it, and demonstrated it in his critique of capital.
Maybe it would be best if you briefly elaborated on Hegel's description of contradiction.
For the sake of clarity.

[JazzRemington]

I understand contradiction as Hegel described it, and as Marx understood it, and demonstrated it in his critique of capital. What you describe as non-dialectical in the analysis of the relations between wage-labor and capital is described by Marx explicitly as dialectical throughout his economic manuscripts of 1857-1864. You should read them-- volumes 28, 30, 33, 34 of the Collected Works.

I fail to see how this is related to my charge that you don't understand "contradiction" if you think the word can be meaningfully applied to something other than statements. It's irrelevant how Marx or Hegel understood it, because if they used it in the same sense you did, then they didn't understand it either. Why do you keep making the same logical fallacy of appealing to authority?


If you don't understand contradiction as Hegel, and Marx used it, well that's your problem.

You're right. I don't understand the term as used by Hegel and supposedly by Marx. And neither does anyone else.


You think contradiction can only apply to statements.

I assure you I'm not the only one that thinks this.


That is not Marx's use of the term. That's clearly not Marx's understanding of the term. There is a real material contradiction between the labor process and the valorisation process. Marx describes it as a contradiction, demonstrates it as a contradiction. Again, if you don't like that, or agree with it, then you have a personal problem.

Well, if you say so. But I like your attitude about this sort of thing: if someone disagrees with you or Marx, then they have some kind of personal problem. AKA, Marx is 100% right and never wrong about anything.

[S.Artesian]

Well if Marx misunderstands it, or if I'm misunderstanding Marx, then you have to show how Marx's analysis of capitalism is either inaccurate, or how my exposition of Marx's position is inaccurate.

You would need to show how capital and wage-labor do not exist in the organization of each other; how they do not oppose each other based on their identity; how capitalism does not become the obstacle to its own accumulation; how the very augmentation of the productivity of labor that expands capital, increases profitability does not become the very same cause for the decline in profitability and the contraction of capitalist accumulation.

These are material issues; issues of actual social reproduction, not linguistic structures, i.e only statements can have contradictions. That is exactly the same thing as stating only arguments can have a logic; that no social organization of production can have an immanent logic, a self-contained necessity, sequential operation of necessary reactions or responses to specific conditions because no social organization of labor is an argument.

It means ever so much to me to know that you like my attitude. I'm positively glowing.

So yeah, it's your personal problem, because you won't engage with what Marx was doing in his critique of capitalism-- which is explicating its immanent logic, its immanent contradictions, its immanent critique; its self-generation of the conditions for its overthrow and abolition.

[S.Artesian]

Maybe it would be best if you briefly elaborated on Hegel's description of contradiction.
For the sake of clarity.

Zero Nowhere provides exactly that, and very succinctly, in his post at:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1864910&postcount=180

[RedMaterialist]

People knew economic and social systems change for thousands of years,

Well, actually they didn't and most still don't. Even Aristotle believed slavery was natural and unchanging. During feudalism people believed the lord-serf relationship was ordained by God. Capitalists believe capitalism is the natural order of things, the best of all possible worlds and any attempt to change it is unnatural, unholy, undemocratic, unfree, unAmerican, anti-family, anti-mom, anti-baby, etc.

Economic 'systems' didn't even exist until about 10,000 yrs ago. Before then people used hunting and gathering; they lived in egalitarian, free communities, without exploitation.

How we got from there to here is what some people call dialectical materialism, some call it historical materialism.

[RedMaterialist]

All Marx and Darwin did was develop theories to explain these changes in an organized, disciplined, and systematic way.

Well, I wouldn't say that was [I]all[I] Marx and Darwin did. But that is a pretty good description of the dialectic: organized, disciplined, and systemic.



If there REALLY wasn't anything fixed about oak tree species

You think oak trees have been here forever or are going to be around forever?

[JazzRemington]

Well if Marx misunderstands it, or if I'm misunderstanding Marx, then you have to show how Marx's analysis of capitalism is either inaccurate, or how my exposition of Marx's position is inaccurate.

Where did I say Marx's analysis of capitalism is inaccurate?


You would need to show how capital and wage-labor do not exist in the organization of each other; how they do not oppose each other based on their identity; how capitalism does not become the obstacle to its own accumulation; how the very augmentation of the productivity of labor that expands capital, increases profitability does not become the very same cause for the decline in profitability and the contraction of capitalist accumulation.

First, you don't seem to understand "to oppose" if you think a thing and a process "oppose" one another (you've never been able to explain how this happens). Second, why is dialectics required here?


These are material issues; issues of actual social reproduction, not linguistic structures, i.e only statements can have contradictions. That is exactly the same thing as stating only arguments can have a logic; that no social organization of production can have an immanent logic, a self-contained necessity, sequential operation of necessary reactions or responses to specific conditions because no social organization of labor is an argument.

Saying that only statements can contain contradictions does not entail that only arguments can have a logic.


So yeah, it's your personal problem, because you won't engage with what Marx was doing in his critique of capitalism-- which is explicating its immanent logic, its immanent contradictions, its immanent critique; its self-generation of the conditions for its overthrow and abolition.

Moot point: you've never been able to explain what you claim Marx was doing. All you've done is show texts and claim that, somehow, the dialectic is at work. But you have yet to explain where this dialectic is exactly.

[JazzRemington]

Well, I wouldn't say that was [I]all[I] Marx and Darwin did. But that is a pretty good description of the dialectic: organized, disciplined, and systemic.

I think anything I write you'd construe to support dialectics. Which shows how vague the theory is. It's sort of like when religious people claim that God is responsible for everything - even people denying that God exists.


You think oak trees have been here forever or are going to be around forever?

Well, first you said that there's nothing fixed about a tree SPECIES. Apparently now you're talking about the EXISTENCE of the species. You have to be more specific.


Well, actually they didn't and most still don't.

People in Italy knew damn well they weren't living under the Roman Empire by the year 450CE. Don't claim they didn't have a theory, because you never said anything about having a THEORY but KNOWING that economic systems and societies change.


Even Aristotle believed slavery was natural and unchanging. During feudalism people believed the lord-serf relationship was ordained by God. Capitalists believe capitalism is the natural order of things, the best of all possible worlds and any attempt to change it is unnatural, unholy, undemocratic, unfree, unAmerican, anti-family, anti-mom, anti-baby, etc.

Yes, this is all the case. But, how does this prove that people didn't know that economic systems change?


Economic 'systems' didn't even exist until about 10,000 yrs ago. Before then people used hunting and gathering; they lived in egalitarian, free communities, without exploitation.

What does this have to do with anything?


How we got from there to here is what some people call dialectical materialism, some call it historical materialism.

You aren't seriously trying to suggest that if people apply historical materialism, despite never using dialectical terminology?

[S.Artesian]

Where did I say Marx's analysis of capitalism is inaccurate?



First, you don't seem to understand "to oppose" if you think a thing and a process "oppose" one another (you've never been able to explain how this happens). Second, why is dialectics required here?



Saying that only statements can contain contradictions does not entail that only arguments can have a logic.



Moot point: you've never been able to explain what you claim Marx was doing. All you've done is show texts and claim that, somehow, the dialectic is at work. But you have yet to explain where this dialectic is exactly.

Yeah I have shown it, in real material analysis, of capitalism. That's where Marx demonstrates it. That's where we "explain" what Marx was doing. In the analysis of capitalism. Not in arguments about whether "contradiction" is limited to "statements."

As for everything else... yawn... I don't think things oppose each other, I think classes oppose each other based on their social relationship, which is the specific organization of.... labor.

As for why is dialectic required here... yawn... I'm not requiring dialectic as an action of "thought." Marx is a materialist, the dialectic he analyzes, the immanent critique of capital, exists as part of capital's make up, its internal organization. Go argue with Marx, whom you have apparently never read.

And... yawn.... I didn't say you said Marx's analysis of capitalism is inaccurate. I think it's quite apparent you don't know enough about Marx's analysis of capitalism to say anything about it, or about capitalism itself. I said that if you think Marx doesn't understand contradiction, then show how his analysis of the contradictions of capitalism is inaccurate. Please have at it. Let's go chapter by chapter through any of Marx's writings so you can show how Marx doesn't understand contradiction.

Anything else.. yawn.. beyond your usual sophistry masquerading as erudition?

[RedMaterialist]

You aren't seriously trying to suggest that if people apply historical materialism, despite never using dialectical terminology?

Well, actually, yeah. Check out Rosa Luxembourgist. I think that's how you spell it.

[JazzRemington]

Well, actually, yeah. Check out Rosa Luxembourgist. I think that's how you spell it.

Actually, I meant to say "You aren't seriously trying to suggest that if people apply historical materialism they are automatically using dialectics, despite never using dialectical terminology". I should have double-checked my post before submitting it.

But at rate, how do you say one thing but mean something else? What goes on?

[RedMaterialist]

JazzRemington;1892857]


Well, first you said that there's nothing fixed about a tree SPECIES. Apparently now you're talking about the EXISTENCE of the species. You have to be more specific.

No, I'm saying that the oak tree evolved from an earlier species, just like you and me; and will evolve into a new species, unless humans take over the evolutionary process, which they are beginning to do, its called genetic engineering.




People in Italy knew damn well they weren't living under the Roman Empire by the year 450CE. Don't claim they didn't have a theory, because you never said anything about having a THEORY but KNOWING that economic systems and societies change.

OK. What economic system did people in Italy think they were living under in 449CE? What system did they believe they were living under (interesting choice of words, under) in 451CE?

[RedMaterialist]

Actually, I meant to say "You aren't seriously trying to suggest that if people apply historical materialism they are automatically using dialectics, despite never using dialectical terminology". I should have double-checked my post before submitting it.

But at rate, how do you say one thing but mean something else? What goes on?

Hmmm. That's way too dialectic for me. :D

[JazzRemington]

Yeah I have shown it, in real material analysis, of capitalism. That's where Marx demonstrates it. That's where we "explain" what Marx was doing. In the analysis of capitalism. Not in arguments about whether "contradiction" is limited to "statements."

What kind of explanation is this, then? From what I remember, you posted a text and then claimed that the dialectic was involved. When I asked you where and how, you never could explain what you've meant.


As for everything else... yawn... I don't think things oppose each other, I think classes oppose each other based on their social relationship, which is the specific organization of.... labor.

Where did I ever say that classes don't oppose one another?


As for why is dialectic required here... yawn... I'm not requiring dialectic as an action of "thought." Marx is a materialist, the dialectic he analyzes, the immanent critique of capital, exists as part of capital's make up, its internal organization.

But where is this dialectic located? You just posts texts and say its "in there".


Go argue with Marx, whom you have apparently never read.

Are you seriously trying to use the idea that I've never read Marx as an argument against me? Why do you enjoy logical fallacies?


And... yawn.... I didn't say you said Marx's analysis of capitalism is inaccurate. I think it's quite apparent you don't know enough about Marx's analysis of capitalism to say anything about it, or about capitalism itself. I said that if you think Marx doesn't understand contradiction, then show how his analysis of the contradictions of capitalism is inaccurate. Please have at it. Let's go chapter by chapter through any of Marx's writings so you can show how Marx doesn't understand contradiction.

I don't know why you're yawning. Reading your wall of text and epic paragraph-length sentences doesn't bore me enough to start falling asleep. Again, this entire part of the post reads like one giant ad-homimem that stems from your hard-on over how much Marx I've read.


Anything else.. yawn.. beyond your usual sophistry masquerading as erudition?

No. You're obviously tired and up past your bed time. You've been yawning all the time.

[JazzRemington]

Hmmm. That's way too dialectic for me. :D

But how does it actually happen? If you don't know what goes on here, you can't meaningfully call it dialectical.

[JazzRemington]

No, I'm saying that the oak tree evolved from an earlier species, just like you and me; and will evolve into a new species, unless humans take over the evolutionary process, which they are beginning to do, its called genetic engineering.

No, you said that there was nothing fixed or universal about the Acorn tree species. Which is too vague to be true or false on its own.


OK. What economic system did people in Italy think they were living under in 449CE? What system did they believe they were living under (interesting choice of words, under) in 451CE?

What does this have to do with my argument? I said Italians knew they weren't living under the Roman empire by 450CE. The date is arbitrary because by that time the Roman empire is generally understood to no longer exist and its former territory was largely divided amongst the Franks in France and western Germany, Vandals in North Africa, and Lumbards in Italy. Even if the economic structure of these tribes were similar to that of the Romans, the society was vastly different than Roman. The people who lived in these areas before the tribes effectively took over knew they were living in a different time than before. Even the Romans knew it during the latter decades of the Empire. The Anglo-Saxons knew it when they were subjected to Norman rule - which jump started economic and social change because the old Anglo-Saxon ruling class either was reduced to serfdom or forced to swear fealty to a member of the new Norman ruling class.

[S.Artesian]

What kind of explanation is this, then? From what I remember, you posted a text and then claimed that the dialectic was involved. When I asked you where and how, you never could explain what you've meant.

Not so. I explained many times how the organization of labor as wage-labor creates, is the where and the how, of the creation of capital, the accumulation of objectified, past labor, that acts as a compulsion over the laborers; where that creation of capital by wage-labor opposes labor, deprives it of its capabilities of enriching, developing, enhancing the power of the laborers.

In any case, you actually engaged in this thread to bring up your complaints from some other thread?

That, by the way, is why I'm yawning.




Where did I ever say that classes don't oppose one another?. I didn't say you did. You claimed I didn't understand opposition if I thought things could oppose process. I answered you by saying I don't think that at all, I think classes oppose each other, relations are oppositional. How you jump from that to your "where did I ever..." is, well typical. Makes me yawn.




But where is this dialectic located? You just posts texts and say its "in there".

I haven't posted any texts in this thread. I post very few texts. Maybe I made an exception in that previous thread with you because it seemed to me you had never even read Marx's critique, his explanation of the immanent contradictions of capital.

I told you where the dialectic is located, in the relations between wage-labor and capital, in the social relations of production, in the transformation, the deformation of the labor process into the valorisation process. And I'm only telling you that because that's where Marx demonstrates the location of the dialectic. Read him sometime. I think it would go a long way in clarifying his object, and his subject, in his writings.




Are you seriously trying to use the idea that I've never read Marx as an argument against me? Why do you enjoy logical fallacies?

Note that you haven't disputed my conclusion, that you've never read Marx; that you know very little about his critique of capital, of political economy, of his examination of value, of what he termed the contradictions of capital.

And yep, if you haven't read Marx, I think that's grounds for saying you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to Marx's analysis of the dialectic of capitalism, the contradiction of the labor process and the valorisation process, the transformation of the very thing that enhances capitalist profitability and the expansion of value into the very same thing that obstructs capitalist profitability and causes devaluation.



I don't know why you're yawning. Reading your wall of text and epic paragraph-length sentences doesn't bore me enough to start falling asleep. Again, this entire part of the post reads like one giant ad-homimem that stems from your hard-on over how much Marx I've read.

Quit whining. Nothing's ad hominem, here. I didn't call you a scum-sucking gob of spit, or a bucket of guts with no brains and a big mouth. I said you have no idea what Marx means by contradiction, how he uses it, and I draw that conclusion because you do not ever engage in any analysis of the critical categories of Marx's critique of capitalism, any of the substance of his work.

If you haven't read him, how do you know how, where, when, why Marx calls things contradictions; what he means by contradictions; where he locates contradictions; how he regards dialectic?

[JazzRemington]

Not so. I explained many times how the organization of labor as wage-labor creates, is the where and the how, of the creation of capital, the accumulation of objectified, past labor, that acts as a compulsion over the laborers; where that creation of capital by wage-labor opposes labor, deprives it of its capabilities of enriching, developing, enhancing the power of the laborers.

And what's dialectical about this? Plus, now you're saying a process (creation of capital by wage-labor) opposes labor (laborers). This is even further proof you don't understand what "to oppose" means.


In any case, you actually engaged in this thread to bring up your complaints from some other thread?

Are you engaged in this thread to bring up the same nonsense you've yet resolved from some other thread?


I didn't say you did. You claimed I didn't understand opposition if I thought things could oppose process. I answered you by saying I don't think that at all, I think classes oppose each other, relations are oppositional. How you jump from that to your "where did I ever..." is, well typical. Makes me yawn.

This isn't what happened at all.


I haven't posted any texts in this thread. I post very few texts. Maybe I made an exception in that previous thread with you because it seemed to me you had never even read Marx's critique, his explanation of the immanent contradictions of capital.

Then what about telling me to read this or that text?


I told you where the dialectic is located, in the relations between wage-labor and capital, in the social relations of production, in the transformation, the deformation of the labor process into the valorisation process. And I'm only telling you that because that's where Marx demonstrates the location of the dialectic.

Well, fine. And how exactly is the relation between wage-labor and capital "dialectical"? If I recall, for something to qualify as "dialectical" there has to be two things that are opposites or in opposition to one another, which would make them opposites. Labor and capital are not opposites and do not oppose one another because one is a process and the other a thing. And like I said, you're claiming an inanimate object opposes (struggle against) a process. This does not make sense.



Read him sometime. I think it would go a long way in clarifying his object, and his subject, in his writings.

Why do you insist I've never read Marx? Why does whether or not someone's read something have any bearing on the validity of an argument? In case you haven't noticed, it doesn't in this case.


Note that you haven't disputed my conclusion, that you've never read Marx; that you know very little about his critique of capital, of political economy, of his examination of value, of what he termed the contradictions of capital.

Why would it matter? If I did read every last thing that Marx ever wrote, published or not, you'd claim that I either didn't read it right or I misunderstood.


And yep, if you haven't read Marx, I think that's grounds for saying you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to Marx's analysis of the dialectic of capitalism, the contradiction of the labor process and the valorisation process, the transformation of the very thing that enhances capitalist profitability and the expansion of value into the very same thing that obstructs capitalist profitability and causes devaluation.

And this is a logical fallacy; a little thing called "ad-hominem". Knowledge of Marx is irrelevant to the validity of an argument about something he wrote. You know, there's a difference between "that's not true because such and such" and "you've never read Marx so your argument is invalid".


Quit whining. Nothing's ad hominem, here. I didn't call you a scum-sucking gob of spit, or a bucket of guts with no brains and a big mouth. I said you have no idea what Marx means by contradiction, how he uses it, and I draw that conclusion because you do not ever engage in any analysis of the critical categories of Marx's critique of capitalism, any of the substance of his work.

OK, that first part is not ad-hominem. That's just abuse. And the rest of this hinges on your believe that I've never read Marx, which is still fallacious.


If you haven't read him, how do you know how, where, when, why Marx calls things contradictions; what he means by contradictions; where he locates contradictions; how he regards dialectic?

If I haven't read him, I wouldn't know.

[S.Artesian]

This:
Well, fine. And how exactly is the relation between wage-labor and capital "dialectical"? If I recall, for something to qualify as "dialectical" there has to be two things that are opposites or in opposition to one another, which would make them opposites. Labor and capital are not opposites and do not oppose one another because one is a process and the other a thing. And like I said, you're claiming an inanimate object opposes (struggle against) a process. This does not make sense. --emphasis added.

again shows how little you understand of Marx's analysis, and of capital itself. Capital is not "a thing." It's a relation of production, an historically specific [meaning it has a definite origin, "determinants" to use the terms of dialectic] organization, relation of social labor.

And.... you contradict yourself in claiming this after you state this:



I didn't say you did. You claimed I didn't understand opposition if I thought things could oppose process. I answered you by saying I don't think that at all, I think classes oppose each other, relations are oppositional. How you jump from that to your "where did I ever..." is, well typical. Makes me yawn.


This isn't what happened at all.

Anyway, you might want to respond to the OP regarding his question about the basics of dialectics. My response was to show how Marx takes over the recognition of human beings as existing, "moving" through history from Hegel, and transposes that "recognition" to the material reproduction of that history. If you don't want to discuss the basis, and basics of dialectics-- and Marx did explicitly say that Hegel's contradiction is the root, the core to dialectics... then perhaps you should consider moving your comments to one of Boza's threads.

[RedMaterialist]

Originally posted by Jazz


Even if the economic structure of these tribes were similar to that of the Romans, the society was vastly different than Roman.

So you don't believe that the underlying economic structure of a society determines what that society is?


the old Anglo-Saxon ruling class either was reduced to serfdom or forced to swear fealty to a member of the new Norman ruling class.


And how did this serfdom come about? Did it just suddenly show up one day? How come the Romans never used it? Is it just possible that serfdom evolved out of, transformed from, moved from its opposite, i.e. dialectically developed?

[RedMaterialist]

No, you said that there was nothing fixed or universal about the Acorn tree species. Which is too vague to be true or false on its own.

The oak tree evolved (it is not eternal, fixed) from a previous species. It will eventually die out (it is not eternal, fixed.)

[JazzRemington]

This: .

again shows how little you understand of Marx's analysis, and of capital itself. Capital is not "a thing." It's a relation of production, an historically specific [meaning it has a definite origin, "determinants" to use the terms of dialectic] organization, relation of social labor.

Again, it's irrelevant whether or not Marx used these terms the way you do. You keep arguing that it's right just because Marx says so. You have yet to explain WHY these inanimate objects oppose or struggle with people, because as it stands this does not make any sense. You can't just say "lol because Marx says so". That's not how arguing works. If anything, it's another logical fallacy: appeal to authority.

And "capital" is not a relationship.


And.... you contradict yourself in claiming this after you state this:

And how is this a contradiction? Because you keep using this word randomly and it's clear you don't understand it at all.


Anyway, you might want to respond to the OP regarding his question about the basics of dialectics. My response was to show how Marx takes over the recognition of human beings as existing, "moving" through history from Hegel, and transposes that "recognition" to the material reproduction of that history. If you don't want to discuss the basis, and basics of dialectics-- and Marx did explicitly say that Hegel's contradiction is the root, the core to dialectics... then perhaps you should consider moving your comments to one of Boza's threads.

Why? Other people have done a fine job of it.

[JazzRemington]

Originally posted by Jazz

So you don't believe that the underlying economic structure of a society determines what that society is?

Firstly, structures don't "determine" anything in society. People determine things. Secondly, how does this relate to dialectics? Remember what I said about how regardless of how I answer your questions you'd find some way to twist and turn it into dialectics?


And how did this serfdom come about? Did it just suddenly show up one day? How come the Romans never used it? Is it just possible that serfdom evolved out of, transformed from, moved from its opposite, i.e. dialectically developed?

Actually, some historians believe serfdom is a Roman concept that developed in the latter decades of the Empire and others think that it evolved from Germanic customs of personal fealty between members of the ruling class. Also, what's the opposite of serfdom? Normally, it would be "not serfdom" which would either make literally everything or every economic structure its opposite - which would make the term meaningless.

[JazzRemington]

The oak tree evolved (it is not eternal, fixed) from a previous species. It will eventually die out (it is not eternal, fixed.)

OK. So, you're talking about the physical existence of a species. How does this fact, that pretty much everyone's known about for quite some time, prove dialectics?

[Thirsty Crow]

Firstly, structures don't "determine" anything in society. People determine things.

In your opinion, could the term "structure" be applied within a study of a given society?

[S.Artesian]

Again, it's irrelevant whether or not Marx used these terms the way you do. You keep arguing that it's right just because Marx says so. You have yet to explain WHY these inanimate objects oppose or struggle with people, because as it stands this does not make any sense. You can't just say "lol because Marx says so". That's not how arguing works. If anything, it's another logical fallacy: appeal to authority.

And "capital" is not a relationship.

And that is exactly why you do not understand Marx. That, that capital is a specific, historically determined social relationship of production is the basis for all his, Marx's work. He states precisely this, that capital is a social relationship of production numerous times in numerous works. That you argue that capital is not a relationship this simply points out that either you have never read Marx, or that you choose to ignore this aspect, or you think capital is some thing, some inanimate object. Marx's discussion of value is to point out how capital is not simply things, but the production of things under a definite social relation of labor.

You don't get it. Marx. One bit. So yeah, I'll stick with using those words, contradiction and dialectic, and negation, and abolition, and relationship, and determinant, and appearance and essence as Marx used them.

Now if you don't think Marx understood contradiction properly, then go ahead and show us, among other things, how in fact capital is not a social relationship of production.

It's these things that make one want to post a text... or yawn.

[Thirsty Crow]

How about "capital represents a social relationship of production"?
Would this expression make everyone happy?

[S.Artesian]

How about "capital represents a social relationship of production"?

Nope. How about capital is defined, determined by its social organization of labor, its social relationship of the means of production organized as private property and labor organized as wage-labor.

"Represents" just doesn't capture the nature of the shared identity of capital in wage-labor.

[JazzRemington]

And that is exactly why you do not understand Marx. That, that capital is a specific, historically determined social relationship of production is the basis for all his, Marx's work. He states precisely this, that capital is a social relationship of production numerous times in numerous works. That you argue that capital is not a relationship this simply points out that either you have never read Marx, or that you choose to ignore this aspect, or you think capital is some thing, some inanimate object. Marx's discussion of value is to point out how capital is not simply things, but the production of things under a definite social relation of labor.

[...]

You don't get it. Marx. One bit. So yeah, I'll stick with using those words, contradiction and dialectic, and negation, and abolition, and relationship, and determinant, and appearance and essence as Marx used them.

OK, see, you can't just claim you're right because someone wrote something. That's not how arguing works and its a logical fallacy. You have to explain why you think capital is a relationship. Show exactly where you are getting this from and why you think you're right and why it makes sense to call capital a relationship when it evidently is not. Do you understand how arguing works?


Now if you don't think Marx understood contradiction properly, then go ahead and show us, among other things, how in fact capital is not a social relationship of production.

I don't have to prove you're wrong. You have to prove you're right. Not only do you not understand what some words mean, but you don't even know how to argue.


It's these things that make one want to post a text... or yawn.

Yet, you never do when I ask for evidence. But apparently I'm required to do this. Not only do you not know how to argue, but you also are a hypocrite.

[JazzRemington]

Nope. How about capital is defined, determined by its social organization of labor, its social relationship of the means of production organized as private property and labor organized as wage-labor.

"Represents" just doesn't capture the nature of the shared identity of capital in wage-labor.

If you say so.

[JazzRemington]

In your opinion, could the term "structure" be applied within a study of a given society?

When historians and sociologists use the term "structure" is an analytical tool used to explain repeatedly occurring behavior, beliefs, and relationships. The claim that "economic structure determines society" is literal nonsense because it isn't clear what's meant by "economic structure" (the tool or to what the tool is applied) and "society." Normally, the word "to determine" is used to refer to how people figure things out using whatever means. I can determine when a bus is supposed to stop at a certain location by looking the information up in a schedule. Here, there's a definite purpose for why I want to determine the time the bus stops, a clear method for doing it, and a criteria for having failed to determine it (e.g. I could have misread the schedule).

When someone says "the economic structure of society determines the makeup of society", there's several things that are problematic. First, it's obvious they don't understand what "to determine" means. Second, they are abstracting a word from its material context of people's relationships with each other and their action. Third, they have to explain what they mean. Most of the time, explanations for phrases like this come from pure hindsight. They see what actually happened in history, and make some universal theory that claims it was inevitable. For some reason, this warrants the use of "to determine" - even though when it's normally used, there is room for error.

What would really be more useful instead of an abstract phrase like that would be to point out that it's people who use the economic structure to determine what form society has taken. Here, it's people that do this and who are using an analytical framework to explain how and why society is this or that way. It's comparable to using a table that has a description of different economic structures on one side with a corresponding set of descriptions of different forms of society on the other.

[S.Artesian]

OK, see, you can't just claim you're right because someone wrote something. That's not how arguing works and its a logical fallacy. You have to explain why you think capital is a relationship. Show exactly where you are getting this from and why you think you're right and why it makes sense to call capital a relationship when it evidently is not. Do you understand how arguing works?

My goal here is not to conform to your style manual for arguing, or to understand how "arguing works." The goal is to understand how history works.

So I have explained why I think capital is a social relationship, a precise historically determined and defined relationship to a specific form of labor. But what I won't do is go back and redo all of Marx's analysis for you. That you need to examine yourself.

I will give you my take on capitalism, which happens to be at the same time my take on Marx's analysis of capitalism, and its immanent contradiction that leads to creating the conditions for its overthrow.

Let's just put it this way. The transformation of the means of production into capital is historically based in the dispossession of the direct producers. You can look that up, study it in history. It's called "primary accumulation," "original accumulation," and most commonly mis-translated as "primitive accumulation."

Capital, to be capital must expand value. The mere preservation of value has no meaning for capital, because it is, by its own terms, about accumulation, expanded reproduction. Means of production that cannot engage wage-labor profitably enough, at the required rate of exploitation get... mothballed, sequestered destroyed.

How can capital expand value. Only through the extraction of surplus value. In order to be capital it must expand. To expand it must increase, extend, deepen, broaden its expropriation of surplus-value. What is the source of surplus-value? It is in the organization of labor as wage-labor; that the worker can reproduce values equivalent to his or her wages in less than the total time of the working day.

How is labor converted into wage-labor-- by the very process that constitutes the primary accumulation of capital. In short, in the very same social relation of dispossession. After that primary accumulation, which however continues as capital moves across the glob, Marx describes capital as self-mediating as reproducing the social relation in the very process of production of commodities itself.

Now all this evidenced in history-- in the history of the origin and development of capitalism. That you claim that capital is evidently not a social relationship of production means just what I said it means... that you have no understanding of Marx, which is one thing, and you have yet to engage with the actual history, the actual origin and development of capitalism, and the reason it sustains itself, and why the very reason that same force of expansion becomes the barrier to capital's further expansion.

These are really ABC issues... you can claim as much as you want that I'm not explaining it, but I have explained it; you can claim I don't understand the words, but I've just demonstrated that I understood the words as Marx deployed them to describe this history, and reproduction, of capital. You can either argue that Marx was wrong, that my "transcription" of Marx is wrong, but to argue those things you have to stop with the sophistry, the linguistic baloney and deal with the concrete categories of capitalist reproduction.

And to the extent that you do not do that, then it's pointless and a waste of time to go through these endless, and pathetic, arguments about what opposition, contradiction, dialectic mean.

If you haven't read Marx, then you need to do so. If you have... and you still claim what you claim, well you need to read it again. Either way, there's no point in continuing this type of discussion with somebody who doesn't have a clue as to what Marx was doing, and saying, and why.

[Zanthorus]

Labor and capital are not opposites and do not oppose one another because one is a process and the other a thing.

I think your confusion arises from using the standard economic textbook definition of capital as any implement of production. Marxists reject this definition because it is essentially a useless category. Under this definition, the first man to throw a spear to kill a wild dear would be the first capitalist, and every social organisation since then would be some form of capitalism. But when we talk about capitalism, we talk about a social formation that began it's life in the 16th century or thereabouts, and became a global system within the past two hundred years. If capital is to be a concept which is in any way meaningful and reveals something to us about the way society operates, it cannot be a category which has existed in some form throughout history like 'an implement of production'. Capital only becomes capital under certain social conditions, when the immediate producers have become divorced from the means of production and are forced to sell their labour-power on the market for a wage. The buying and selling of labour-power is the precondition for the production of surplus-value, and the production of surplus-value is the precondition for the existence of the modern bourgeoisie, as well as the basic social process which provides it's income - the self-expansion of value.


Knowledge of Marx is irrelevant to the validity of an argument about something he wrote.

It would seem that has become the consensus among most people discussing Marx's work, unfortunately.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


So I have explained why I think capital is a social relationship, a precise historically determined and defined relationship to a specific form of labor. But what I won't do is go back and redo all of Marx's analysis for you. That you need to examine yourself.

It can't be a relation, even though it might be composed of relations, anymore than you can be an atom even though you are made of atoms.

That would be about as odd a thing to assert as saying if A is married to B, then they are a relation.

What they are --, that is, a married couple --, is constituted by the relation they hold to one another, but they aren't a relation as well!

Again, when you posted this:


And to the extent that you do not do that, then it's pointless and a waste of time to go through these endless, and pathetic, arguments about what opposition, contradiction, dialectic mean.

You might just as well have posted this:


And to the extent that you do not do that, then it's pointless and a waste of time to go through these endless, and pathetic, arguments about what opposition, toliet seat, dialectic mean.

for all the good it does -- that is, until you justify your odd use of 'contradiction'.

But, as we already know, the only 'justification' there is for your odd use of this word is a series of logical blunders Hegel committed, wherein he confused the allegedly 'negative' form of the 'law of identity' with the 'law of non-contradiction'.

So, no wonder you can't justify your use of this word -- except you appeal to 'tradition'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


You're the one assessing cash value, cash out value... etc. Shopkeeper, or accountant, take your pick. A plague on, actually a plague is both your houses.

You obviously do not appear to understand what a metaphor is -- you seem to think I am talking about real money!

In which case, it looks like that plague has already been to your house.:lol:

Rest in pieces...

[JazzRemington]

My goal here is not to conform to your style manual for arguing, or to understand how "arguing works." The goal is to understand how history works.

*sigh* I know how history works. And I know how to defend my understanding without resorting to fallacies.


So I have explained why I think capital is a social relationship, a precise historically determined and defined relationship to a specific form of labor. But what I won't do is go back and redo all of Marx's analysis for you. That you need to examine yourself.

You haven't explained anything. You just claim that Marx defined capital as being a relationship, and left it at that.


Let's just put it this way. The transformation of the means of production into capital is historically based in the dispossession of the direct producers. You can look that up, study it in history. It's called "primary accumulation," "original accumulation," and most commonly mis-translated as "primitive accumulation."

Capital, to be capital must expand value. The mere preservation of value has no meaning for capital, because it is, by its own terms, about accumulation, expanded reproduction. Means of production that cannot engage wage-labor profitably enough, at the required rate of exploitation get... mothballed, sequestered destroyed.

How can capital expand value. Only through the extraction of surplus value. In order to be capital it must expand. To expand it must increase, extend, deepen, broaden its expropriation of surplus-value. What is the source of surplus-value? It is in the organization of labor as wage-labor; that the worker can reproduce values equivalent to his or her wages in less than the total time of the working day.

How is labor converted into wage-labor-- by the very process that constitutes the primary accumulation of capital. In short, in the very same social relation of dispossession. After that primary accumulation, which however continues as capital moves across the glob, Marx describes capital as self-mediating as reproducing the social relation in the very process of production of commodities itself.

Now all this evidenced in history-- in the history of the origin and development of capitalism. That you claim that capital is evidently not a social relationship of production means just what I said it means... that you have no understanding of Marx, which is one thing, and you have yet to engage with the actual history, the actual origin and development of capitalism, and the reason it sustains itself, and why the very reason that same force of expansion becomes the barrier to capital's further expansion.

What's dialectical about this?


These are really ABC issues... you can claim as much as you want that I'm not explaining it, but I have explained it; you can claim I don't understand the words, but I've just demonstrated that I understood the words as Marx deployed them to describe this history, and reproduction, of capital. You can either argue that Marx was wrong, that my "transcription" of Marx is wrong, but to argue those things you have to stop with the sophistry, the linguistic baloney and deal with the concrete categories of capitalist reproduction.

How is claiming that your use of a word is nonsensical is sophistry? If I really were committing sophistry, I'd be arguing that dialectics doesn't exist or that to what you are applying the term "dialectical" doesn't really happen. Rejecting a theory doesn't mean rejecting whatever the theory is purported to explain.


And to the extent that you do not do that, then it's pointless and a waste of time to go through these endless, and pathetic, arguments about what opposition, contradiction, dialectic mean.

If you don't know what they mean, then how do you know you're using the term correctly? Since you think capital is the opposite of labor, it's evident you don't know what "opposite" means. I keep asking you to explain it, but you either just say "it's true because Marx uses it this way" or you claim that things are opposites because they oppose one another - which isn't what "opposite" means either.


If you haven't read Marx, then you need to do so. If you have... and you still claim what you claim, well you need to read it again. Either way, there's no point in continuing this type of discussion with somebody who doesn't have a clue as to what Marx was doing, and saying, and why.

Like I said, this is an ad-hominem. My state of knowledge of Marx has absolutely no bearing on the validity of my argument here. It's called a logical fallacy for a reason, you know.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Menocchio:


How has it not a "cash value"?

Well, I have yet to see one.


Maybe it's my own subjective "reading" of the "devices" of expression, but I'd say that it indeed possesses a "cash value":

1) consider the expression "antagonism between labour and capital"; it is a scientific observation and an observation of the fact of class struggle (that is, it connotes the fact of class struggle). But the metaphor (it is a metaphor, and a condensed one if we keep in mind that the "device" of the metaphor functions on the basis of perceived similarity, no matter how strained, between two real phenomena or ideas) adds another "layer" of connoted meaning...

2)...and this layer rests on the similarity between real antagonism and argumentative/logical contradiction (which can only be attributed to statements). Now, the effect of this signification is in fact cumulative - it binds "contradictions" and "real antagonisms", offering an even more pronounced rhetorical emphasis on the notion of inherent "fallaciousness" of capitalism

Now, this does not mean that I endorse this jargon.
But let me rephrase the original question: regarding your beef with S.Artesian, is it a matter of non-literal word use? Or, in other words, is it a matter of a certain number of problematic expressions? Or not? If not, what is the object of your criticism?


Indeed, but why use the alleged metaphor 'contradiction'; the above do not even resemble contradictions. There must be some resemblance in a metaphor for it to be a metaphor.

Otherwise I could use the word 'banana' to describe capitalism, and then claim it's just a 'metaphor' when challenged.

[JazzRemington]

I think your confusion arises from using the standard economic textbook definition of capital as any implement of production.

Well, you'd have to show how it makes sense for "capital" to be a relationship, as opposed to, say, being defined by a relationship. It strict grammatical terms, "capital" is a thing and not a relationship. Saying that it's something more than just a thing is beside the point, here.


Marxists reject this definition because it is essentially a useless category. Under this definition, the first man to throw a spear to kill a wild dear would be the first capitalist, and every social organisation since then would be some form of capitalism. But when we talk about capitalism, we talk about a social formation that began it's life in the 16th century or thereabouts, and became a global system within the past two hundred years. If capital is to be a concept which is in any way meaningful and reveals something to us about the way society operates, it cannot be a category which has existed in some form throughout history like 'an implement of production'. Capital only becomes capital under certain social conditions, when the immediate producers have become divorced from the means of production and are forced to sell their labour-power on the market for a wage. The buying and selling of labour-power is the precondition for the production of surplus-value, and the production of surplus-value is the precondition for the existence of the modern bourgeoisie, as well as the basic social process which provides it's income - the self-expansion of value.

This is all true. But, how does it show that capital is a relationship, as opposed to being the result of relationships?

[S.Artesian]

You haven't explained anything. You just claim that Marx defined capital as being a relationship, and left it at that.


What's dialectical about this?






How thick are you? You say in your previous post-- "you have to demonstrate how capitalism is a social relationship of production." I did that. The post of mine you reproduce does that. And your response? Not "Oh I see how you determine that capital exists as, is defined in its relationship to a social organization of labor..." but rather, "what's dialectical about this?"

So here's an ad hominem for you. You are disingenuous to the max. And not worth the time and effort of the discussion.

You made a claim that capital was clearly not a social relation. Let's see what you know about words and history then. What is capital? How is capital-ism distinguished, how does it distinguish itself from previous economies? Here's a good one for you... what is an economy? How does capital convert surplus product into value; how does it extract surplus value? How important is the extraction of surplus value to the reproduction of capital?

If capital is not a social relationship of production, what defines capital, capitalism and what are the limits to capitalism? Does capitalism have limits? If yes, what is the origin of those limits? How do those limits manifest themselves in the accumulation of capital?

All those questions pertain to capitalist reproduction, and the reproduction of a definite social organization of labor. You claim that's not so, so give us your explanation for the movement of and the immanent barriers to capital.

If you can't answer those questions, then how do you know what capital is or is not; or even how Marx used contradiction to explain, and demonstrate just those facets; answer just those questions about capital?

If you have nothing concrete to say about the reproduction of capital, then you have nothing to say about Marx's use of, and relation to dialectics-- you have nothing to say about his materialism.

Yes, your knowledge or lack thereof of Marx's analysis has every bearing on the discussion of dialectics, and contradiction, because Marx grounds that dialectic, those contradictions in precisely the social relation of capital that you deny defines, determines, is, capital.

Until you actually read Marx's analysis, you ought to shut up. Each time you open your mouth you are simply voicing your ignorance.

[S.Artesian]

It strict grammatical terms, "capital" is a thing and not a relationship. Saying that it's something more than just a thing is beside the point, here.

This pathetic. In strict grammatical terms, is a loaf of bread a thing and not a relationship? The loaf of bread only exists as bread, as a loaf, because of the labor process. That labor process never exists outside its own social organization, its own relationship to the process of production.

Shows you how inadequate strictly grammatical terms are for the analysis of history, of the organization of an economy, for the study of actual social reproduction.

Dear Dr. Marx,

I enjoyed your afterward to the second editions of volume 1, but I have a bit of a problem. I have heard, although I don't know that you have a strange view of linen, wool, oats, coats, and cotton. You say these are all both useful articles and values, and you proceed to demonstrate how value exists in a social relation of production where labor is organized as wage-labor for the expropriation of surplus labor time. Thus you conclude that linen, wool, oats, coats, and cotton are not things in the strictly grammatical sense, but things that exist in a precise historical and social relation.

You even go so far as to argue that if the social relation that makes these things extensions, estranged "crystallizations" of itself fails to reproduce profitability, these things will disappear, will no longer exist when we know in the strict grammatical sense they will still exist as things, even though they disappear from markets, stores, from the ability of human beings to appropriate them for need.

How can you argue this when in the strict grammatical sense, things cannot be relations, and human beings can only produce things. Do you honestly think that the things only exist, are only materialized socially within, by, and as social relations?

Am I missing something?

Sincerely,

JR.


Dear JR,

Yes, you are missing something-- everything. Things are not inherently values, but things in capitalism only exist as values. The useful nature of a commodities only circulates, only becomes socially accessible under precise social relations of production. That social relationship is the command over the labor of others... of the labor of a class of laborers who have nothing to exchange save their capacity for labor, which they exchange for the means of subsistence or an equivalent for the means of subsistence with the owners of the means of production, called capitalists.

Capital takes various shapes and forms, commodity capital, money capital, etc. in its circuits, however the source of all its appearances-- capital's essence is in that command, that expropriation of the specific social organization of labor called wage-labor.

I understand this may difficult to grasp for those who don't bother to read beyond the afterward of the 2nd edition of volume 1, but I suggest you give it a go. As it is right now, you sound like a complete ignoramus, which I hope you are not.

Regards,
KM

[RedMaterialist]

Well, you'd have to show how it makes sense for "capital" to be a relationship, as opposed to, say, being defined by a relationship. It strict grammatical terms, "capital" is a thing and not a relationship. Saying that it's something more than just a thing is beside the point, here.



This is all true. But, how does it show that capital is a relationship, as opposed to being the result of relationships?

Are you suggesting that Marx did not argue capitalism was a relationship? He said it many times. Here's one example:

"However, capital is not a thing, but rather a definite social production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of society, which is manifested in a thing and lends this thing a specific social character." Capital, Vol III, Chapt.48.

[JazzRemington]

How thick are you? You say in your previous post-- "you have to demonstrate how capitalism is a social relationship of production." I did that. The post of mine you reproduce does that. And your response? Not "Oh I see how you determine that capital exists as, is defined in its relationship to a social organization of labor..." but rather, "what's dialectical about this?"

Where did I ask you to demonstrate that capitalism is a relationship? I said you have to demonstrate how capital is a relationship. Now you're claiming that "capital" and "capitalism" are the same thing? Capitalism is a mode of production. If anything, capital is the result of capitalism. What you're doing is like saying that a baseball bat and the technique, people, and equipment involved in baseball bat production are the same thing.


So here's an ad hominem for you. You are disingenuous to the max. And not worth the time and effort of the discussion.

That's not an ad-hominem, either.


You made a claim that capital was clearly not a social relation. Let's see what you know about words and history then. What is capital? How is capital-ism distinguished, how does it distinguish itself from previous economies? Here's a good one for you... what is an economy? How does capital convert surplus product into value; how does it extract surplus value? How important is the extraction of surplus value to the reproduction of capital?

[...]

If capital is not a social relationship of production, what defines capital, capitalism and what are the limits to capitalism? Does capitalism have limits? If yes, what is the origin of those limits? How do those limits manifest themselves in the accumulation of capital?

What's the purpose of this, then? I don't have to demonstrate anything. You have to show that capital is a relationship. You have not be able to do this successfully without just telling me to read this or that text.


All those questions pertain to capitalist reproduction, and the reproduction of a definite social organization of labor. You claim that's not so, so give us your explanation for the movement of and the immanent barriers to capital.

Again, regardless of what I say you'll either retort with either that I misunderstand this or that, or you'll try to claim that what I wrote is dialectical - despite never being able to explain why.


If you have nothing concrete to say about the reproduction of capital, then you have nothing to say about Marx's use of, and relation to dialectics-- you have nothing to say about his materialism.

Again, this relates to your preference for ad-hominems and logical fallacies. One doesn't have to respond to logical fallacies - one just has to point them out.


If you can't answer those questions, then how do you know what capital is or is not; or even how Marx used contradiction to explain, and demonstrate just those facets; answer just those questions about capital?

On the contrary, I can ask this of you since you refuse to offer explanations.


Yes, your knowledge or lack thereof of Marx's analysis has every bearing on the discussion of dialectics, and contradiction, because Marx grounds that dialectic, those contradictions in precisely the social relation of capital that you deny defines, determines, is, capital.

[...]

Until you actually read Marx's analysis, you ought to shut up. Each time you open your mouth you are simply voicing your ignorance.

But how does my state of knowledge of Marx exactly have anything to do with the validity of my argument? This is a logical fallacy.

[JazzRemington]

This pathetic. In strict grammatical terms, is a loaf of bread a thing and not a relationship?

[...]

The loaf of bread only exists as bread, as a loaf, because of the labor process. That labor process never exists outside its own social organization, its own relationship to the process of production.

So, what you're trying to say is that a loaf of bread is a relationship because it's the result of a relationship? If that's the case, it doesn't follow.


Shows you how inadequate strictly grammatical terms are for the analysis of history, of the organization of an economy, for the study of actual social reproduction.

You're right. It's useful for formulating theories that are applied in historical research. Have you ever read any scientific research article? Have you noticed that they usually spend some time trying to define the terms to be used? If you don't know what a term means, how can you be sure you're using it meaningfully in an analysis?


Dear Dr. Marx,

I enjoyed your afterward to the second editions of volume 1, but I have a bit of a problem. I have heard, although I don't know that you have a strange view of linen, wool, oats, coats, and cotton. You say these are all both useful articles and values, and you proceed to demonstrate how value exists in a social relation of production where labor is organized as wage-labor for the expropriation of surplus labor time. Thus you conclude that linen, wool, oats, coats, and cotton are not things in the strictly grammatical sense, but things that exist in a precise historical and social relation.

You even go so far as to argue that if the social relation that makes these things extensions, estranged "crystallizations" of itself fails to reproduce profitability, these things will disappear, will no longer exist when we know in the strict grammatical sense they will still exist as things, even though they disappear from markets, stores, from the ability of human beings to appropriate them for need.

How can you argue this when in the strict grammatical sense, things cannot be relations, and human beings can only produce things. Do you honestly think that the things only exist, are only materialized socially within, by, and as social relations?

Am I missing something?

Sincerely,

JR.


Dear JR,

Yes, you are missing something-- everything. Things are not inherently values, but things in capitalism only exist as values. The useful nature of a commodities only circulates, only becomes socially accessible under precise social relations of production. That social relationship is the command over the labor of others... of the labor of a class of laborers who have nothing to exchange save their capacity for labor, which they exchange for the means of subsistence or an equivalent for the means of subsistence with the owners of the means of production, called capitalists.

Capital takes various shapes and forms, commodity capital, money capital, etc. in its circuits, however the source of all its appearances-- capital's essence is in that command, that expropriation of the specific social organization of labor called wage-labor.

I understand this may difficult to grasp for those who don't bother to read beyond the afterward of the 2nd edition of volume 1, but I suggest you give it a go. As it is right now, you sound like a complete ignoramus, which I hope you are not.

Regards,
KM

Right...

[JazzRemington]

Are you suggesting that Marx did not argue capitalism was a relationship? He said it many times. Here's one example:

"However, capital is not a thing, but rather a definite social production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of society, which is manifested in a thing and lends this thing a specific social character." Capital, Vol III, Chapt.48.

It doesn't make sense to call capital a relationship. Technically, capitalism isn't a relationship either. It's a mode of production. Even though a mode of production is made up of, in part, production relations it does not follow that capitalism is a relationship. This is a compositional fallacy: you're claiming that a part of the whole defines the whole.

[RedMaterialist]

Otherwise I could use the word 'banana' to describe capitalism, and then claim it's just a 'metaphor' when challenged.

Here's one: "Banana Republic": a capitalistic system in a small Latin American country based on the exploitation of workers who pick bananas, and enforced by death squads. Also, a capitalistic company selling commodities made by third world cheap labor as "authentic" third world clothing to petty-bourgeois liberals.

Here are couple of metaphors which should have "cash value."

"The love of money is the root of all evil." Bible, by G.

"Oh, my ducats! Oh my daughter!" (Shylock, in The Merchant of Venice, by W.S.



Finally, the best dialectic metaphor of all time: The Trojan Horse: A contradiction contained in something (Troy) which negates the thing (Troy) it is in.

[S.Artesian]

So, what you're trying to say is that a loaf of bread is a relationship because it's the result of a relationship? If that's the case, it doesn't follow.

No, I'm saying that "things"--produced articles-- embody a specific social relationship of production. That "things" don't exist in simply "strictly grammatical terms."

The grammar doesn't produce things. The social relationship of production does. Things produced exist socially. Or as Dr. KM, whom I'm afraid was too generous in his hopes for you, put it they exist as useful articles and values. And guess what? The useful nature of an article is also a social determination, a social relationship, but one that, while currently contained inside the shell, the form, the relationship of value, can be realized for all once that relationship of value is abolished.



You're right. It's useful for formulating theories that are applied in historical research. Have you ever read any scientific research article? Have you noticed that they usually spend some time trying to define the terms to be used? If you don't know what a term means, how can you be sure you're using it meaningfully in an analysis?

Tell you what, you answer the questions I posed to you since you are capitalism is not, cannot be a social relationship of production-- you know those questions about surplus value, the limits to capital, what an economy is, and I'll provide you with a list of scientific papers I have read.

I know what Marx's terms mean-- he demonstrates their meaning in his analysis of the immanent contradictions of capital.

You don't know what Marx means, as you demonstrated by you insistence that capital is a thing. As I said at the getgo, that's your personal problem. You should try harder. Or at least read what he wrote before pretending you know the slightest thing about what terms he used and why he used them-- before you start with the "strictly grammatical" evasions.

So answer the questions and I'll be more than happy to continue this ride on the merry-go-round. Or don't answer them, because you can't.




Right... Right.

[JazzRemington]

No, I'm saying that "things"--produced articles-- embody a specific social relationship of production. That "things" don't exist in simply "strictly grammatical terms."

But now you've made a strawman of my argument.


The grammar doesn't produce things. The social relationship of production does. Things produced exist socially. Or as Dr. KM, whom I'm afraid was too generous in his hopes for you, put it they exist as useful articles and values. And guess what? The useful nature of an article is also a social determination, a social relationship, but one that, while currently contained inside the shell, the form, the relationship of value, can be realized for all once that relationship of value is abolished.

Even if use-value is socially determined via relations between people it doesn't follow that use-value is a relationship. This is yet another fallacy.


Tell you what, you answer the questions I posed to you since you are capitalism is not, cannot be a social relationship of production-- you know those questions about surplus value, the limits to capital, what an economy is, and I'll provide you with a list of scientific papers I have read.

Capitalism is a mode of production - which is characterized, in part by production relations. Saying that capitalism is a relationship because of this fact is a logical fallacy. It does not follow logically. Period. The rest of this part of your post involves strawmen.


I know what Marx's terms mean-- he demonstrates their meaning in his analysis of the immanent contradictions of capital.

But yet, you can't explain what they actually mean without fallacious arguments and nonsense.


You don't know what Marx means, as you demonstrated by you insistence that capital is a thing. As I said at the getgo, that's your personal problem. You should try harder. Or at least read what he wrote before pretending you know the slightest thing about what terms he used and why he used them-- before you start with the "strictly grammatical" evasions.

Well, fine. Explain exactly how capital is a relationship and why this is an accurate characterization. You keep ignoring this challenge but yet you keep demanding I answer your irrelevant questions.


So answer the questions and I'll be more than happy to continue this ride on the merry-go-round. Or don't answer them, because you can't.

What questions are you asking that don't involve fallacies or irrelevant information? What about the questions I've asked of you?

[RedMaterialist]

It doesn't make sense to call capital a relationship.

So you agree that Marx said that capital is a relation, you just don't agree with him?

[S.Artesian]

You're funny. You ask me how many scientific papers I've read, as if that will demonstrate how "strictly grammatical" terms must be, as if somehow that has something to do with what determines capital, what makes capital capital.

But do you have any idea how much reading of previous work on the subject scientists do before, during, and after their own papers? And yet you think it doesn't matter, in discussing capital and Marx's characterization of capital, that you haven't read Marx's characterization, analysis, exploration of capital.

You think any scientist analyzing gravity's influence on light isn't going to read every paper he or she can get his or her hands on regarding previous studies of light and gravity? And yet you maintain at the same time as you insist that capital cannot be a relation and must be a "thing," that whether or not you've read Marx has no bearing on the accuracy of your characterization.

That's some scientific method you got there.

Now that's funny.

Yes, I did explain why capital is a specific, historical social relationship and not a thing. I wrote:


I will give you my take on capitalism, which happens to be at the same time my take on Marx's analysis of capitalism, and its immanent contradiction that leads to creating the conditions for its overthrow.

Let's just put it this way. The transformation of the means of production into capital is historically based in the dispossession of the direct producers. You can look that up, study it in history. It's called "primary accumulation," "original accumulation," and most commonly mis-translated as "primitive accumulation."

Capital, to be capital must expand value. The mere preservation of value has no meaning for capital, because it is, by its own terms, about accumulation, expanded reproduction. Means of production that cannot engage wage-labor profitably enough, at the required rate of exploitation get... mothballed, sequestered destroyed.

How can capital expand value. Only through the extraction of surplus value. In order to be capital it must expand. To expand it must increase, extend, deepen, broaden its expropriation of surplus-value. What is the source of surplus-value? It is in the organization of labor as wage-labor; that the worker can reproduce values equivalent to his or her wages in less than the total time of the working day.

How is labor converted into wage-labor-- by the very process that constitutes the primary accumulation of capital. In short, in the very same social relation of dispossession. After that primary accumulation, which however continues as capital moves across the glob, Marx describes capital as self-mediating as reproducing the social relation in the very process of production of commodities itself.
You claim capital is a thing. You might have clarified what that "thing" is. But you don't. Why is that? What is that thing we call capital? Is it a boat? Is it a plane? Is it a loaf of bread? What is it about capital that makes it capital? Is it a quality of a "thing"?

Is that thing, "capital," a loaf of bread in your strictly grammatical example ? Is capital that loaf of bread when it's produced in New York or London or Mumbai in 2010? If so, why? Is capital that loaf of bread when produced in 12th century England? Was capital woolen cloth when worked domestically for domestic use in Yorkshire in the 17th century? Was capital woolen cloth in the second half of the 18th century when it was produced in the putting out system, and then the factory system? If the answer to any one of those questions is "no," and "yes" to any other question, then what is the difference in the "things"?

Capital is those things only when those things "command," are products, that demand wage-labor wage labor for their production, in exchange for their use. That is the social relation of production that defines, determines, that is capital [and capitalism].

Since capitalism, according to you, is characterized in part only by production relations, what are the other parts-- what are the other characteristics of capital that distinguish it from all preceding systems, and from what are these characteristics that are not derived themselves from the social relation of production?

And no, I won't claim that "you don't understand" because it doesn't conform to Marx, or my interpretation of Marx.... but only if it doesn't conform to how capitalism reproduces itself in the material world.

I suspect you won't answer a single one of these questions, but rather piss and moan how I'm using fallacious logic, and how I didn't answer your questions.... blahblahblah.. the typical shtick we get from "anti-dialecticians." But I did answer your challenge to show how and why capital exists as a social relation, is a social relation, and not a thing. You may not agree with it, and that's quite all right. But if you don't agree with it, you have to show how in the material world, my explanation does not conform to the way capital actually reproduces itself, maintains its class rule, expands, accumulates, contracts, and devalues itself.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

KM:


Here's one: "Banana Republic": a capitalistic system in a small Latin American country based on the exploitation of workers who pick bananas, and enforced by death squads. Also, a capitalistic company selling commodities made by third world cheap labor as "authentic" third world clothing to petty-bourgeois liberals.

Nice one! I must remember to use a different 'metaphor' next time.

Try this one, then: 'ox bow lake'.


Here are couple of metaphors which should have "cash value."

"The love of money is the root of all evil." Bible, by G.

"Oh, my ducats! Oh my daughter!" (Shylock, in The Merchant of Venice, by W.S.

Neat use of a double metaphor.:)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Yes, I did explain why capital is a specific, historical social relationship and not a thing.

As I heve pointed out already, it can't be a relation.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1893781&postcount=89

[Zanthorus]

I remember when one of the users on here, BAM (Whatever happened to him anyway?), was debating Rosa on dialectics, and he ended up by concluding that all Rosa was doing was quibbling with word choice. I'm fast coming to the conclusion that that's all this is about. Rosa has never once attempted to disagree with the actual content of any particular analysis, just quibbled over word choice.

Ironic, by the way, how those with such a love for ordinary language have trouble understanding language which most of us seem to comprehend fairly well.

[Hit The North]

Well, if capital is a thing, then Rosa and JR should have no problem posting a picture of it...

[el_chavista]

If you think of Hegel's dialectic laws as an attempt of his to recreate a logic superior to that of Aristotle's traditional logic, then anti-dialectics is not big deal. If every thing is changing, for instance, then A becomes not A every now and then.
So anti-dialectics is just concerned with the fact that this dialectic logic is not suited to be mathematically represented as Boolean laws of thought.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Well, if capital is a thing, then Rosa and JR should have no problem posting a picture of it...

Yes, just as easy as it is to post a picture of courage, love or honesty.:lol:

But, who said capital was a 'thing', anyway? Certainly not me.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

El_C:


If you think of Hegel's dialectic laws as an attempt of his to recreate a logic superior to that of Aristotle's traditional logic, then anti-dialectics is not big deal. If every thing is changing, for instance, then A becomes not A every now and then.

But Hegel's 'logic' isn't a logic to begin with, but a series of crass errors compounded by the use of impenetrably obscure jargon:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1871471&postcount=66


So anti-dialectics is just concerned with the fact that this dialectic logic is not suited to be mathematically represented as Boolean laws of thought.

No, among other things, it's concerned to show that if dialectical materialism (and/or 'materialist dialectics') were true, change would be impossible:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1761299&postcount=30

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1761300&postcount=31

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


I remember when one of the users on here, BAM (Whatever happened to him anyway?), was debating Rosa on dialectics, and he ended up by concluding that all Rosa was doing was quibbling with word choice. I'm fast coming to the conclusion that that's all this is about. Rosa has never once attempted to disagree with the actual content of any particular analysis, just quibbled over word choice.

Forgive me for saying this, but that's about as daft as saying that this:


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

is just about word choice!


Ironic, by the way, how those with such a love for ordinary language have trouble understanding language which most of us seem to comprehend fairly well.

And yet you find it impossible to explain it to the rest of us terms that do not involve the use of yet more impenetrable jargon.

[S.Artesian]

Question for any anti-dialectician with the courage to answer:

Is capital a social relation of production, or is it a thing? And why?

[S.Artesian]

BTB:

But, who said capital was a 'thing', anyway? Certainly not me.

It's not always all about you, Rosa. JR said capital was a thing.

[JazzRemington]

So you agree that Marx said that capital is a relation, you just don't agree with him?

Where did I ever say Marx didn't say capital is a relation?

[JazzRemington]

You're funny. You ask me how many scientific papers I've read, as if that will demonstrate how "strictly grammatical" terms must be, as if somehow that has something to do with what determines capital, what makes capital capital.

Well, if you knew how to argue you'd know it was a rhetorical question.


But do you have any idea how much reading of previous work on the subject scientists do before, during, and after their own papers? And yet you think it doesn't matter, in discussing capital and Marx's characterization of capital, that you haven't read Marx's characterization, analysis, exploration of capital.

[...]

You think any scientist analyzing gravity's influence on light isn't going to read every paper he or she can get his or her hands on regarding previous studies of light and gravity? And yet you maintain at the same time as you insist that capital cannot be a relation and must be a "thing," that whether or not you've read Marx has no bearing on the accuracy of your characterization.

How is any of this relevant, since it was a rhetorical question?



Yes, I did explain why capital is a specific, historical social relationship and not a thing. I wrote:

OK, now show me exactly what part of that proves that capital is a relationship. The only place where "relation" shows up is in the phrases "[a]fter that primary accumulation, which however continues as capital moves across the glob, Marx describes capital as self-mediating as reproducing the social relation in the very process of production of commodities itself" and "n short, in the very same social relation of dispossession." Neither of these phrases ascribes "relation" to "capital", and nothing from what you post does either.


You claim capital is a thing. You might have clarified what that "thing" is. But you don't. Why is that? What is that thing we call capital? Is it a boat? Is it a plane? Is it a loaf of bread? What is it about capital that makes it capital? Is it a quality of a "thing"?

[...]

Is that thing, "capital," a loaf of bread in your strictly grammatical example ? Is capital that loaf of bread when it's produced in New York or London or Mumbai in 2010? If so, why? Is capital that loaf of bread when produced in 12th century England? Was capital woolen cloth when worked domestically for domestic use in Yorkshire in the 17th century? Was capital woolen cloth in the second half of the 18th century when it was produced in the putting out system, and then the factory system? If the answer to any one of those questions is "no," and "yes" to any other question, then what is the difference in the "things"?

See, once again you keep demanding I answer questions but you never answer mine. Why can't you argue with anyone without being either hypocritical or using logical fallacies?


Capital is those things only when those things "command," are products, that demand wage-labor wage labor for their production, in [I]exchange for their use.

This is correct....except for the anthropomorphism.


That is the social relation of production that defines, determines, that is capital [and capitalism].

This is vague. It could mean that the relation that gives rise to and reproduces capital is what makes something capital. But this doesn't make capital itself a relation. What you keep wanting to do is show how social relations are responsible for capital, and then claim that capital is a relation because of this. It doesn't follow logically. Why do you think this disqualifies capital from the properties you otherwise ascribe it?


Since capitalism, according to you, is characterized in part only by production relations, what are the other parts-- what are the other characteristics of capital that distinguish it from all preceding systems, and from what are these characteristics that are not derived themselves from the social relation of production?

Straw man.


And no, I won't claim that "you don't understand" because it doesn't conform to Marx, or my interpretation of Marx.... but only if it doesn't conform to how capitalism reproduces itself in the material world.

Well, if you say so.


I suspect you won't answer a single one of these questions, but rather piss and moan how I'm using fallacious logic, and how I didn't answer your questions.... blahblahblah.. the typical shtick we get from "anti-dialecticians."

So, in other words you're incapable of using logic in an argument and you're reaction to being told you're using fallacious arguments is to use abuse?


But I did answer your challenge to show how and why capital exists as a social relation, is a social relation, and not a thing.

Yes, and I exposed the fallacies with your answer and you ignored my further questions about it.


You may not agree with it, and that's quite all right. But if you don't agree with it, you have to show how in the material world, my explanation does not conform to the way capital actually reproduces itself, maintains its class rule, expands, accumulates, contracts, and devalues itself.

Incorrect. You have to show how all this works with dialectics. Which you have not been able to do yet.

[JazzRemington]

Well, if capital is a thing, then Rosa and JR should have no problem posting a picture of it...

How about you post a picture of capital as a relationship?

[JazzRemington]

I remember when one of the users on here, BAM (Whatever happened to him anyway?), was debating Rosa on dialectics, and he ended up by concluding that all Rosa was doing was quibbling with word choice. I'm fast coming to the conclusion that that's all this is about. Rosa has never once attempted to disagree with the actual content of any particular analysis, just quibbled over word choice.

Ironic, by the way, how those with such a love for ordinary language have trouble understanding language which most of us seem to comprehend fairly well.

What do you mean by "comprehend?" I'm sure you can repeat what you've been told.

[JazzRemington]

Question for any anti-dialectician with the courage to answer:

Is capital a social relation of production, or is it a thing? And why?

Well, seeing as Marx actually used the term in at least the 1st volume of Capital to refer directly to tangible objects and not relationships themselves...

[Hit The North]

How about you post a picture of capital as a relationship?

How about you quit evading the issue. If capital is a thing, show us a photo of it.

[JazzRemington]

How about you quit evading the issue. If capital is a thing, show us a photo of it.

Well, fine. What exactly would you take as a proper photograph of capital, one that would not hypothetically get me in trouble for posting irrelevant pictures in a non-chit-chat thread? I'm not chasing goal posts.

[Zanthorus]

Thinking about, strictly speaking, capital isn't a thing or a relationship, it's a process.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


It's not always all about you, Rosa. JR said capital was a thing.

Tell that to BTB:


Well, if capital is a thing, then Rosa and JR should have no problem posting a picture of it...

Never mind, Comrade Artesian, I'm sure you'll get something right -- one day...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


Thinking about, strictly speaking, capital isn't a thing or a relationship, it's a process.

You lot just can't make your minds up, can you...?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Question for any anti-dialectician with the courage to answer:

Is capital a social relation of production, or is it a thing? And why?

Speaking for myself, I'll be happy to answer your question (but, I'd have thought you'd be able to answer it for yourself:lol:) when you answer the many I have asked you which you just ignore.:)

[ZeroNowhere]

Thinking about, strictly speaking, capital isn't a thing or a relationship, it's a process.
Relationships may be 'processes' to some degree, may they not? In this case, we do indeed have the M-C...P...C'-M' process defining capital, but this is simply the materialization of the capital-relation, which is based on the purchase of labour-power, the commodity whose use-value is the valorization of value. Indeed, the point of the capital-relation is that it takes the form of things. Capital is value in motion (a process), and value's motion is merely the material expression and embodiment of the relationship of wage-labour, which ultimately derives from the contradictory nature of capitalist production as on the one hand social, and on the other private (ie. it passes into the hands of the capitalist, whether private or collective capitalist (nonetheless a private entity in relation to the rest of society), but nonetheless it has no use-value for them, and therefore is social, but not directly, but rather only through the mediation of value).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Zero:


Relationships may be 'processes' to some degree, may they not? In this case, we do indeed have the M-C...P...C'-M' process defining capital, but this is simply the materialization of the capital-relation, which is based on the purchase of labour-power, the commodity whose use-value is the valorization of value. Indeed, the point of the capital-relation is that it takes the form of things. Capital is value in motion (a process), and value's motion is merely the material expression and embodiment of the relationship of wage-labour, which ultimately derives from the contradictory nature of capitalist production as on the one hand social, and on the other private (ie. it passes into the hands of the capitalist, whether private or collective capitalist (nonetheless a private entity in relation to the rest of society), but nonetheless it has no use-value for them, and therefore is social, but not directly, but rather only through the mediation of value).

1) You need to explain how something that is constitued by countless relations is also a relation.

[This is called The Fallacy of Composition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition]

2) Just as you need to justify your odd use of 'contradiction'.

[Victus Mortuum]

How about you quit evading the issue. If capital is a thing, show us a photo of it.

http://imagecache6.allposters.com/LRG/26/2696/QTOUD00Z.jpg

[Bright Banana Beard]

S Artesian:



Speaking for myself, I'll be happy to answer your question (but, I'd have thought you'd be able to answer it for yourself:lol:) when you answer the many I have asked you which you just ignore.:) I am no dialectian, but address the question please. Artesian addressed many of your questions but I never seen you addressed aback.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gran Inquisitor:


I am no dialectian, but address the question please. Artesian addressed many of your questions but I never seen you addressed back.

I disagree, and I'd like to see you provide links to more than a handful of questions of mine he has answered.

And I stopped answering most of his when it became apparent that he had no intention of answering the vast majority of mine.

If you disapprove, I careth not...:cool:

[ZeroNowhere]

Zero:



1) You need to explain how something that is constitued by countless relations is also a relation.

[This is called The Fallacy of Composition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition]
The capital-relation is the relation by which labour-power is sold to a separate entity in exchange for wages; to this degree, it is a relationship between people, a social relationship. It presupposes the separation of the majority of labourers from the means of production, and hence the existence of on the one hand the dispossessed masses, and on the other a few property owners. The capital-relation, then, is how these two strata of human society come into a relation. The capitalist gains power over the worker. However, this social relation, between people, takes under capitalist production the form of a material relation; that is, a commodity exchange. The capitalist’s power consists precisely in the fact that he owns money and means of production. He carries his social power, as it were, in his pocket.

However, both the money for wages and the means of production are the products of past labour; the workers, indeed, produce the money (in the form of saleable commodities) which shall then go on to serve as their wages, as well as carrying over the price of the constant capital in the new commodities. The capital-relation also entails the worker producing surplus-value for the capitalist (as this is the use-value of the commodity labour-power), so that value is valorised. Yet in doing this, they also reproduce the capital-relation, ie. provide the capitalist with the money which will form their variable capital. This whole process is encapsulated in the capital-relation, inasmuch as it is a relation by which the worker sells his labour-power as a commodity, and then works for the capitalist, hence not only valorising value, but also reproducing their own wages. In that case, the capital-relation, inasmuch as it is a material relation, is value in motion; that is, M-C…P…C’-M’; money (and it is of this money that the social power of the capitalist consists, recall) is expended in the commodity labour-power, as well as in the means of production, both necessary for the valorisation of value, and hence the capital-relation, and this is then succeeded by the production process, in which the labourer ‘repays’ the money spent on labour-power initially, and in doing so valorises value.

In that case, the capital-relation comes to appear as simply the valorisation of value, as a material process by which money turns into more money. Thereby capital, the social relation, is embodied in things, in money and in means of production, inasmuch as it is through these things that the power of the capitalist, the social relation between the capitalist and wage-labourer, is expressed; they are, as it were, the form which this social relation takes under capitalist production, where the relationships between men are mediated by the relationships between things. The social power of the capitalist consists of his ownership of these things, and therefore the capital-relation is embodied in these things. This originates from the fact that labour-power is a commodity, and therefore the process by which this human capacity to labour is utilized, and power over human labour established, is a material transaction, the buying of a commodity. As such, at risk of repeating myself, the power over human labour, this social relation, is a material relation, consisting of things, of money and of the means of production bought by this money.

Thus a social relation turns into value-in-process, into this incorporeal value, expressed in money and commodities as if a phantom possessing them, being valorized, increased. This, however, only takes place through the character of the bought commodity as human labour power, and thus the character of capital as a social relation. Therefore, in order to trace the strange and wonderful adventures of this poltergeist value, in order to grasp the nature of capitalist production, we must grasp the nature of capital as a social relation, as a relationship between human beings, and see that it is human labour which determines the magnitude of value, which produces value, and that the valorisation of value takes place through the character of labour-power, a human capacity to labour, as a commodity, and therefore power over this labour and its products as a material transaction.

Ultimately, we also see that value is merely a social relation between people as well, explaining its bizarre, supernatural nature; under the capitalist mode of production, the production of direct use-values, use-values for the direct consumption of the individual producer, is practically abolished; rather, the person who owns products after they are created (assuming that it even is a single person, rather than an entity, a collective capitalist) does not consume them as use-values; they do not represent useful things to him. Rather, production takes on a social character; it is production ‘for others’. However, nonetheless it passes into the possession of the capitalist or entity, rather than being ‘directly social’, passing straight into social wealth. In that case, if this private character of production is to be maintained, wealth may become social only through exchange, through the exchange of various products between their proprietors. Thus, on the one hand, we have wealth produced as social wealth, and thus production as social production; however, this only takes place through the mediation of sale, through the mediation of commodity exchange between separate proprietors.

However, if all of these commodities are to be exchanged, then a necessary component of this is that they are equalized in some form. Systematic exchange means that the commodities are equalized (the famous 20 yards of linen = coat, for example), and thereby one has value (I figure I need not go into this further, as I’m sure that you’ve read the first chapter of Capital vol. 1), as the expression of this equalization. Both money and other commodities become mere expressions of value, their differences as use-values being more or less annihilated in order that they be given common substance. In that case, we see that here the fact that labour is not directly social means that is may only become social, and hence this social relation between men realized, through the mediation of value. Again, men’s social relations take the form of relations between things, between value in its various forms. The social character of the production process, inasmuch as production is production of others, is only expressed through the relationship, not directly of men, but of commodities, themselves reduced to mere embodiments of value. Production becomes value-production, production for private gain of surplus-value, giving rise to competition; yet this is reliant on the social character of the production process, on the fact that the products are use-values, and may be sold. When they can’t, we get overproduction, and hence the private character of the labour-process, as value-production for individual gain, is dragged back forcefully by the social character of production; the fact is, it must be sold.

As for the contradictions in the private-social character of capitalist production, I’m already writing an article about it, so I shan’t go into all of that here.

[S.Artesian]

S Artesian:

Tell that to BTB:



Never mind, Comrade Artesian, I'm sure you'll get something right -- one day...

He didn't say you said it. He said if capital is a thing, you'll have no problem giving us a picture of it... which I think is a humorous reference to certain assertions, conclusions made by some language philosophy.


Oh.. I've gotten many things right, and right here in this thread, and long before this thread. I pegged you as a sophist and a fraud a long long time ago, and I got that one right... dead right.

BTW... you claimed capital cannot be a relation, no? So tell us what is capital?

[S.Artesian]

1) You need to explain how something that is constitued by countless relations is also a relation.

To quote you, no need to do that. Marx has done exactly that for us, in his first three chapters of volume 1, and in particular in his discussion of the value forms of the commodity.

Would you like to discuss those chapters, Rosa?

[S.Artesian]

S Artesian:



Speaking for myself, I'll be happy to answer your question (but, I'd have thought you'd be able to answer it for yourself:lol:) when you answer the many I have asked you which you just ignore.:)

Thus spake Cowardrosa.

Yes, I can answer that question, and I have answered that question. And of course you lack the courage, the honesty [you can keep the love] to answer the question. Gosh I'm shocked.

[S.Artesian]

http://imagecache6.allposters.com/LRG/26/2696/QTOUD00Z.jpg

Like your spirit comrade, but really if we wanted to show a picture of capital we could show any commodity, a commodity not being strictly speaking, merely a "thing" but a thing that is an object of production, of social production, of a specific form of social labor.

Capital is a relation of ownership; a relation of the organization of property; a relation of labor to the conditions of labor. The first two phrases in that sequence are contained in the last phrase, and the last phrase is itself contained in the specific form of that ownership and that property.

If we wanted to go back to the "strict grammer," or the historical root of the word capital, we could show a picture of cows, steers and bulls. Marx describes the origin of the word capital as in the Roman era in the word meaning cattle.

So Rosa or JR or whatever anti-dialectician wants to rescue the honor of "anti-dialectics" from the gross cowardice of its most relentless spokesperson, "Are cattle capital?" "Are cattle always capital in every historical period?" "What does make cattle capital in any period?"

And please, try and produce something other than your usual pile of cowflop.

[ZeroNowhere]

Incidentally, I think that these threads would probably be a bit easier to navigate through if everyone used the edit button when replying to multiple posts.

[Zanthorus]

Incidentally, I think that these threads would probably be a bit easier to navigate through if everyone used the edit button when replying to multiple posts.

Or used the multi-quote function.

[S.Artesian]

Well, seeing as Marx actually used the term in at least the 1st volume of Capital to refer directly to tangible objects and not relationships themselves...


Sorry to say this, and I'm sure you'll regard it as abuse, but you don't know what you are talking about. I mean I'm tempted call you an idiot, but in the strict "grammatical" sense of the word, I don't think you are actually an idiot.

The tangible objects that Marx is referring to, the whole point of the reference, is to show that they are not produced as things, "strictly" they are produced by the social relationship of capital and exist the markets, in exchange, to the degree that they embody and can reproduce that social relationship. That is the whole point of his discussions of value, the commodity and money.

The qualities of the commodity as "thing," its usefulness, its use value is immaterial to the producer of the commodities. The capitalist has no use for the products of his or her ownership of production. Profit after all can only be realized in exchange with others.

His or her only use for them is to exchange them in the markets, thereby realizing the social relation embedded in the commodities, wage-labor, as surplus value, which can then be pumped back into that same social relation to expropriate more surplus value.


That's called valorisation, the expansion of value, which is the accumulation of capital, which is the social relation of private property in the means of production and wage-labor; a social relation that Marx specifically terms capital.

The capitalist does not produce labor. He or she purchases the use-value of labor, its capacity to produce a surplus value. This purchase requires that the laborer have no use for his or her labor, no access to subsistence, save in the exchange of that capacity for that subsistence, or the means to obtain that subsistence.

But the capitalist does reproduce the social relation of production that creates the wage-laborer. The wage-laborer does not produce "things"--he or she, the class of laborers reproduce the social relation of their own separation, and opposition to the product of their own labor, in the production of commodities.


In the production of commodities, not things, the wage-laborer reproduces the social relation of the expropriation of labor and its conversion into expanded value.

The tangible objects Marx refers to only exist as capital because they contain the social relation of capital, the social relation that is capital.

[RedMaterialist]

Where did I ever say Marx didn't say capital is a relation?

So you don't agree with Marx?

[S.Artesian]

How about you post a picture of capital as a relationship?

That's easy. Which would you like, pictures, or rather drawings of marginal agricultural producers, and some not so marginal, being driven off the land by enclosure in England?

Or would you prefer pictures of men "shaping up" for work on docks for enough money to buy some food?

Or how about pictures of the unemployed in the 1930s selling apples? Or wearing signs saying "Will work for food"?

But here's the thing-- relations aren't things. You might as well ask us to show you a picture of that fundamental relation of capital....value. That would be a little hard to do, no? Providing a picture of value? So does that mean capital cannot possibly exist as value? Capital's entire existence is as value.
We can post pictures of things, but things aren't values. Capital is the relation of value to human labor. That's the point-- just another one of many you don't get.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Zero, thanks for that, but I fail to see how it overcomes the Fallacy of Composition.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Thus spake Cowardrosa.

Careful sunshine -- the mods are far stricter in Learning and give infractions out like confetti for name-calling.


Yes, I can answer that question, and I have answered that question. And of course you lack the courage, the honesty [you can keep the love] to answer the question. Gosh I'm shocked.

Then so have I.:)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


He didn't say you said it. He said if capital is a thing, you'll have no problem giving us a picture of it... which I think is a humorous reference to certain assertions, conclusions made by some language philosophy.

In that case, you will find it easy to post some examples of 'language philosophy'.


Oh.. I've gotten many things right, and right here in this thread, and long before this thread. I pegged you as a sophist and a fraud a long long time ago, and I got that one right... dead right.

Still relying on abuse over proof I see.:lol:


BTW... you claimed capital cannot be a relation, no? So tell us what is capital?

I'll be happy to answer your questions when you answer the many I have asked you, which you just ignore. :)


So Rosa or JR or whatever anti-dialectician wants to rescue the honor of "anti-dialectics" from the gross cowardice of its most relentless spokesperson, "Are cattle capital?" "Are cattle always capital in every historical period?" "What does make cattle capital in any period?"

See my previous sentence, above.


And please, try and produce something other than your usual pile of cowflop.

What, and sink even lower, to your level?


To quote you, no need to do that. Marx has done exactly that for us, in his first three chapters of volume 1, and in particular in his discussion of the value forms of the commodity.

Would you like to discuss those chapters, Rosa?

When you explain how you plan to avoid the Fallacy of Composition.:)

[S.Artesian]

When you explain how you plan to avoid the Fallacy of Composition.

Coward.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S Artesian:


Coward.

Name-caller.:lol:

[ZeroNowhere]

In that case, you will find it easy to post some examples of 'language philosophy'.I'm not sure how you missed S. Artesian's point there. It's a fairly clear allusion.

[4 Leaf Clover]

Rosa is just too much neglecter towards phylosophy , and dialectics is nothing more then pure metaphysics

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Zero:


I'm not sure how you missed S. Artesian's point there. It's a fairly clear allusion.

Allusion or not, I'd like to see 'him' give some clear examples.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

4 leaf:


Rosa is just too much neglecter towards phylosophy , and dialectics is nothing more then pure metaphysics

I'm sorry, but what is a "neglecter towards phylosophy"?

Are you saying I neglect it too much?

Well, in view of the fact that a good 3/4s of my (nearly) 15,000 posts here have been on Philosophy, I can't see how I could 'neglect' it much more.:lol:

[S.Artesian]

Zero:

Allusion or not, I'd like to see 'him' give some clear examples.

I will. Just as soon as you agree to discuss Marx's first three chapters of volume 1.

Oh wait... you won't. Because you can't.

[RedMaterialist]

4 leaf:



I'm sorry, but what is a "neglecter towards phylosophy"?

Are you saying I neglect it too much?

Well, in view of the fact that a good 3/4s of my (nearly) 15,000 posts here have been on Philosophy, I can't see how I could 'neglect' it much more.:lol:

Just curious, before I take up the question of dialectics again (before being interrupted by Bob the Builder;) are you an academic (I mean teacher, prof.) ? You say you have written numerous articles, etc. Have you been published? I'm not asking for your name or anything.

[Victus Mortuum]

I feel that this is relevant:


Wakefield discovered that in the Colonies, property in money, means of subsistence, machines, and other means of production, does not as yet stamp a man as a capitalist if there be wanting the correlative — the wage-worker, the other man who is compelled to sell himself of his own free-will. He discovered that capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons, established by the instrumentality of things.

Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Vol. I, Ch. 33

[ckaihatsu]

I'm going to hazard a guess here and say that that's probably the case because the [(British)(?)] colonies were an oppressed people at the time, and so anything they did in the direction of development -- as with capitalist economics -- would only be expansively *beneficial*, within their own population. The U.S. has always been privileged compared to all other colonies and colonial national liberation movements in that it's had such an enormous fertile resource-laden land area to expand into with relatively little resistance -- okay, Australia, too, roughly, but that's about it.

So while the owner of capital in the colonies was objectively exploiting labor the profits weren't necessarily being siphoned off and expropriated abroad as we're used to seeing with financial-based imperialism. At the time the capital actually developed the machine infrastructure and local manufacturing capabilities.

[RedMaterialist]

So while the owner of capital in the colonies was objectively exploiting labor the profits weren't necessarily being siphoned off and expropriated abroad as we're used to seeing with financial-based imperialism. At the time the capital actually developed the machine infrastructure and local manufacturing capabilities.

Generally, this is correct; however, exploitation of labor, and therefore, the capitalist, cannot exist without the wage-worker. In other words. capital is a relation.

But what does this have to do with dialectics?

[ckaihatsu]

But what does this have to do with dialectics?


Everything.


= D

[RedMaterialist]

Everything.


= D

Capitalist becomes wage-worker, who becomes capitalist, etc.?

[Hit The North]

I feel that this is relevant:


Wakefield discovered that in the Colonies, property in money, means of subsistence, machines, and other means of production, does not as yet stamp a man as a capitalist if there be wanting the correlative — the wage-worker, the other man who is compelled to sell himself of his own free-will. He discovered that capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons, established by the instrumentality of things.

Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Vol. I, Ch. 33

Another instance is in Capital Vol 3, where he writes:


"Capital is not a thing, but rather a definite social production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of society, which is manifested in a thing and lends this thing a specific social character. Capital is not the sum means of production transformed into capital, which in themselves are no more capital than gold and silver in itself is money”

[S.Artesian]

Another instance is in Capital Vol 3, where he writes:

Well, what we need to do obviously, is take a picture of those passages from vol 1 and vol 3 and post them so that JR and Rosa can see pictures of relations.

[S.Artesian]

I'm going to hazard a guess here and say that that's probably the case because the [(British)(?)] colonies were an oppressed people at the time, and so anything they did in the direction of development -- as with capitalist economics -- would only be expansively *beneficial*, within their own population. The U.S. has always been privileged compared to all other colonies and colonial national liberation movements in that it's had such an enormous fertile resource-laden land area to expand into with relatively little resistance -- okay, Australia, too, roughly, but that's about it.

So while the owner of capital in the colonies was objectively exploiting labor the profits weren't necessarily being siphoned off and expropriated abroad as we're used to seeing with financial-based imperialism. At the time the capital actually developed the machine infrastructure and local manufacturing capabilities.

Has nothing to do with the "oppressed people" status of the colonies, but the lack of existence of wage-labor with which capital could exchange and reproduce itself; consequently what exists in the colonies bears very little if any resemblance to capitalism in England.

Let's not mistake the proto- US as either 1) an oppressed people 2) representive of all of British colonies.

Regarding 1-- the US farmers, plantation owners, merchants, shopkeepers were not oppressed as a people based on their shared language, ethnic background, territory, commerce etc. These classes and economic sectors were no more an oppressed people in the 18th century than the Boers in Africa were a "tribe" oppressed by Britain in the 19th century.


Doesn't happen that way. Oppression is a social relation [like capital itself, imagine that?] based on exploitation of labor. Competition between and among capitals, mercantile restrictions, on colonists don't amount to oppression-- no more than the English industrial capitalists were a "people" oppressed by the various Corn Laws enacted by the British parliament in the service of the landed propertyholders of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Regarding 2-- Certainly there were different manifestations of British colonialism-- that practiced in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, India differed from that in the North America-- and even with the use of money, property, means of subsistence etc.-- the critical social relation of capital, the exchange with labor power in order to expropriate surplus value was not dominant in those colonies.

[S.Artesian]

Capitalist becomes wage-worker, who becomes capitalist, etc.?


Once again the above has nothing to do with Marx's analysis, his dialectic, of capital and labor, of means and relations of production.

The dialectic is not the conversion of the proletarian into the capitalist; even less, if less is possible, is it the conversion of the capitalist into the proletarian.

The dialectic is that each, proletarian and capitalist, can only reproduce itself in the reproduction of the other. That reproduction is based on the social relationship of labor to the conditions of labor that is, at core, the identity of both capital and wage-labor.

That relationship is the separation, dispossession, of the laborers from the conditions of labor. It is the opposition of labor to the means of production organized as private property.

So in this dialectic, [rooted precisely in Hegel's dialectic of determinant being], the determinant of labor is wage-labor; wage-labor is the grounding and the negation of labor, in that the essence of labor is the development, the enrichment, the "amplification" of the powers of the laborers, whereas wage-labor develops, amplifies, enriches the capitalist.

The determinant of capital, of the means of production organized as private property is wage-labor, is labor organized as a commodity for the expropriation of surplus labor time. As capital amplifes, enhances, expands, reproduces, accumulates the means for expropriating that surplus labor time, it reduces, diminishes, constrains the ratio of surplus labor time to the total social accumulation. Capital devalues the means of production as private property, as the mediation for further accumulation.

This is what Marx referred to as the "immanent contradiction" of capital.

The dialectic is not a STATIC mediation, where "things" simply become their opposite, abstractly, i.e the "free human becomes the wage slave."

Relations actually express in their becoming, in their historical development, the opposition at their very origin, that opposition being the essence of the relationship.

The "free human" only becomes the wage slave because the very quality of the freedom is at core, at essence, determined by the freedom created in the dispossession of the laborer from the means of production; freedom is the detached, useless, quality of the labor for the laborer, that makes it freely accessible to the capitalist as wage labor. The free man doesn't create the wage slave. The social organization, the historically specific, relation of freedom is at root an expression of "wage-slavery."

[ckaihatsu]

Capitalist becomes wage-worker, who becomes capitalist, etc.?


You're fun!

[RedMaterialist]

The "free human" only becomes the wage slave because the very quality of the freedom is at core, at essence, determined by the freedom created in the dispossession of the laborer from the means of production;

You are saying that freedom is determined by the dispossession of the laborer. This simply doesn't make any sense. Historically, the free human becomes a slave, then a serf, then a wage-worker (or wage-slave.) There is no direct transition from a free human, a hunter-gatherer, to a worker at a gigantic factory.


The dialectic is that each, proletarian and capitalist, can only reproduce itself in the reproduction of the other.

How does the proletarian reproduce itself in the reproduction of the capitalist? All value created by the worker, except for his daily reproduction, is appropriated by the capitalist.

[S.Artesian]

You are saying that freedom is determined by the dispossession of the laborer. This simply doesn't make any sense. Historically, the free human becomes a slave, then a serf, then a wage-worker (or wage-slave.) There is no direct transition from a free human, a hunter-gatherer, to a worker at a gigantic factory.

.

How does the proletarian reproduce itself in the reproduction of the capitalist? All value created by the worker, except for his daily reproduction, is appropriated by the capitalist.

It makes every sense-- what is the social, historical root of the bourgeoisie's trumpeting of "free markets"? What was the meaning of the freedom the US bourgeoisie were proclaiming in their march to the Civil War with the South? It was the freedom of property. It was the freedom of, quite explicitly, "free soil, free labor."

That's what freedom is with capitalism. The freedom of property to confront and expropriate labor. It is the "freedom" of labor from all conditions that prevent the capitalist from employing it at will. And the capitalist production process is a process where labor is expropriated through its very expulsion from the labor process-- but reproducing its very dispossession by substituting machinery,-- the means of production as capital-- for labor.

The "free human" as a "hunter-gatherer" has no meaning in this process. The process is the historically specific one of the basis for the ruling idea of freedom. The ruling idea is the idea of the ruling class. So what is the basis for the bourgeoisie's ideology of freedom? It is freedom that requires, contains, organizes "wage-slavery."

You are forgetting that terms, notions, ideas are socially determined-- different meanings of the same terms under different relations of property and production.

The proletariat reproduces itself as a class in the production of capital, in that the power of capital is increased; capital expands, and that expands the social relation at its core. More labor is converted into wage-labor.

Yes, the capitalist appropriates-- not all the value, but as much surplus value as is possible. Remember there is a portion of labor time that is necessary labor time, time necessary for the reproduction of the laborer-- the surplus labor time of the proletariat. That is exactly how the proletariat reproduces itself as the proletariat by increasing the power of the capitalist, by reproducing value equivalent to the value of its own subsistence and producing a surplus value, expanding capital beyond that necessary subsistence.

[ZeroNowhere]

How does the proletarian reproduce itself in the reproduction of the capitalist? All value created by the worker, except for his daily reproduction, is appropriated by the capitalist.
Because the production process also produces and reproduces their social relations; capital is the product of alienated labour, labour alienated in the production process itself, and yet the necessary consequence of this; the production process, inasmuch as it is an alienated production process, the process of collective production of commodities, therefore produces capital on the one side and wage-labour, the sale of labour-power, its buying out of its own alienated product, on the other. The proletariat, wage-labourers, do not exist without their labour being alienated from them, and hence proceeding into the hands of a private entity, the capitalist (collective, as in joint-stock companies and co-operatives, or individual), and, as the product of the proletariat's alienated labour, and embodiment of value in motion, which is precisely the content of the capitalist production process, neither does the capitalist.

[JazzRemington]

Sorry to say this, and I'm sure you'll regard it as abuse, but you don't know what you are talking about. I mean I'm tempted call you an idiot, but in the strict "grammatical" sense of the word, I don't think you are actually an idiot.

The tangible objects that Marx is referring to, the whole point of the reference, is to show that they are not produced as things, "strictly" they are produced by the social relationship of capital and exist the markets, in exchange, to the degree that they embody and can reproduce that social relationship. That is the whole point of his discussions of value, the commodity and money.

The qualities of the commodity as "thing," its usefulness, its use value is immaterial to the producer of the commodities. The capitalist has no use for the products of his or her ownership of production. Profit after all can only be realized in exchange with others.

His or her only use for them is to exchange them in the markets, thereby realizing the social relation embedded in the commodities, wage-labor, as surplus value, which can then be pumped back into that same social relation to expropriate more surplus value.


That's called valorisation, the expansion of value, which is the accumulation of capital, which is the social relation of private property in the means of production and wage-labor; a social relation that Marx specifically terms capital.

The capitalist does not produce labor. He or she purchases the use-value of labor, its capacity to produce a surplus value. This purchase requires that the laborer have no use for his or her labor, no access to subsistence, save in the exchange of that capacity for that subsistence, or the means to obtain that subsistence.

But the capitalist does reproduce the social relation of production that creates the wage-laborer. The wage-laborer does not produce "things"--he or she, the class of laborers reproduce the social relation of their own separation, and opposition to the product of their own labor, in the production of commodities.

In the production of commodities, not things, the wage-laborer reproduces the social relation of the expropriation of labor and its conversion into expanded value.

But yet, when he discusses capital (or at least variable and constant capital) he gives tangible objects as examples of capital. How does any of this show that capital is a relationship? All you're doing is saying that capital is the result of a relationship - something that I have never denied.



The tangible objects Marx refers to only exist as capital because they contain the social relation of capital, the social relation that is capital.

So, wait a minute. First, capital IS a relationship and now it CONTAINS a relationship? Which is it?

[JazzRemington]

So you don't agree with Marx?

How about you answer my questions first. You've ignored several.

[JazzRemington]

That's easy. Which would you like, pictures, or rather drawings of marginal agricultural producers, and some not so marginal, being driven off the land by enclosure in England?

Or would you prefer pictures of men "shaping up" for work on docks for enough money to buy some food?

Or how about pictures of the unemployed in the 1930s selling apples? Or wearing signs saying "Will work for food"?

But here's the thing-- relations aren't things. You might as well ask us to show you a picture of that fundamental relation of capital....value. That would be a little hard to do, no? Providing a picture of value? So does that mean capital cannot possibly exist as value? Capital's entire existence is as value.
We can post pictures of things, but things aren't values. Capital is the relation of value to human labor. That's the point-- just another one of many you don't get.

Cool story bro.

But this still doesn't show that capital is a relationship.

[ZeroNowhere]

The previous post doesn't show that its poster has been paying attention.

[S.Artesian]

Cool story bro.

But this still doesn't show that capital is a relationship.

Of course it doesn't. To do that we have to provide the historical analysis for the origin of capital, and how the social relationship of production is the source for origin the reproduction, expansion, manifestation, existence, accumulation, contraction, and overthrow-- for all the potentialities-- of capital. That's kind of why I insist actually knowing what Marx wrote, analyzed, said does really matter in this discussion.

So...anytime you want to discuss the origin of the social relationship that forms capital, and how that relationship is manifested in all the movements, and moments of capital... anytime you want to discuss the actual materialism of the critique of capital, I am more than willing...

[S.Artesian]

But yet, when he discusses capital (or at least variable and constant capital) he gives tangible objects as examples of capital. How does any of this show that capital is a relationship? All you're doing is saying that capital is the result of a relationship - something that I have never denied.

OK, you are an idiot. Marx does not give tangible objects as examples of capital. A brick is not capital. Wheat is not capital. Wheat becomes capital in a certain relationship of production. Outside that relationship, wheat, radios, bricks, are not capital because they do not aggrandize wage-labor. They do not exchange with other expressions. other tangible objects that are the product of that social relation.

Marx gives examples of tangible objects being the medium for the expression of that relationship.

Value is not a tangible object. Surplus value is not a tangible object. They are both a social relationship of production. It is that social relationship of production that makes capital capital, that empowers "things" to act as rulers over humans. That's what we call fetishism.

In the strict historical sense, capital is that social relationship. Is in the strict grammatical sense means to exist; is is the quality of existence. Capital exists as that social relationship. It cannot, does not, exist outside that social relationship. It cannot be outside that social relation. It is NOT bread, bricks, radios, things.



So, wait a minute. First, capital IS a relationship and now it CONTAINS a relationship? Which is it?

Both, and more. Moments of expression, of its movement, of metamorphosis. We call it dialectic.

[RedMaterialist]

That is exactly how the proletariat reproduces itself as the proletariat by increasing the power of the capitalist, by reproducing value equivalent to the value of its own subsistence and producing a surplus value, expanding capital beyond that necessary subsistence.


However, that means the capitalist should be reproducing himself and the proletariats. But the capitalist doesn't produce anything. He only appropriates surplus value.

I think dialectics must show how the proletariat is transformed into the capitalist, and vice versa. It is not sufficient to say that it is a question of a social relation, although it certainly is. If dialectics is a natural law, which I believe it is, then it should be able to demonstrate a social relationship.

[ZeroNowhere]

The dialectic is not an elegant formula, it is a method of investigation.

[JazzRemington]

[...]how the social relationship of production is the source for origin the reproduction, expansion, manifestation, existence, accumulation, contraction, and overthrow-- for all the potentialities-- of capital.

How does this make capital a relationship? You cannot support this hypothesis without committing logical fallacies.


OK, you are an idiot. Marx does not give tangible objects as examples of capital.

Wrong.


A brick is not capital. Wheat is not capital.

Why do you keep insisting that I think anything is capital?


Wheat becomes capital in a certain relationship of production.

Correct.


Outside that relationship, wheat, radios, bricks, are not capital because they do not aggrandize wage-labor. They do not exchange with other expressions. other tangible objects that are the product of that social relation.

Correct.


Marx gives examples of tangible objects being the medium for the expresion of that relationship.

But where does he explicitly say that capital is a relationship. The only thing he does is give explicit examples of types of capital and how they come about via relationships. How does this make capital a relationship?


Value is not a tangible object. Surplus value is not a tangible object. They are both a social relationship of production. It is that social relationship of production that makes capital capital, that empowers "things" to act as rulers over humans. That's what we call fetishism.

How is this relevant to the discussion at hand?


In the strict historical sense, capital is that social relationship. Is in the strict grammatical sense means to exist; is is the quality of existence. Capital exists as that social relationship. It cannot, does not, exist outside that social relationship. It cannot be outside that social relation. It is NOT bread, bricks, radios, things.

You keep saying that capital is a relationship, but when you try to support this argument you just commit logical fallacies. Normally, this would mean your argument isn't valid. Period.


Both, and more. Moments of expression, of its movement, of metamorphosis. We call it dialectic.

No, it's called bullshit, contradictory, and nonsensical. First you said capital IS a relationship and then that capital CONTAINS a relationship. You're contradicting yourself - and that's not a good thing when arguing. In any other situation, the person you're trying to argue with would tear your argument to bits because of this.

Either way, claiming that capital is a relationship or acts as some kind of container is nonsensical and relies on compositional fallacies.

[S.Artesian]

However, that means the capitalist should be reproducing himself and the proletariats. But the capitalist doesn't produce anything. He only appropriates surplus value.

I think dialectics must show how the proletariat is transformed into the capitalist, and vice versa. It is not sufficient to say that it is a question of a social relation, although it certainly is. If dialectics is a natural law, which I believe it is, then it should be able to demonstrate a social relationship.

Of course the capitalist is producing something in the expropriation of surplus value. He reproduces the social relationship of capitalism. In in appropriating the surplus value the capitalist is reproducing himself/herself as the capitalist, which is simultaneously the reproduction of the proletariat as the proletariat.

The capitalist is reproducing the social relationship of his/her own existence in the proletariat.

Dialectics shows how the opposition of proletariat and capitalist is in fact an identity based on the shared relationship.

If you want to make dialectics a law of nature, then good luck to you. That project however was not part of Marx's analysis of capital.

However to show that the capitalist becomes the proletariat, and vice versa, you need to find the mechanism by which this occurs in the exchange between labor organized as wage-labor, and the means of production organized as private property. What part of this exchange in either its most simple or most expanded form actually involves a transformation of the capitalist into the proletarian, and vice versa, to maintain the expropriation of surplus value, and the reproduction of capital. We are not talking about momentary manifestations, or the process by which capital concentrates, centralizes, thus driving some capitalists from the markets, into bankruptcy etc. as that process is determined by the original relationship between wage-labor in capital. You have to find a necessity for this "cross-over" in the production of value itself.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm going to hazard a guess here and say that that's probably the case because the [(British)(?)] colonies were an oppressed people at the time, and so anything they did in the direction of development -- as with capitalist economics -- would only be expansively *beneficial*, within their own population. The U.S. has always been privileged compared to all other colonies and colonial national liberation movements in that it's had such an enormous fertile resource-laden land area to expand into with relatively little resistance -- okay, Australia, too, roughly, but that's about it.

So while the owner of capital in the colonies was objectively exploiting labor the profits weren't necessarily being siphoned off and expropriated abroad as we're used to seeing with financial-based imperialism. At the time the capital actually developed the machine infrastructure and local manufacturing capabilities.





Let's not mistake the proto- US as either 1) an oppressed people 2) representive of all of British colonies.




Competition between and among capitals, mercantile restrictions, on colonists don't amount to oppression


You're making it sound like *all* the inhabitants of the proto-U.S. colonies were merchants. Offhand I seem to recall that the *majority* (?) of the colonists were poor whites, slaves, Native Americans, and/or working class people. Here's an excerpt from chapter 4 of Zinn, _People's History of the U.S._:





Gary Nash's study of city tax lists shows that by the early 1770s, the top 5 percent of Boston's taxpayers controlled 49% of the city's taxable assets.

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinntyr4.html

[S.Artesian]

But where does he explicitly say that capital is a relationship. The only thing he does is give explicit examples of types of capital and how they come about via relationships. How does this make capital a relationship?

Well, so now knowing what Marx actually said does have a bearing on the discussion of dialectic? That's might big of you to admit that, and I'm glad to see you have at least tangential contact with reality.

But not too much contact, because you haven't been paying attention to previous posts in this thread--

Like the one from VM:



Wakefield discovered that in the Colonies, property in money, means of subsistence, machines, and other means of production, does not as yet stamp a man as a capitalist if there be wanting the correlative — the wage-worker, the other man who is compelled to sell himself of his own free-will. He discovered that capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons, established by the instrumentality of things.

Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Vol. I, Ch. 33




And this one from BTB, quoting Herr Marx from volume 3 of Capital:


Capital is not a thing, but rather a definite social production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of society, which is manifested in a thing and lends this thing a specific social character. Capital is not the sum means of production transformed into capital, which in themselves are no more capital than gold and silver in itself is money”


Like I said, until you actually read Marx, you're really not worth the effort. Take all your bullshit about logical fallacies, and what you think someone said or didn't say, and what you pretend you did and didn't say and peddle them somewhere else. You don't know what you're pretending to talk about.

[JazzRemington]

Well, so now knowing what Marx actually said does have a bearing on the discussion of dialectic? That's might big of you to admit that, and I'm glad to see you have at least tangential contact with reality.

If you paid any attention to the argument (assuming you know what a real argument looks like and not just the gainsaying you've been doing), you'll notice that you keep saying that Marx defines capital as a relationship. All I did was ask where, which is what I've done repeatedly and you keep ignoring me.

[ckaihatsu]

---





How many dialectical materialists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Two. The first one will note that the lightbulb has burnt out, and the second one will negate that by saying that the lightbulb is still lit. From the thesis and its antithesis the two will arrive at the synthesis that the lightbulb is no longer a lightbulb. The availability of a replacement lightbulb will be determined by the class struggle, specifically which side of the class division is in control of society's surplus. The class war will continue longer than anyone had predicted, with ideologues on both sides trumpeting prematurely that history had already resolved this contradiction. The status of the lightbulb changing project is as yet undetermined.

[S.Artesian]

No, that's-- where Marx said that-- is not at all what you were asking. As a matter of fact, in your initial posts on this question of relations you were confident that I would simply cite Marx and leave it at that. You demanded I demonstrate that capital was a relationship.

Perhaps you forget what you wrote 5 days ago. I've heard that can happen when you don't know a fucking thing about the subject:



It doesn't make sense to call capital a relationship. Technically, capitalism isn't a relationship either. It's a mode of production. Even though a mode of production is made up of, in part, production relations it does not follow that capitalism is a relationship. This is a compositional fallacy: you're claiming that a part of the whole defines the whole.

And perhaps you forgot something else you wrote. Here let me refresh your memory:



It strict grammatical terms, "capital" is a thing and not a relationship. Saying that it's something more than just a thing is beside the point, here.


So in conclusion-- piss off you disingenuous lying twit.

[S.Artesian]

You're making it sound like *all* the inhabitants of the proto-U.S. colonies were merchants. Offhand I seem to recall that the *majority* (?) of the colonists were poor whites, slaves, Native Americans, and/or working class people. Here's an excerpt from chapter 4 of Zinn, _People's History of the U.S._:


So the slaves, indigenous Native Americans were oppressed by British mercantile restrictions on the colonists? I thought you were claiming that the colonists were an oppressed people. Slaves and indigenous populations are not colonists.

Slaves and Native Americans were oppressed by the colonists, and they were never considered to be part of the "people" forming the rebellious colonies by those leading the rebellion, nor by Britain.

[JazzRemington]

No, that's-- where Marx said that-- is not at all what you were asking. As a matter of fact, in your initial posts on this question of relations you were confident that I would simply cite Marx and leave it at that. You demanded I demonstrate that capital was a relationship.

Perhaps you forget what you wrote 5 days ago. I've heard that can happen when you don't know a fucking thing about the subject:




And perhaps you forgot something else you wrote. Here let me refresh your memory:




So in conclusion-- piss off you disingenuous lying twit.

And if you remember yourself, I wrote that in response to a post where you suggested "capital" and "capitalism" are the same thing. Which they are not.

[S.Artesian]

And if you remember yourself, I wrote that in response to a post where you suggested "capital" and "capitalism" are the same thing. Which they are not.

Only one of those things was written in response to that. The other was not. But no matter, you don't have enough spine to acknowledge what you wrote.

I'm not going to waste anymore time with you. The OP asked for an abbreviated exposition of dialectic. I think the discussion with KM 1818 and others has helped provide him with that.

[JazzRemington]

What does acknowledging what I wrote have anything to do with your fallacious beliefs about how capital is a relationship and how capital and capitalism are the same thing?

[S.Artesian]

What does acknowledging what you wrote have to do with anything? Well, it might have something to do with the fact that you're wrong. That you changed what you actually were claiming in these later posts from the claims in the earlier post. It might have something to do with the fact that for all your pretense about the "right way to argue," you actually lack the necessary honesty and integrity to warrant any further engagement.

That's purely a personal assessment, by the way. However, that you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to capital, and Marx's critique of capital is evident to all.

You claimed capital could not be a relationship. You claimed it well before I wrote the sentence where I substituted capitalism for capital. I consider, in the context of this discussion, the discrepancy between capital and capitalism to be insignificant. Yes,capital is the relationship of labor organized as wage-labor to the means of production organized as private property. Yes, capitalism is the mode of production based on that specific social relation. Big fucking deal.

Anyway go back to page 4 and you can read yourself stating:


And "capital" is not a relationship.

[RedMaterialist]

How about you answer my questions first. You've ignored several.


Quote:
Originally Posted by km1818

Are you suggesting that Marx did not argue capitalism was a relationship? He said it many times. Here's one example:

"However, capital is not a thing, but rather a definite social production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of society, which is manifested in a thing and lends this thing a specific social character." Capital, Vol III, Chapt.48.


It doesn't make sense to call capital a relationship. Technically, capitalism isn't a relationship either. It's a mode of production. Even though a mode of production is made up of, in part, production relations it does not follow that capitalism is a relationship. This is a compositional fallacy: you're claiming that a part of the whole defines the whole.

Yes or no. Did Marx say capital was a relation?

[S.Artesian]

I don't think JR is going to answer you, comrade. I don't think any of the "anti-dialectician" crew will respond to that direct question.

Someone might attempt to argue that Marx was "only kidding" in his analysis and critique of capital as a relation of production, but that "just kidding" argument has already had the snot beat out of it by Graymouser, Zanthorus, BTB, ZeroNowhere, BTB, BAM etc. etc.

[JazzRemington]

What does acknowledging what you wrote have to do with anything? Well, it might have something to do with the fact that you're wrong. That you changed what you actually were claiming in these later posts from the claims in the earlier post. It might have something to do with the fact that for all your pretense about the "right way to argue," you actually lack the necessary honesty and integrity to warrant any further engagement.

Where exactly did I change my argument? Provide me with the exact post ID and explain to me how it's a change.


That's purely a personal assessment, by the way. However, that you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to capital, and Marx's critique of capital is evident to all.

Well, you haven't been able to explain how capital can be a relationship without committing logical fallacies, so it seems you don't understand what you're talking about when it comes to capital.


You claimed capital could not be a relationship. You claimed it well before I wrote the sentence where I substituted capitalism for capital. I consider, in the context of this discussion, the discrepancy between capital and capitalism to be insignificant. Yes,capital is the relationship of labor organized as wage-labor to the means of production organized as private property. Yes, capitalism is the mode of production based on that specific social relation. Big fucking deal.

Cool story, bro.


Anyway go back to page 4 and you can read yourself stating:

I'm beginning to think this is just some red herring (which would be another logical fallacy, if it were the case).


Yes or no. Did Marx say capital was a relation?

First off, that quote is from the 3rd volume of Capital, which was edited from a bunch of notes taken by Marx and was unpublished by him. Secondly, every time he uses the words "capital", "variable capital", and "constant capital", he never refers to these things as being relations. Thirdly, even if Marx defined "capital" unambiguously as being a relation, it still wouldn't make sense and it still would be a logical fallacy to assert that it's so because someone said so. Fourthly, what does the second quote you've posted by me have anything to do with capital supposedly being a relation? I was talking about capitalism not capital.

[Hit The North]

First off, that quote is from the 3rd volume of Capital, which was edited from a bunch of notes taken by Marx and was unpublished by him.

Actually, the quote by km1818 is from Capital Volume One, Chapter 33.

So I suppose you'll now argue that he was merely coquetting :rolleyes:


Secondly, every time he uses the words "capital", "variable capital", and "constant capital", he never refers to these things as being relations.

To put you out of your evident pain, "variable capital" and "constant capital" only exist within the confines of specific relations of production.


Thirdly, even if Marx defined "capital" unambiguously as being a relation, it still wouldn't make sense and it still would be a logical fallacy to assert that it's so because someone said so.

Finally, you admit that Marx's analysis of capital makes no sense to you. This is progress of a kind.

Btw, you keep saying its a logical fallacy, but what logical fallacy? And since when has logic determined what the nature of capital is?


Fourthly, what does the second quote you've posted by me have anything to do with capital supposedly being a relation? I was talking about capitalism not capital.

Capitalism is a series of relations, the primary relation being that which creates capital.

[JazzRemington]

Actually, the quote by km1818 is from Capital Volume One, Chapter 33.

So I suppose you'll now argue that he was merely coquetting :rolleyes:

Well, notice how he actually uses the term, though. It does NOT appear to be a relation itself. He keeps asserting that something is capital only when it's being used in a particular way in a particular relation, and he gives concrete entities in his examples of variable capital, constant capital, and capital in general. Further, some people seemingly think that repetition is what makes something valid (i.e., Marx only said ONCE that he "coquetted" Hegelian terms), so I don't know how the fact that Marx only seemingly mentions this once (I don't recall where exactly he follows this up, if ever, in other published works) makes it valid.


To put you out of your evident pain, "variable capital" and "constant capital" only exist within the confines of specific relations of production.

And how would existing within a relation make either of those or capital itself a relation?


Finally, you admit that Marx's analysis of capital makes no sense to you. This is progress of a kind.

Do you understand what "hypothetical reasoning" is? I don't think you do, and I don't think you understand Marx's analysis of capital either, since you can't explain how capital is a relationship.


Btw, you keep saying its a logical fallacy, but what logical fallacy? And since when has logic determined what the nature of capital is?

Argument from authority. You're saying that because Marx allegedly thought or wrote that capital is a relation, that it's true that capital is a relation. That does not make it so. Logic doesn't determine the nature of capital, it determines the validity of arguments as to what the nature of capital is. Saying that "capital" is a relation because it comes from a relation is a fallacy because you're saying what's true for a part of it (that it's the result of a relation) is true for the whole (that it is a relation). It's a compositional fallacy. I've explained this several time: it does not follow that because capital is the result of a relation that it is a relation.


Capitalism is a series of relations, the primary relation being that which creates capital.

How would that make capital a relation? Why does everyone keep ignoring this question?

[S.Artesian]

Don't waste your time Bob-- the guy's an ignoramus and a liar to boot.


He's been exposed. That's all that's necessary.

[JazzRemington]

Don't waste your time Bob-- the guy's an ignoramus and a liar to boot.


He's been exposed. That's all that's necessary.

I want you to point out exactly where I contradict myself, exactly where I lied. What are the IDs of these posts?

[S.Artesian]

Posts 77 and 93, which you then follow up by claiming that all you wanted to know is where Marx said it was a relation, which you now follow by claiming that Marx must be committing a logical fallacy, after you posted on page 4 of this thread where you want to know why we would think you are claiming Marx's analysis of capital is inaccurate, because I and others are saying Marx defined, and critiqued capital as a social relation of production.

Got that? First you act shocked that we think you are claiming Marx's analysis of capitalism is inaccurate. And then you proceed to argue how Marx always used "things" in his critique of capital-- in response to which I pointed out that he used "things" because those things expressed that social relation, those things were only capital because of the social relation of their production---.

You continued to claim capital is a thing and cannot be a relation. And then you follow that up by saying that --oh no, I just wanted to know where Marx said that capital is a relation-- after repeating numerous times that just citing Marx doesn't mean anything, that capital exists as a relation needs to be demonstrated [which is exactly what Marx does in his critique of capital].

But none of this matters. You'll just spew some more bullshit out about how it doesn't matter if you read Marx, know a single fucking thing about Marx, because something in some make believe strict grammatical sense is what you want it to be, and not what it actually is.

Which is why you are a waste of time. Like I said before, piss-off poseur. You're an idiot.

[RedMaterialist]

How would that make capital a relation? Why does everyone keep ignoring this question?

1.Capital is a product of people working together under certain conditions. Robinson Crusoe is not a capitalist.

2. You can have millions of dollars (or one dollar) worth of equipment, robots, raw material, buildings, food and lodging, of things. But this does not make you a capitalist. You have to have wage-workers who have to sell their labor time to you. You have to have a social relation.

3. A product of capitalist production can be a ton of wheat, cotton, dirt, lumber, cars. Yet each product, although a different thing, retains its character as a social product, of a social relation.

[JazzRemington]

Posts 77 and 93, which you then follow up by claiming that all you wanted to know is where Marx said it was a relation, which you know follow by claiming that Marx must be committing a logical fallacy, after you posted on page 4 of this thread where you want to know why would think you are claiming Marx's analysis of capital is inaccurate, because I and others are saying Marx defined, and critiqued capital as a social relation of production.

Well, in post #77 I was talking about dialectics, not capital. Like I said, it doesn't matter whether or not Marx used dialectical terminology in the same manner as you - you have to show how dialectics is valid. That's how arguing actually works. In post #93, I was talking about purely grammatical terminology and was asking how what you posted meant that capital is a relation and not the result of a relation. You know, it's often a good thing to analyze terms in purely grammatical fashion if you want to know what they mean.


Got that? First you act shocked that we think you are claiming Marx's analysis of capitalism is inaccurate. And then you proceed to argue how Marx always used "things" in his critique of capital-- in response to which I pointed out that he used "things" because those things expressed that social relation, those things were only capital because of the social relation of their production---.

You continued to claim capital is a thing and cannot be a relation. And then you follow that up by saying that --oh no, I just wanted to know where Marx said that capital is a relation-- after repeating numerous times that just citing Marx doesn't mean anything, that capital exists as a relation needs to be demonstrated [which is exactly what Marx does in his critique of capital].[/quote]

This appears to be accurate. But, I only asked because you kept claiming it. If I recall you keep posting texts that show how capital is the result of a relation and not a relation in itself. Further, I kept bringing up the fact that Marx used it to refer to things as opposed to relations because you keep bringing up the man.


But none of this matters. You'll just spew some more bullshit out about how it doesn't matter if you read Marx, know a single fucking thing about Marx, because something in some make believe strict grammatical sense is what you want it to be, and not what it actually is.

Now you're just babbling.


Which is why you are a waste of time. Like I said before, piss-off poseur. You're an idiot.

You know, you keep acting this way and people will think you're incapable of formulating logical arguments.


1.Capital is a product of people working together under certain conditions. Robinson Crusoe is not a capitalist.

2. You can have millions of dollars (or one dollar) worth of equipment, robots, raw material, buildings, food and lodging, of things. But this does not make you a capitalist. You have to have wage-workers who have to sell their labor time to you. You have to have a social relation.

3. A product of capitalist production can be a ton of wheat, cotton, dirt, lumber, cars. Yet each product, although a different thing, retains its character as a social product, of a social relation.

But how does any of this make capital a relation? I've never denied capital has a particular social quality, or is the result of a particular mode of production, but this does not make it a relation itself. As I've said, this is a fallacy because you're taking a single quality of something that is true and claiming that it is true for the whole thing.

[S.Artesian]

How would that make capital a relation? Why does everyone keep ignoring this question?

No one has ignored that question, except you. It has been explained, demonstrated that the historical origin of capital is a social relation of production where labor is detached, dispossessed from the instruments of production and subsistence and where labor for the laborer has no use other than its use in exchange-- to exchange for the means of subsistence or an equivalent thereof.

This condition of labor, is the opposite identity, is created by the very force that opposes it-- which is the organization, seizure, possession, of the means of production and means of subsistence as private property.

This, and this alone, is the source of value in capitalist production, and capitalism is nothing but the accumulation of value. Without the above described social relation, where the laborer must exchange his or her labor capacity for the means of subsistence, there can be no surplus labor time, which is expressed in, and embedded in commodity production as surplus value.

No wage-labor, no expropriated labor time; no expropriated labor time, no surplus value; no surplus value, no expansion of value. No wage-labor, surplus value, no expansion of value, no capital. It capital does NOT exist.

A locomotive is a thing. It is only capital when it engages wage labor for the expansion of value, for profit. When profit disappears, the locomotive gets sold to some other capitalist who can use it to garner profit, i.e. surplus value. If overproduction of locomotives means no capitalist can use it for further expropriation of surplus labor time, the locomotive gets retired, mothballed, parked in a desert somewhere. When it's retired, mothballed, parked in storage, it is still a locomotive, a thing. It is no longer capital. It is not expressing the social relation of production.

That's as simple as one can make it. That's exactly what Marx spent years examining in detail, following in all its metamorphoses, in all its fetishisms as things.

You are the only one who has ignored the question, because the question and the answer are historical, social, not some bullshit grammar. And this isn't grammar school.

[S.Artesian]

Well, in post #77 I was talking about dialectics, not capital. Like I said, it doesn't matter whether or not Marx used dialectical terminology in the same manner as you - you have to show how dialectics is valid. That's how arguing actually works. In post #93, I was talking about purely grammatical terminology and was asking how what you posted meant that capital is a relation and not the result of a relation. You know, it's often a good thing to analyze terms in purely grammatical fashion if you want to know what they mean.

Like I said, you're an idiot and a liar. In post #77 you said capital is not a relation. In follow up posts you stated a demonstration was required. Demonstration was provided. The demonstration showed how capital was a relation.

I know it's a good thing to analyze terms grammatically? That's a fucking hoot coming from you, the guy who rejected the OED definition of "opposition," because that definition was grammatical, and didn't fit your needs at that moment.







This appears to be accurate. But, I only asked because you kept claiming it. If I recall you keep posting texts that show how capital is the result of a relation and not a relation in itself. Further, I kept bringing up the fact that Marx used it to refer to things as opposed to relations because you keep bringing up the man.Bullshit. More bullshit. The only thing you say that isn't bullshit is where you admit my statements are correct. I demonstrated it, just as I demonstrated it in the previous post. You kept arguing that capital cannot be a relation.

You kept saying it didn't matter what Marx wrote, and I did not cite Marx. I explained the basis of his critique, and his determination that capital was a social relation.




But how does any of this make capital a relation? I've never denied capital has a particular social quality, or is the result of a particular mode of production, but this does not make it a relation itself. As I've said, this is a fallacy because you're taking a single quality of something that is true and claiming that it is true for the whole thing.It, the relation of wage-labor to the means of production, makes capital a relation because without it capital as capital does not exist. See previous post. It's not a single quality of capital, it is the determining quality; it's the historical origin, it's the make-up that capital reproduces in every second of its existence.

But to understand that, you'd actually have to know something about the history of, and the reproduction of, capital.

[JazzRemington]

No one has ignored that question, except you. It has been explained, demonstrated that the historical origin of capital is a social relation of production where labor is detached, dispossessed from the instruments of production and subsistence and where labor for the laborer has no use other than its use in exchange-- to exchange for the means of subsistence or an equivalent thereof.

This condition of labor, is the opposite identity, is created by the very force that opposes it-- which is the organization, seizure, possession, of the means of production and means of subsistence as private property.

This, and this alone, is the source of value in capitalist production, and capitalism is nothing but the accumulation of value. Without the above described social relation, where the laborer must exchange his or her labor capacity for the means of subsistence, there can be no surplus labor time, which is expressed in, and embedded in commodity production as surplus value.

No wage-labor, no expropriated labor time; no expropriated labor time, no surplus value; no surplus value, no expansion of value. No wage-labor, surplus value, no expansion of value, no capital. It capital does NOT exist.

A locomotive is a thing. It is only capital when it engages wage labor for the expansion of value, for profit. When profit disappears, the locomotive gets sold to some other capitalist who can use it to garner profit, i.e. surplus value. If overproduction of locomotives means no capitalist can use it for further expropriation of surplus labor time, the locomotive gets retired, mothballed, parked in a desert somewhere. When it's retired, mothballed, parked in storage, it is still a locomotive, a thing. It is no longer capital. It is not expressing the social relation of production.

That's as simple as one can make it. That's exactly what Marx spent years examining in detail, following in all its metamorphoses, in all its fetishisms as things.

OK, but this doesn't make capital a relation as much as a product of a relation. Again, why is being the product of a relation a condition for being a relation? If two people are married, we'd normally say that they were in a relationship (marriage). It'd make sense to speak of them as being in a relationship, but not being a relationship. Even if they produce a child, we wouldn't say the child is a relationship but the product of a relationship. If you think capital is a relation because it's the product of a relation, then you'd have to explain what you mean by "relationship" because it's obvious you aren't using in any identifiable sense. If you think that defining capital as a relation should be allowed, you'd have to explain why without resorting to logical fallacies (e.g., compositional, special pleading, etc.). You haven't been able to do this, despite what you're claiming.


You are the only one who has ignored the question, because the question and the answer are historical, social, not some bullshit grammar. And this isn't grammar school.

Cool story, bro.


Like I said, you're an idiot and a liar. In post #77 you said capital is not a relation. In follow up posts you stated a demonstration was required. Demonstration was provided. The demonstration showed how capital was a relation.

No, your demonstration showed how capital was the result of a relation. This is what you actually wrote, despite what you claimed. If anything, you keep contradicting yourself whenever you try to explain how capital is a relation.


I know it's a good thing to analyze terms grammatically? That's a fucking hoot coming from you, the guy who rejected the OED definition of "opposition," because that definition was grammatical, and didn't fit your needs at that moment.

*sigh* I have a feeling if I start to point out what's wrong with this strawman you'll go apeshit over something that's irrelevant or throw up red herrings.


Bullshit. More bullshit. The only thing you say that isn't bullshit is where you admit my statements are correct. I demonstrated it, just as I demonstrated it in the previous post. You kept arguing that capital cannot be a relation.

Well, fine. What exactly is bullshit about it? And give me the ID of the posts I wrote and the ID of the posts I responded to, from which you get this information.


You kept saying it didn't matter what Marx wrote, and I did not cite Marx. I explained the basis of his critique, and his determination that capital was a social relation.

So, what? My point was you kept bringing him up. I finally respond and you throw a temper tantrum.


It, the relation of wage-labor to the means of production, makes capital a relation because without it capital as capital does not exist. See previous post. It's not a single quality of capital, it is the determining quality; it's the historical origin, it's the make-up that capital reproduces in every second of its existence.

Like I said, why is it the case that the product of a relation is a relation itself?If this is your idea of an explanation, it leaves much to be desired.


But to understand that, you'd actually have to know something about the history of, and the reproduction of, capital.

Well, you can't explain what "capital" is, so I think you should consider this for yourself.

[S.Artesian]

I have explained exactly what capital is; it is both that relation and the product of the relation itself. This is what is termed a "self-mediating" relation. It is the result of primary accumulation and exists only because it reproduces itself in that relation of wage-labor to capital.

Interesting that you have nothing to say about value, surplus value, accumulation, surplus labor time. These critical facets, essential, and compulsive manifestations of capital are all manifestations of that fundamental relation of production that is capital.

Capital being a product of that relation is the condition both for capital, and the condition for reproduction of that relation. Capital can exist only as the reproduction of that relation-- as being both producer and product of that relation, which is once again, the relation of labor to the conditions of labor. Now if you don't know what the conditions of labor are, that's one thing; if you don't know what "conditions of labor" means, that's another thing. In either case, it's a material question, a question of historical organization, of society-- not of the grammatical use of terms.

Which, BTW, actually reading Marx, actually knowing what he said, how he said it, why he said it, how he demonstrated it matters. As of right now, you think Marx commits a logical fallacy in his analysis of capital. If there is a logical fallacy in his analysis of capital, which has a material, social existence, then his critique of capital has to show that. It has to be inaccurate, an inaccurate representation of how capital actually functions, accumulates, expands. If there is no such inaccuracy, then you're "logical fallacy" is senseless, meaningless, useless, sterile; an academic exercise paralleling all those philosophers who have only interpreted the world, and have proven only the inadequacy of interpretation.
That you can't grasp that is exactly why you think of capital as a "thing."

Whatever my explanation "leaves to be desired" is immaterial. You have to show where it is wrong, just as I have shown how I think it is right. You have to show why your explanation is correct, how your explanation actually accounts for the way capital acts, functions, comes into being, maintains itself. This is not a question of a linear, or formal, or grammatical, or abstract logic. This is a question of historical origin and reproduction. This is a question of the essence of capital-- what distinguishes it as capital, and how capital maintains, expands, and exists only in that distinction.

So let's flip the script. Since you claim capital is a thing: What "thing" is capital? What is the determining quality of any thing called capital. Is that thing always capital?

What is "constant capital"? What makes it "capital"?

What is "variable capital"? What makes it "capital"?

What makes any thing, or anything, "capital"?

Grammatical definitions not accepted.

[RedMaterialist]

But how does any of this make capital a relation? I've never denied capital has a particular social quality.

OK. What is this "particular social quality."

[JazzRemington]

I have explained exactly what capital is; it is both that relation and the product of the relation itself. This is what is termed a "self-mediating" relation. It is the result of primary accumulation and exists only because it reproduces itself in that relation of wage-labor to capital.

Interesting that you have nothing to say about value, surplus value, accumulation, surplus labor time. These critical facets, essential, and compulsive manifestations of capital are all manifestations of that fundamental relation of production that is capital.

Capital being a product of that relation is the condition both for capital, and the condition for reproduction of that relation. Capital can exist only as the reproduction of that relation-- as being both producer and product of that relation, which is once again, the relation of labor to the conditions of labor. Now if you don't know what the conditions of labor are, that's one thing; if you don't know what "conditions of labor" means, that's another thing. In either case, it's a material question, a question of historical organization, of society-- not of the grammatical use of terms.

Which, BTW, actually reading Marx, actually knowing what he said, how he said it, why he said it, how he demonstrated it matters. As of right now, you think Marx commits a logical fallacy in his analysis of capital. If there is a logical fallacy in his analysis of capital, which has a material, social existence, then his critique of capital has to show that. It has to be inaccurate, an inaccurate representation of how capital actually functions, accumulates, expands. If there is no such inaccuracy, then you're "logical fallacy" is senseless, meaningless, useless, sterile; an academic exercise paralleling all those philosophers who have only interpreted the world, and have proven only the inadequacy of interpretation.
That you can't grasp that is exactly why you think of capital as a "thing."

Whatever my explanation "leaves to be desired" is immaterial. You have to show where it is wrong, just as I have shown how I think it is right. You have to show why your explanation is correct, how your explanation actually accounts for the way capital acts, functions, comes into being, maintains itself. This is not a question of a linear, or formal, or grammatical, or abstract logic. This is a question of historical origin and reproduction. This is a question of the essence of capital-- what distinguishes it as capital, and how capital maintains, expands, and exists only in that distinction.

So let's flip the script. Since you claim capital is a thing: What "thing" is capital? What is the determining quality of any thing called capital. Is that thing always capital?

What is "constant capital"? What makes it "capital"?

What is "variable capital"? What makes it "capital"?

What makes any thing, or anything, "capital"?

Grammatical definitions not accepted.

That's right, keep ignoring my questions and demanding that I answer yours. I see what you're doing here: you keep ignoring my questions and demand I answer yours in an attempt to take the focus off your poor explanations and somehow imply that I'm wrong because I allegedly haven't read Marx (which is a logical fallacy, as I've said and as you've ignored). It won't work. You can't explain why capital is a relation without committing logical fallacies or using insults, period. You can repeat yourself all you want, but you cannot explain what you mean. Period.


OK. What is this "particular social quality.

You've answered your own question in several posts, which I generally agreed with. Now answer mine (as in all of them). If it really isn't hard, you should be able to explain why being the product of a relation makes something a relation. Because as it stands, this doesn't make sense. Like I said, two people may be married and in a relation, but that does not make any children they have relations themselves. We'd normally say that the children are in a relation (with their parents). That's what makes them someone's children.

[RedMaterialist]

because I allegedly haven't read Marx

Well, that's pretty clear.



You've answered your own question in several posts, which I generally agreed with. Now answer mine

Because as it stands, this doesn't make sense. Like I said, two people may be married and in a relation, but that does not make any children they have relations themselves. We'd normally say that the children are in a relation (with their parents). That's what makes them someone's children.

You won't explain what the "particular social quality" capital has; so let's look at your example. You say two people may be married and in a relation and then have children. I guess this means that the parents are a relation and they have a product, a child. The child remains a product, because a product of a relation cannot be a relation. However, according to you, the child is "in" a relation, just like its parents were "in" a relation.

Marx showed how all relations, under capitalism, are turned into money, product relations. Everything is based on the exchange of money. The only nexus between people is the cash nexus. Former professional occupations, like doctors, were once based on honor, now they are based solely on cash payment.

Without realizing it you have confirmed this. Even the parent-child relationship is becoming a cash-money relationship. A child is a both a "product" (according to you) and a "relation," just like capital.

[S.Artesian]

You claimed capital is a thing. I challenge you to provide the origin of that thing of capital, and how that thing of capital exists separate and apart from that social relation of labor to the conditions of labor.

What is the thing of capital?

But you won't answer. You'll pretend I haven't answered your questions by spewing your bullshit about "logical fallacy."

What is constant capital? What thing is constant capital? What makes that thing constant capital?

You won't answer, because you can't.

Is Marx mistaken in his description, his definition of capital as a relationship of production? If so, how is his description inaccurate to the actual reproduction and existence of capital?

You won't answer because you can't.

You, and all your little anti-dialectic comrades, are vacant.

[JazzRemington]

Well, that's pretty clear.

"Pretty clear," what? There was a whole other part of that post you just quoted mined that from. Do you understand hypothetical reasoning?


You won't explain what the "particular social quality" capital has;

What's there to explain? I've agreed already with most of what you wrote about capital.


so let's look at your example. You say two people may be married and in a relation and then have children. I guess this means that the parents are a relation and they have a product, a child. The child remains a product, because a product of a relation cannot be a relation. However, according to you, the child is "in" a relation, just like its parents were "in" a relation.

"According to me?" I assure you I'm not the only one who thinks this.


Marx showed how all relations, under capitalism, are turned into money, product relations. Everything is based on the exchange of money. The only nexus between people is the cash nexus. Former professional occupations, like doctors, were once based on honor, now they are based solely on cash payment.

Yes. But, what does this have to do with products of a relation being relations themselves?


Without realizing it you have confirmed this. Even the parent-child relationship is becoming a cash-money relationship. A child is a both a "product" (according to you) and a "relation," just like capital.

You keep ignoring my question: why does being the product of a relation mean that the product is a relation? Normally (and it's not JUST according to me, I assure you) people are IN relationships with each other. It might be based around some physical object, but that doesn't make that physical object a relation. You're conflating the foundation or center of a relationship with the relationship itself. Further, you're making a logical fallacy because you're saying that what's true for a part (e.g. something is the product of a relation) is the same for the whole (e.g. the product of a relation is a relation). You have not been able to get past this. Period.


You claimed capital is a thing. I challenge you to provide the origin of that thing of capital, and how that thing of capital exists separate and apart from that social relation of labor to the conditions of labor.

I've already agreed with you on the origins of capital and most of the stuff you've wrote. If you paid attention, you'll notice it's only your mistaken and logically fallacious belief that "capital" is a relation.


What is the thing of capital? [...] What is constant capital? What thing is constant capital? What makes that thing constant capital?

Like I've said, you ever notice that when Marx actually gives examples of capital, it's almost always tangible objects? It's almost never referring to "capital" being a relation in and of itself. Why do you keep insisting that without "capital" being defined as a relation, it won't have all of these properties that you've ascribed to them and that I've agreed with.


But you won't answer. You'll pretend I haven't answered your questions by spewing your bullshit about "logical fallacy."

You keep ignoring my challenge to explain why being the product of a relation constitutes being a relation. All you do is explain how capital is the result of a production relation, which I've never denied. This is what you actually do when you try to explain that capital is a relation. If anything, you keep contradicting yourself. No one says "The bourgeoisie capital the proletariat", "Bill and Steve are capital'ed", or "The two are in capital". Those are what examples of describing people as being in a relation looks like if "capital" were a relation. If you notice, none of these makes sense and its a rather illicit way of using the word. Marx never uses the term like that. Period. When he does use the term, it's always showing how capital is either only capital in a certain relation, is the product of a relation, etc. Also, what exactly is my "bullshit about 'logical fallacy'"? Do you know what a logical fallacy is, and that any argument that relies on a logical fallacy is probably invalid?


Is Marx mistaken in his description, his definition of capital as a relationship of production? If so, how is his description inaccurate to the actual reproduction and existence of capital?

Where did I say any of it was inaccurate? You said the last time that I never did, but the way you keep bringing it up makes me suspect I've claimed it somewhere.


You, and all your little anti-dialectic comrades, are vacant.

Like I said, you keep demanding other people answer your questions but you refuse to answer theirs. You keep ignoring my questions about how the product of a relation is a relation itself, why this is the case, etc. Since you repeatedly claim that "capital" is a relation and not a thing, there's no way I can answer any of your questions without being wrong by default. They're trick questions, as usual. Why should I answer a question that you've already implied as having one right answer that you allegedly already know?

[RedMaterialist]

Yes. But, what does this have to do with products of a relation being relations themselves?

You keep ignoring my questions about how the product of a relation is a relation itself, why this is the case, etc. Since you repeatedly claim that "capital" is a relation and not a thing

First, capital is a relation expressed in a thing. Money is a physical object, but is actually a relation; a robot in a factory is a thing, but is actually a relation of the people who produced it. If all the people who produced, say a car, stood around it, you would see thousands of people from all over the world. All of these people exist in a relation of labor, a relation of working together, a relation of capital.

I think (I am not really clear on this) that this social relation which exists behind the physical object, is what Marx meant by the fetishization of commodities.

But, your question is How can a product of a relation be a relation? Two people are married; there is a relation between them. What do they produce? Surely you don't mean children. So, what do they make or manufacture? If they live on a farm they can produce wheat. Is there a relation between them and the wheat? Yes, they own the wheat. Is that relation capital? No. The wheat is the produce of their own labor.

Ownership is not a relation? The ownership of private property is one of the sacred principles of capitalist economy. Socialists and workers intend to take the property (i.e., capital) away from the capitalists; to end the capital relation. This is why the capitalists are so upset with socialism.

[RedMaterialist]

Yes. But, what does this have to do with products of a relation being relations themselves?



Money is a product of a relation. People work and produce commodities; these commodities are exchanged for money. Money is a thing, a piece of paper (at least for the past 100 yrs or so). Increasingly money is becoming a computer generated image, a number on a computer screen. But money is a social relation, a transaction between people. Money is a product of a relation which becomes a relation.

Money, of course, has been around for a long time. But only in capitalism has it become a commodity, a relation expressed in a thing.

[S.Artesian]

You keep ignoring my question: why does being the product of a relation mean that the product is a relation? Normally (and it's not JUST according to me, I assure you) people are IN relationships with each other. It might be based around some physical object, but that doesn't make that physical object a relation. You're conflating the foundation or center of a relationship with the relationship itself. Further, you're making a logical fallacy because you're saying that what's true for a part (e.g. something is the product of a relation) is the same for the whole (e.g. the product of a relation is a relation). You have not been able to get past this. Period.

And you keep ignoring the answer: that capital is a self-mediating relation, recreating the terms of its existence, the exchange of labor organized as wage-labor with the means of production as private property. Capital is not just the product of that relation of exchange, it is also the producer of that relation of exchange.

It's not that the "two [wage-labor and the exchange withMOP as private property] are in capital; capital itself is nowhere else except in that exchange. All those "things" you keep referring to Marx referring to as capital are only capital in that they exist in that relation. This is a bit more than saying "Sally and Tom are married. They have a relation." Sally and Tom do not DEFINE each other; Sally's and Tom's marriage does not describe, or demonstrate, how either or both can and do act in the material world regarding each other. Sally and Tom exist outside the marriage. Sally and Tom interaction with the material world is not necessarily defined, and circumscribed by their marriage.

Not so the case with capital. Wage-labor and capital do define each other. Each exists in the organization of the other. Each reproduces the social relation to the other in reproducing itself; in fact neither can reproduce itself outside that social relation that produces the other. Their mutual, conditioned, determined relation does describe, demonstrate, and dictate how capital will act in the material world regarding wage labor. Unlike Sally and Tom, wage-labor and capital have no separate existence outside that social relation.

Consequently the "logical fallacy" you think you see, whereby a facet-- the relation-- is mistaken for the whole, is not a logical fallacy in regards to capital. What you think is a logical fallacy is your own adherence to a fetishism of "things."

What facet of capital as a thing exists outside the social relation to wage-labor? Is not determined, driven by its relation to wage-labor? What facet of "constant capital" is constant or capital outside the relationship with wage-labor? Absolutely, positively none, which is why you can't answer any of the questions.

Capital is its relationship to wage-labor. Valorisation does not occur outside the relationship to wage-labor. Accumulation does not occur outside the relation to wage-labor. Surplus-value does not occur outside wage-labor. And if you read Marx, you'll come across him demonstrating how capital is valorisation; capital is accumulation; capital is surplus-value; and that it is all these "things" because the things are expressions of its immanent [the word he uses] nature, its determinate being, which is the social organization of labor.

And BTW that's why the relationship is also dialectical-- the dialectic that Hegel analyzes in his Logic and Marx regrounds in his critiques of Hegel.

Each facet, capital and wage-labor expresses the other, is an expression of the other. Each opposes the other-- capital stands as a force arrayed against labor when the origin of capital is the expropriation of the force of labor itself. Labor stands in opposition to its conditions of labor, where its very productivity both diminishes it, but at the same time, devalues the processes of accumulation, of valorisation.



I've already agreed with you on the origins of capital and most of the stuff you've wrote. If you paid attention, you'll notice it's only your mistaken and logically fallacious belief that "capital" is a relation.

How can my analysis of capital, taken completely from Marx's analysis of capital-- of its origins, of its accumulation, of its prospects for abolition be "correct" [where you agree with it] if the analysis that capital is a relation is false? My arguments of the origin, development, and limits to capitalist accumulation, again taken completely from Marx [but he's not responsible for any errors I may make], is based precisely on the identity, the existence of capital not as a thing, but as a self-mediating, self-reproducing relation of production? And in this Marx is explicit-- capital is not a thing, it is a social relation [see the bits on commodity fetishism].

How can you the explanation of overproduction, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, accumulation, the distinction between absolute and relative surplus value etc. etc. be correct when all those things are expressions of, manifestations of the social relation that is, in the analysis, in fact capital?

This grasp of capital as, as being, as existing as an historically specific social organization of labor is precisely what distinguishes Marx from other "socialists," from other "labor value" theorists, and enables him to penetrate the veils of value.




Like I've said, you ever notice that when Marx actually gives examples of capital, it's almost always tangible objects? It's almost never referring to "capital" being a relation in and of itself. Why do you keep insisting that without "capital" being defined as a relation, it won't have all of these properties that you've ascribed to them and that I've agreed with.

Because you cannot demonstrate how "constant capital" or any of those tangible things reproduce themselves as capital outside that social relationship of production, which relationship is, to use Hegel's term that Marx's takes over, the Dasein, the determinate being. To not use Hegel's term, you cannot demonstrate how any of those tangible things create, expand, accumulate value, which after all is the alpha and omega for capital, outside that social relation of production. Consequently they simply do not exist as capital outside that social relation.

You think the airliners stored in the deserts in California and Arizona are capital? You think the container ships at anchor outside marine terminals in Singapore, China etc are capital? Ask the bourgeoisie. They'll tell you, they're not capital until they get back into production. And production is the exchange with wage-labor.

The best we can say is that those are instruments of production that can no longer be sustained by, and sustain in return, capitalist reproduction. And why is that? Because labor cannot be exploited at a sufficient rate of return to sustain them as.......capital.





You keep ignoring my challenge to explain why being the product of a relation constitutes being a relation. All you do is explain how capital is the result of a production relation, which I've never denied. This is what you actually do when you try to explain that capital is a relation. If anything, you keep contradicting yourself. No one says "The bourgeoisie capital the proletariat", "Bill and Steve are capital'ed", or "The two are in capital". Those are what examples of describing people as being in a relation looks like if "capital" were a relation. If you notice, none of these makes sense and its a rather illicit way of using the word. Marx never uses the term like that. Period. When he does use the term, it's always showing how capital is either only capital in a certain relation, is the product of a relation, etc. Also, what exactly is my "bullshit about 'logical fallacy'"? Do you know what a logical fallacy is, and that any argument that relies on a logical fallacy is probably invalid?

See above. I've answered all this. Marx uses the term simply and directly. Capital is... Capital exists as... a social relation of production; a historically specific organization of labor.



Like I said, you keep demanding other people answer your questions but you refuse to answer theirs. You keep ignoring my questions about how the product of a relation is a relation itself, why this is the case, etc. Since you repeatedly claim that "capital" is a relation and not a thing, there's no way I can answer any of your questions without being wrong by default. They're trick questions, as usual. Why should I answer a question that you've already implied as having one right answer that you allegedly already know?

There's no trick in the question. Take any of those tangible objects and show us how it functions as capital. As it is, all you're really saying is that there is no such thing as capitalism, all there is is the production of tangible objects. If nothing can function as capital outside that social relation, if nothing produces value outside that relation, if capital is the production of value, then nothing is capital outside that relation. Capital is that relation.

So show me a tangible object producing capital, producing value outside the social relation.

[JazzRemington]

First, capital is a relation expressed in a thing. Money is a physical object, but is actually a relation; a robot in a factory is a thing, but is actually a relation of the people who produced it. If all the people who produced, say a car, stood around it, you would see thousands of people from all over the world. All of these people exist in a relation of labor, a relation of working together, a relation of capital.

What does this have to do with showing how the product of a relation is also a relation itself? If "capital" really WAS a relation, it'd make sense to say "The bourgeoisie capital the proletariat" or something to that effect. That's how terms denoting relations are used. "Capital" is never used this way, period. You might say that, oh, capital represents the nature particular production relation that spawned it, but you'd be speaking in non-literal terms. It's sort of like how you'd describe something as representing years of hard work and dedication.


But, your question is How can a product of a relation be a relation? Two people are married; there is a relation between them. What do they produce? Surely you don't mean children. So, what do they make or manufacture? If they live on a farm they can produce wheat. Is there a relation between them and the wheat? Yes, they own the wheat. Is that relation capital? No. The wheat is the produce of their own labor.

[...]

Ownership is not a relation? The ownership of private property is one of the sacred principles of capitalist economy. Socialists and workers intend to take the property (i.e., capital) away from the capitalists; to end the capital relation. This is why the capitalists are so upset with socialism.

What do either of these have anything to do with what I asked? I'm beginning to think you're repeating yourself out of spite.


Money is a product of a relation. People work and produce commodities; these commodities are exchanged for money. Money is a thing, a piece of paper (at least for the past 100 yrs or so). Increasingly money is becoming a computer generated image, a number on a computer screen. But money is a social relation, a transaction between people. Money is a product of a relation which becomes a relation.

No, "money" is not a relation. You pay someone for services, and money may be used in the relation but that does not make the money a relation. You're just substituting terms for others and claiming it's an explanation.

[RedMaterialist]

If "capital" really WAS a relation, it'd make sense to say "The bourgeoisie capital the proletariat" or something to that effect.

The bourgeoisie own the labor of the proletariat.
The bourgeoisie appropriate the labor of the proletariat.
The bourgeoisie exploit the proletariat.

exploitation, appropriation of labor = capital

[JazzRemington]

And you keep ignoring the answer: that capital is a self-mediating relation, recreating the terms of its existence, the exchange of labor organized as wage-labor with the means of production as private property. Capital is not just the product of that relation of exchange, it is also the producer of that relation of exchange.

[...]

It's not that the "two [wage-labor and the exchange withMOP as private property] are in capital; capital itself is nowhere else except in that exchange.

But yet, it only makes sense to speak of things being in relations. It does not make sense to talk about things as being relations, period. This means you're using "relation" in a new way and you have yet to justify your use of the term.


All those "things" you keep referring to Marx referring to as capital are only capital in that they exist in that relation.

This makes it not a logical fallacy to claim that the part of the whole defines the whole? Why would what you've written here contradict what I've said about capital not being a relation? Of course something is capital only in a particular production relation. It does not follow that this makes capital a relation. Period. You say that capital is a relation, and then you say it's BOTH a thing and a relation. Which is it? It can't be both, because something cannot be the product of a relation and a relation at the same time.


This is a bit more than saying "Sally and Tom are married. They have a relation." Sally and Tom do not DEFINE each other; Sally's and Tom's marriage does not describe, or demonstrate, how either or both can and do act in the material world regarding each other. Sally and Tom exist outside the marriage. Sally and Tom interaction with the material world is not necessarily defined, and circumscribed by their marriage.

[...]

Not so the case with capital. Wage-labor and capital do define each other. Each exists in the organization of the other. Each reproduces the social relation to the other in reproducing itself; in fact neither can reproduce itself outside that social relation that produces the other. Their mutual, conditioned, determined relation does describe, demonstrate, and dictate how capital will act in the material world regarding wage labor. Unlike Sally and Tom, wage-labor and capital have no separate existence outside that social relation.

This is a straw man. I was giving examples of what it would look like to use "capital" as if it denoted a relation. Plus, if you don't think marriage has any effect on any kind of behavior, let alone the behavior of the husband toward the wife, or whatever, or if the two married people don't define each other, then you severely misunderstand what it means to be married. And what does it mean to be in a relation but exist outside it? That doesn't make any sense. In fact, I have a feeling you're purposely defining marriage in a way to support your argument. That's not a good thing, mind you.


Consequently the "logical fallacy" you think you see, whereby a facet-- the relation-- is mistaken for the whole, is not a logical fallacy in regards to capital.

Another straw man. The argument you're using to support your crazed notion of capital being a relation is fallacious. When you say that it's so because such and such person,regardless of who it is, said so, it's another logical fallacy: appeal to authority. A logical fallacy is a logical fallacy, regardless of who commits it. Period. It doesn't matter if its you, me, Marx, or the President of the United State of America.

You'll have to show how you're immune to charges of logical fallacy, or why we shouldn't apply critical thinking and proper argument procedures to our analysis of capital. And if you try to make some special or unique claim about "capital" that affords it immunity to logical fallacies, you'll probably end up committing another logical fallacy: special pleading.


What you think is a logical fallacy is your own adherence to a fetishism of "things."

Unfortunately for you, this alleged quality of mine is not a logical fallacy. Only arguments, which you are using to support your claim, contain logical fallacies.


What facet of capital as a thing exists outside the social relation to wage-labor? Is not determined, driven by its relation to wage-labor? What facet of "constant capital" is constant or capital outside the relationship with wage-labor? Absolutely, positively none, which is why you can't answer any of the questions.

Where are you getting this from? Where have I denied any of this? I'm only arguing that defining "capital" as a relation is incorrect. Period.


Capital is its relationship to wage-labor. Valorisation does not occur outside the relationship to wage-labor. Accumulation does not occur outside the relation to wage-labor. Surplus-value does not occur outside wage-labor. And if you read Marx, you'll come across him demonstrating how capital is valorisation; capital is accumulation; capital is surplus-value; and that it is all these "things" because the things are expressions of its immanent [the word he uses] nature, its determinate being, which is the social organization of labor.

I fail to see how all of this makes "capital" a relation. As I keep saying, and as you keep ignoring, you claim capital is a relation but whenever you try to explain what you mean, all you do is show how capital is capital only in a particular relation or is the product of a relation. If this is what you think "relation" is, then you have a very idiosyncratic understanding of the term.


And BTW that's why the relationship is also dialectical-- the dialectic that Hegel analyzes in his Logic and Marx regrounds in his critiques of Hegel.

Each facet, capital and wage-labor expresses the other, is an expression of the other. Each opposes the other-- capital stands as a force arrayed against labor when the origin of capital is the expropriation of the force of labor itself. Labor stands in opposition to its conditions of labor, where its very productivity both diminishes it, but at the same time, devalues the processes of accumulation, of valorisation.

Cool story, bro.


How can my analysis of capital, taken completely from Marx's analysis of capital-- of its origins, of its accumulation, of its prospects for abolition be "correct" [where you agree with it] if the analysis that capital is a relation is false? My arguments of the origin, development, and limits to capitalist accumulation, again taken completely from Marx [but he's not responsible for any errors I may make], is based precisely on the identity, the existence of capital not as a thing, but as a self-mediating, self-reproducing relation of production? And in this Marx is explicit-- capital is not a thing, it is a social relation [see the bits on commodity fetishism].

You know, writing overly and needlessly long sentences is not a good thing.


How can you the explanation of overproduction, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, accumulation, the distinction between absolute and relative surplus value etc. etc. be correct when all those things are expressions of, manifestations of the social relation that is, in the analysis, in fact capital?

The same reason Christian scientists are correct about somethings some of the time, but for the wrong reasons.


This grasp of capital as, as being, as existing as an historically specific social organization of labor is precisely what distinguishes Marx from other "socialists," from other "labor value" theorists, and enables him to penetrate the veils of value.

Why does one have to understand capital as a relation to understand its origin and nature?


Because you cannot demonstrate how "constant capital" or any of those tangible things reproduce themselves as capital outside that social relationship of production, which relationship is, to use Hegel's term that Marx's takes over, the Dasein, the determinate being. To not use Hegel's term, you cannot demonstrate how any of those tangible things create, expand, accumulate value, which after all is the alpha and omega for capital, outside that social relation of production. Consequently they simply do not exist as capital outside that social relation.

Well, if you say so.


You think the airliners stored in the deserts in California and Arizona are capital? You think the container ships at anchor outside marine terminals in Singapore, China etc are capital? Ask the bourgeoisie. They'll tell you, they're not capital until they get back into production. And production is the exchange with wage-labor.

[...]

The best we can say is that those are instruments of production that can no longer be sustained by, and sustain in return, capitalist reproduction. And why is that? Because labor cannot be exploited at a sufficient rate of return to sustain them as.......capital.

Why do you keep making the strawman argument that I think anything is capital?


See above. I've answered all this. Marx uses the term simply and directly. Capital is... Capital exists as... a social relation of production; a historically specific organization of labor.

You have not been able to explain why being the product of a relation entails the product being a relation itself. Period. Whenever you do, you use logical fallacies - which render your argument invalid, period. It's called "proper and logical arguing" for a reason. I suspect you're just one of those crazy fanatics that can't explain anything and just either ignores anyone who calls you out on it, or just hurls insults.


There's no trick in the question. Take any of those tangible objects and show us how it functions as capital. As it is, all you're really saying is that there is no such thing as capitalism, all there is is the production of tangible objects. If nothing can function as capital outside that social relation, if nothing produces value outside that relation, if capital is the production of value, then nothing is capital outside that relation. Capital is that relation.

This still doesn't make it any less of a logical fallacy to claim that a part of the whole defines the whole. You can be as verbose as you want, but it doesn't change the fact that it's fallacious.


So show me a tangible object producing capital, producing value outside the social relation.

Another strawman.

[JazzRemington]

The bourgeoisie own the labor of the proletariat.
The bourgeoisie appropriate the labor of the proletariat.
The bourgeoisie exploit the proletariat.

exploitation, appropriation of labor = capital

Well, technically the bourgeoisie owns the labor power of the proletariat.

But now it seems your just using "capital" as a synonym for and not anything distinct from exploitation and appropriation. The former two concepts are acts or what someone does.

[RedMaterialist]

Well, technically the bourgeoisie owns the labor power of the proletariat.

True, and that is the relation.




But now it seems your just using "capital" as a synonym for and not anything distinct from exploitation and appropriation. The former two concepts are acts or what someone does.

You're the one who said the "bourgeoisie capital the proletariat." If you don't like the verb form of capital, how about the noun, adjective, adverb, whatever? I suspect capital can be not only a relation and a thing, but a synonym, metaphor, simile, any kind of linguistic expression you want. After all, it is a "fetish." Or rather, the commodity which expresses capital is a fetish.

I prefer reading the short posts. :D

[JazzRemington]

True, and that is the relation.

The relation between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, yes.


You're the one who said the "bourgeoisie capital the proletariat." If you don't like the verb form of capital, how about the noun, adjective, adverb, whatever? I suspect capital can be not only a relation and a thing, but a synonym, metaphor, simile, any kind of linguistic expression you want. After all, it is a "fetish." Or rather, the commodity which expresses capital is a fetish.

I prefer reading the short posts. :D

*sigh* You're just writing this in spite, now. None of what you wrote is even an argument.

[S.Artesian]

But yet, it only makes sense to speak of things being in relations. It does not make sense to talk about things as being relations, period. This means you're using "relation" in a new way and you have yet to justify your use of the term.

Why do you say that it only makes sense to speak of things being in relations when you have yet to define what the thing is that is capital? What is that thing? And with what thing external to itself is that thing in relation?

You're the one using "relation" in a nonsensical manner as you have never demonstrated how capital is a thing in relation to any other thing, and therefore maintains its existence as a thing outside, separate, apart from that relation. What is the identity of capital that exists as something other than a social relation of production?

Why is a thing capital? What makes constant capital, capital. Is oil constant capital? Is oil? Is a tractor? Sheep? Exactly what is constant capital. The reason I point to all sort of different things is because you can never tell us exactly what makes a thing capital.

Now I can tell you what makes a thing capital. You don't. You won't. You can't.

What makes any of things you think of as capital, capital? Answer that question.

You say it doesn't make sense? To you maybe, but to anyone who actually studies capital, in its origins and reproduction, understands exactly what Marx meant in stating that capital is a social relation of production it makes sense in that capital does not exist except in the creation and recreation of that relation of labor to the conditions of labor.


This makes it not a logical fallacy to claim that the part of the whole defines the whole? Here you assume what you must demonstrate, prove-- that the whole is not completely dependent, determined, subsumed in that relation. It is not a logical fallacy to state the existence of capital, all its manifestations are the manifestations of its existence as the social relation when in fact that whole is defined by the social relation. Every part of the whole is defined by the social relation, because the totality of capital that reproduction of that social relation. So here's where the materiality of capital comes into focus. What part of capital, of the whole is NOT the social relation?

Let's make it even simpler. What part of the expropriation of value is NOT that social relation of production. You have to demonstrate some sort of distinction between the part and the whole. Yet you have refused to provide such demonstration. You can't even tell us what makes constant capital capital.


Why would what you've written here contradict what I've said about capital not being a relation? Of course something is capital only in a particular production relation. It does not follow that this makes capital a relation. Period. You say that capital is a relation, and then you say it's BOTH a thing and a relation. Which is it? It can't be both, because something cannot be the product of a relation and a relation at the same time.Huh? Something is capital only in a particular production relation, but it does not follow that capital is that relation? You think you're making sense? Something is capital only because it exists in a particular social relation, but capital's existence is not as a social relation? That's pure fucking genius. Who's using words outside there simple, everyday, normal usage? Who has the impenetrably thick jargon-- Hegel, or the sophist who says "Of course these things can only be capital if they are in this specific social relation of production, but that doesn't mean capital is that social relation"??

Can capital be both a thing and a relation? You say it can't be both. Again, the materiality of capital is the question in here.... not somebody's supposed logic that assumes what needs to be proven. The social organization of production yields things, material objects, use values, in every phase of history. Those things, material objects, use values only exist as capital when a specific social organization of production dominates-- when the use-values are the vehicles for expressing the social relation of production that controls, rules production.

For further information on this you can check out Marx's economic manuscripts of 1857-1864, or any of the volumes of Capital.




This is a straw man. I was giving examples of what it would look like to use "capital" as if it denoted a relation. Plus, if you don't think marriage has any effect on any kind of behavior, let alone the behavior of the husband toward the wife, or whatever, or if the two married people don't define each other, then you severely misunderstand what it means to be married. And what does it mean to be in a relation but exist outside it? That doesn't make any sense. In fact, I have a feeling you're purposely defining marriage in a way to support your argument. That's not a good thing, mind you.Define marriage anyway you want. Marriage does not produce Tom. Marriage does not produce Sally. Marriage is not the determining relationship of Tom's existence. Sally dies, or divorces Tom. Tom still exists.

Wage-labor is abolished, and guess what? Capital no longer exists and wage-labor begins the process of abolishing itself. So what part of capital, what thing of capital remains as capital once wage-labor is abolished?


As I said in the beginning-- you've never read Marx, and it does have a bearing because we are discussing the actual material existence of capital. You simply don't know what you're talking about so you hide behind this bullshit sophistry.

The only strawman around here is you.

[JazzRemington]

Why do you say that it only makes sense to speak of things being in relations when you have yet to define what the thing is that is capital? What is that thing? And with what thing external to itself is that thing in relation?

[...]

Here you assume what you must demonstrate, prove-- that the whole is not completely dependent, determined, subsumed in that relation. It is not a logical fallacy to state the existence of capital, all its manifestations are the manifestations of its existence as the social relation when in fact that whole is defined by the social relation. Every part of the whole is defined by the social relation, because the totality of capital that reproduction of that social relation. So here's where the materiality of capital comes into focus. What part of capital, of the whole is NOT the social relation?

[...]

Let's make it even simpler. What part of the expropriation of value is NOT that social relation of production. You have to demonstrate some sort of distinction between the part and the whole. Yet you have refused to provide such demonstration. You can't even tell us what makes constant capital capital.


These are all strawman arguments.


You're the one using "relation" in a nonsensical manner as you have never demonstrated how capital is a thing in relation to any other thing, and therefore maintains its existence as a thing outside, separate, apart from that relation. What is the identity of capital that exists as something other than a social relation of production?

Where exactly am I using "relation" in a nonsensical manner? Give me the exact post IDs and explain why you think my use of "relation" is nonsensical. All I said was that it only makes sense to talk about things being IN relations, not BEING relations.


Why is a thing capital? What makes constant capital, capital. Is oil constant capital? Is oil? Is a tractor? Sheep? Exactly what is constant capital. The reason I point to all sort of different things is because you can never tell us exactly what makes a thing capital.

[...]

What makes any of things you think of as capital, capital? Answer that question.

Actually, if you noticed (and you probably don't), I've agreed with most of what you wrote about capital. If I didn't think what you wrote about capital was mostly correct, I wouldn't have agreed with it. I only disagreed with your argument that "capital" is a relation, and you cannot support this argument without resorting to logical fallacies. When I asked you why defining capital as a relation is necessary, you ignored me or just posted a description that includes using "capital" as a product of a relation. Whenever I asked you why this entails "capital" as being a relation, you ignored me or just posted insults.


You say it doesn't make sense? To you maybe, but to anyone who actually studies capital, in its origins and reproduction, understands exactly what Marx meant in stating that capital is a social relation of production it makes sense in that capital does not exist except in the creation and recreation of that relation of labor to the conditions of labor.

Depends on what you mean by "understand." I'm sure you can repeat what you've read.


Huh? Something is capital only in a particular production relation, but it does not follow that capital is that relation? You think you're making sense? Something is capital only because it exists in a particular social relation, but capital's existence is not as a social relation? That's pure fucking genius. Who's using words outside there simple, everyday, normal usage? Who has the impenetrably thick jargon-- Hegel, or the sophist who says "Of course these things can only be capital if they are in this specific social relation of production, but that doesn't mean capital is that social relation"??

I'm not sure what your argument here is.


Can capital be both a thing and a relation? You say it can't be both. Again, the materiality of capital is the question in here.... not somebody's supposed logic that assumes what needs to be proven. The social organization of production yields things, material objects, use values, in every phase of history. Those things, material objects, use values only exist as capital when a specific social organization of production dominates-- when the use-values are the vehicles for expressing the social relation of production that controls, rules production.

Again, you have to show how it's possible to be a product of a relation and also be a relation. Like I've said, this is a compositional fallacy because you're claiming that a part of the whole (that capital is the product of a relation) is true for the whole (that capital itself is a relation).


Define marriage anyway you want. Marriage does not produce Tom. Marriage does not produce Sally. Marriage is not the determining relationship of Tom's existence. Sally dies, or divorces Tom. Tom still exists.

Now you're just being selective. Marriage does produce a husband and a wife; no marriage, no husband or wife. And, ideally at least, a marriage will also produce a child.


Wage-labor is abolished, and guess what? Capital no longer exists and wage-labor begins the process of abolishing itself. So what part of capital, what thing of capital remains as capital once wage-labor is abolished?

What's the point of this question?


As I said in the beginning-- you've never read Marx, and it does have a bearing because we are discussing the actual material existence of capital.

Unfortunately for you, this is an invalid argument - it's an ad-hominem.


You simply don't know what you're talking about so you hide behind this bullshit sophistry.

What exactly is sophistic about what I wrote? Give me post IDs and explain why it's sophistry, as opposed to the overly long and unnecessarily complex sentences you've used. If anything, that's sophistry.


The only strawman around here is you.

You don't know what a strawman is, do you?

[S.Artesian]

That's just bullshit. I explained, and repeatedly, exactly why capital is a relation of production.

Still waiting for you to tell us what that thing is you call capital. Take your time. Tell us what makes constant capital.... well... constant capital.

As I stated before, and as you verify with every post, you simply don't know what you're talking about when you talk about capital. You have no understanding of value.

[S.Artesian]

These are all strawman arguments.

Show us how they are strawman-- that they are not responses to an accurate depiction of your own arguments. You claim many things-- strawman arguments, logical fallacies-- and you even define them. But you never show how my analysis of capital which I claim refutes your assertions is based an inaccurate representation of those assertions.




Where exactly am I using "relation" in a nonsensical manner? Give me the exact post IDs and explain why you think my use of "relation" is nonsensical. All I said was that it only makes sense to talk about things being IN relations, not BEING relations.I just showed you in that post how you are using it in a nonsensical manner-- a manner that does not make sense, does not correspond to the actual organization, existence of capital. You refuse to engage in any substantive discussion of that organization of capital preferring instead to claim that Marx describes capital in the terms of tangible objects which is simply you conflating tangible objects with capital. Marx is quite clear that such objects function in the system of production because they embody, represent, the particular social relation that is capital's historical existence.

You have yet to show capital as a thing, as something separate and apart from its social relation. Again this is the result of a failure to comprehend value, to comprehend the distinction between use-values, and the social organization of the production of use-values. That social organization is capital. Capital has no other existence.




Actually, if you noticed (and you probably don't), I've agreed with most of what you wrote about capital. If I didn't think what you wrote about capital was mostly correct, I wouldn't have agreed with it. I only disagreed with your argument that "capital" is a relation, and you cannot support this argument without resorting to logical fallacies. When I asked you why defining capital as a relation is necessary, you ignored me or just posted a description that includes using "capital" as a product of a relation. Whenever I asked you why this entails "capital" as being a relation, you ignored me or just posted insults.Why is it necessary? 1. because it is, it exists, materially as the source, and reproduction of capital 2. because the necessity of the social relation, and the necessity of apprehending capital as a social relation contains the necessity of its abolition, and recognizing the social force than can execute that abolition. 3. because the existence of capital as a social relation contains the self-contradiction of capital-- the devaluation of capital in the accumulation of value




Again, you have to show how it's possible to be a product of a relation and also be a relation. Like I've said, this is a compositional fallacy becauseyou're claiming that a part of the whole (that capital is the product of a relation) is true for the whole (that capital itself is a relation). That's easy. And will be demonstrated as soon as you tell us the thing that is capital. As soon as you tell us what makes all those tangible objects capital. As soon as you tell us what makes constant capital, and variable capital, capital. But you won't. You can't. So I don't advise anyone to hold his or her breath in anticipation of your groundbreaking explanation.




Now you're just being selective. Marriage does produce a husband and a wife; no marriage, no husband or wife. And, ideally at least, a marriage will also produce a child.That's a wonderfully bourgeois notion, and I'm sure will get you face time with the head of the family-values foundation, but it doesn't fly here.

For your analogy to work, to have the slightest bearing on this discussion, you need to show that a husband exists as a husband outside marriage. Can you show that a wife exists as a wife outside the relation of marriage? How in isolation from the relationship a husband and wife are husband and wife? Show us how the unrelated, isolated, separated-- those outside the relationship, reproduce each other as husband and wife.



You don't know what a strawman is, do you? Sure I do. It's a suit filled with hay pretending to represent a human being. It's the scarecrow pretending to have a brain....

So when you can show us how Marx commits the logical fallacy in stating explicitly that capital exists as a social relationship of production; that it is explicitly not a thing, I will ask that carnival barker of your anti-dialectic Oz to give you a diploma.

[RedMaterialist]

. All I said was that it only makes sense to talk about things being IN relations, not BEING relations.



Things being in relations? A car is a thing. How can a car be in a relation? "He is in a relation with his car. He is having relations with his car. He is related to his car??" In the U.S., esp., people are very attached in an emotional way to their cars. They are bombarded daily, hourly with images of cars and the relations they can have with their cars. Happy cars, tough cars, the best in Texas cars, cute cars, and the all time favorite: sexy cars. You can be sexy and attract beautiful women if you are this car! It's not enough to simply own the thing; that is merely an economic fact.

A thing can be perceived as being in a relation with a human being only if it is a magical thing, a fetish, like a voodoo doll, a rabbit's foot, a BMW. A "commodity," a thing produced by capital has this fetishistic quality.

This quality exists because a commodity, a type of thing, is produced by a social relation (labor, capital) but appears to be have an objective, non-social reality. The thing, the commodity, is not in a relation; it is a thing which expresses a social relation.

But your complaint is, as I understand it, that capital, a thing, cannot be a relation.

You agree that a machine in a factory used to produce cell phones is a thing. Is that machine capital? Of course; it is a capital expenditure; it is used to produce profit for the owner. How did that thing come into existence? It was produced in a factory. Who produced it? A lot of human beings. Do the producers own the thing? No. That is what makes it capital.

What do you think capital is?

[RedMaterialist]

All I said was that it only makes sense to talk about things being IN relations, not BEING relations.



A thing can be in a relation, but a thing cannot be a relation.

A human can be in a marriage (relation), be a product of a marriage (relation), but a human cannot be a relation.

A human cannot be a relation: she cannot be a sister, a mother, an aunt, a daughter, grandmother?

I think your argument is basically that humans are, essentially, all Robinson Crusoe. They are all isolated, self-sufficient, self-related individuals with no social existence. They are incapable of social relation. This is the classic bourgeois argument.

You deny what a human being is: a social being.

[JazzRemington]

Show us how they are strawman-- that they are not responses to an accurate depiction of your own arguments. You claim many things-- strawman arguments, logical fallacies-- and you even define them. But you never show how my analysis of capital which I claim refutes your assertions is based an inaccurate representation of those assertions.

Now your just ignoring me on purpose. You keep insisting I think capital is a thing and that capital is anything. I've never said this. All I've said is that "capital" is a thing in pure grammatical terms (and I did say this once or twice, if you care to look). That's why your insistence on me showing you a picture or whatever of "capital as a thing" is a strawman. Period. What you're doing is like throwing a temper tantrum when someone says that "capital" is an object in the sentence, 'The bourgeoisie obtains their capital at the expense of the worker's physical wellbeing'. You're ignoring the fact that we're talking about a grammatical object. That's why saying capital is more than a thing, or whatever, is beside the point.


I just showed you in that post how you are using it in a nonsensical manner-- a manner that does not make sense, does not correspond to the actual organization, existence of capital. You refuse to engage in any substantive discussion of that organization of capital preferring instead to claim that Marx describes capital in the terms of tangible objects which is simply you conflating tangible objects with capital.

Where did you show how my use of "relation" is nonsensical? Show me the exact post ID and explain how it's an explanation. The only thing I can remember you doing is to use rhetorical questions to show how, apparently, I'm not using "relation" in a meaningful way. It wasn't even an argument, just a bunch of questions your asking because you're upset that you can't justify your use of "relation" and your insistence on how we have to define it that way.


Marx is quite clear that such objects function in the system of production because they embody, represent, the particular social relation that is capital's historical existence.

This is quite right.


You have yet to show capital as a thing, as something separate and apart from its social relation. Again this is the result of a failure to comprehend value, to comprehend the distinction between use-values, and the social organization of the production of use-values. That social organization is capital. Capital has no other existence.

This reads like you're thinking about production relations, but yet you call them "capital", even after you've deliberately said that capital can be a thing and a relation. If this were a formal debate, you probably would get slammed for being inconsistent.


Why is it necessary? 1. because it is, it exists, materially as the source, and reproduction of capital 2. because the necessity of the social relation, and the necessity of apprehending capital as a social relation contains the necessity of its abolition, and recognizing the social force than can execute that abolition. 3. because the existence of capital as a social relation contains the self-contradiction of capital-- the devaluation of capital in the accumulation of value

Your first reason is a recursion, because you're saying that capital is the source of capital. The second reason I can't make heads or tails of because of the convoluted nature of your writing style. The third instance appears to be trying to use dialectics to justify your nonsense, which is even further nonsense. In short, none of these are very good reasons for justifying your use of "capital" as denoting a relation. It seems you have a purely ideological reason for defining "capital" as a relation, and not anything even remotely resembling logical or coherency.


That's easy. And will be demonstrated as soon as you tell us the thing that is capital. As soon as you tell us what makes all those tangible objects capital. As soon as you tell us what makes constant capital, and variable capital, capital. But you won't. You can't. So I don't advise anyone to hold his or her breath in anticipation of your groundbreaking explanation.

See above. All you do is ignore people's questions and demand they answer yours. You really are terrible at arguing.


That's a wonderfully bourgeois notion, and I'm sure will get you face time with the head of the family-values foundation, but it doesn't fly here.

In other words, you can't argue against my example so you just insult me?


For your analogy to work, to have the slightest bearing on this discussion, you need to show that a husband exists as a husband outside marriage. Can you show that a wife exists as a wife outside the relation of marriage? How in isolation from the relationship a husband and wife are husband and wife? Show us how the unrelated, isolated, separated-- those outside the relationship, reproduce each other as husband and wife.

Like I said, you're just being selective in how you define things. And you're ignoring the point of my argument. When two people get married and have an offspring, we'd say that the offspring is the product of that relation but not a relation itself. It doesn't matter that it changes how people relate to one another, the offspring is still not a relation. Period. This is how the word "relation" normally works in ordinary language. You can attempt to define "relation" in any way you want, but when you actually begin using it you produce nonsense, and logical fallacies when you try to justify it. By the way you define "capital", it seems logical that it would be a relation....because you're defining "relation" in such a way that would support your argument.




*sigh* You're just a little baby who can't argue, so you throw temper tantrums when you lose an argument.

[quote]So when you can show us how Marx commits the logical fallacy in stating explicitly that capital exists as a social relationship of production; that it is explicitly not a thing, I will ask that carnival barker of your anti-dialectic Oz to give you a diploma.

You aren't seriously trying to argue that Marx is incapable of committing logical fallacies, are you? You really are quite fanatically dogmatic in your narrow belief, aren't you? (P.s., that's not a good thing)

[S.Artesian]

You aren't seriously trying to argue that Marx is incapable of committing logical fallacies, are you? You really are quite fanatically dogmatic in your narrow belief, aren't you? (P.s., that's not a good thing)
__________

The above says all that needs to be said about your knowledge and skills of debate and "how to argue." It also is where you earn your keep as a sophist, contortionist, poser, etc.

You have made the claim of a specific logical fallacy in the determination that capital exists as, is, a social relation. Marx states that capital is precisely that. I asked you show the logical fallacy in Marx's determination. You have never done that.

You claim that there is a logical fallacy in conflating a characteristic of the part with the nature of the whole. But that is not a fallacy inherent in and of every such characterization. It can be an empirical mistake; an improper characterization. But there is nothing inherently mistaken in characterizing, defining, demonstrating capital's existence as the existence of a specific social relation of production.

Marx does this precisely, and exactly. You can argue with the quality of his analysis, the evidence he presents, the determination he makes, but you cannot do that simply by referring to some meta-physical command line of a your proclaimed logic. You have to engage his analysis of capital materially and show where it is inaccurate. You have to answer the question of what capital is, which you avoid answering like the plaque it is on your house of cards.

You make a claim of a specific logical fallacy, which requires, despite your refusal, empirical validation to not itself be a fallacy. You provide exactly zero empirical validation. So next you twist it into a question designed to further obscure the issue: "You aren't seriously trying to argue that Marx is incapable of committing logical fallacies, are you?"

Of course that isn't the question at hand, and it deserves no answer. All that is is your attempt to avoid the task of showing the inaccuracy in Marx's critique of capital as a social relation which must exist if he characterized capital as a social relation, and if it is, as you claim, a thing.

What I believe about Marx's grasp of logic is immaterial. The question is the quality of his historical analysis, the material analysis of capital's existence as a specific relation of labor to the conditions of labor.

So again, what is capital? What defines capital? Where is capital a thing that exists outside, separate, apart from the specific social relation of production. Why is an instrument of production capital, and how did it get that way?

For those who have progressed beyond the afterward to the 2nd edition of volume 1, we can ask the same question about value: is value a social relation or a thing? Marx after all uses tangible objects in his discussions of value. So what makes tangible objects values?

JR, if you think capital and value are not identical, do not share an identity, are not in fact momentary expressions of the exact same.... pick one: condition, relation, organization... well, once again you are going to have to demonstrate how in fact capital and value differ; how in fact one becomes the other if they both don't exist as a social relation.

So JR .... what is capital? What is value?

Without answering those questions, the essence of your argument becomes: "capital is defined as a noun in the dictionary. Nouns are persons, places, or things. Capital is not a person, not a place, but it is a noun, so it must be a thing." We're a bit beyond your sort of nonsense logic.

[RedMaterialist]

=JazzRemington;1904206

You aren't seriously trying to argue that Marx is incapable of committing logical fallacies, are you? You really are quite fanatically dogmatic in your narrow belief, aren't you? (P.s., that's not a good thing)


Here is an interesting quote from Marx:

"Capital is money, capital is commodities.... By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs." Capital, Vol I, Ch. 4.

[ZeroNowhere]

There's a difference between saying that Marx is incapable of ever making logical fallacies and saying that the basis of his analysis of capitalism is a logical fallacy. Similarly, there is a difference between on the one hand giving evidence of a logical fallacy and on the other attempting to prove it through argumentum ad nauseam, the latter being a logical fallacy. In fact, there is also a difference between consistency and irony.

[JazzRemington]

Here is an interesting quote from Marx:

"Capital is money, capital is commodities.... By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs." Capital, Vol I, Ch. 4.

What's this to do with the argument at hand? This argument is applying metaphorical language to explain capital. You aren't supposed to take metaphorical language literally.

[syndicat]

All communist revolutions have been led by people who accept dialectics as a valid form of logic. People who don't accept dialectics sit around whine about the revolutions the previous people made.


if you mean capital "C" communist as in Communist parties, they may have endorsed the official line about historical materialism but that doesn't show it played any role. also, all of those Communuist parties generated dismal bureaucratic class regimes. the anarcho-syndicalist revolutionaries in Spain were small "c" communists but didn't endorse the theory of historical materialism or "dialetics" (even tho Bakunin used that language, having also gone through a Left Hegelian phase in his youth...the language of Hegelian idealism was common among the radical intellectuals of the 19th century, even after they rejected the ideological content).

if Hegel's logic was so important, why do logic teachers throughout the world today completely ignore it, irrespective of how left wing their political views may be? William Kneale's massive history of logic never mentions Hegel's logic at all. because it was highly confused, using lots of metaphysical mumbo jumbo.

[JazzRemington]

The above says all that needs to be said about your knowledge and skills of debate and "how to argue." It also is where you earn your keep as a sophist, contortionist, poser, etc.

How exactly does it do this? You keep saying stuff like this then don't ever back it up, because you're lying.


You have made the claim of a specific logical fallacy in the determination that capital exists as, is, a social relation. Marx states that capital is precisely that. I asked you show the logical fallacy in Marx's determination. You have never done that.

I've explained this several times: only arguments used to support something can be logically fallacious. Marx may have stated that "capital" is a relation but when he actually uses the term it shows no signs of being a relation itself. Period.


You claim that there is a logical fallacy in conflating a characteristic of the part with the nature of the whole. But that is not a fallacy inherent in and of every such characterization. It can be an empirical mistake; an improper characterization. But there is nothing inherently mistaken in characterizing, defining, demonstrating capital's existence as the existence of a specific social relation of production.

*sigh* Once again you show you don't know anything about arguing.


Marx does this precisely, and exactly. You can argue with the quality of his analysis, the evidence he presents, the determination he makes, but you cannot do that simply by referring to some meta-physical command line of a your proclaimed logic. You have to engage his analysis of capital materially and show where it is inaccurate. You have to answer the question of what capital is, which you avoid answering like the plaque it is on your house of cards.

But yet, he doesn't use it in a way that suggests "capital" is a relation.


You make a claim of a specific logical fallacy, which requires, despite your refusal, empirical validation to not itself be a fallacy. You provide exactly zero empirical validation. So next you twist it into a question designed to further obscure the issue: "You aren't seriously trying to argue that Marx is incapable of committing logical fallacies, are you?"

Well, I only brought that question up because your previous quote seemed to suggest a certain oddball immunity to being wrong about something. Note that I'm not saying that Marx is wrong, but that he, as well as everyone else in the whole damn world have the capacity to be wrong about things. The fact that I suggest this and you automatically interpret it as me suggesting he's wrong tells me you have more of a dogmatic attachment to your particular interpretation of the man than anything else.


Of course that isn't the question at hand, and it deserves no answer. All that is is your attempt to avoid the task of showing the inaccuracy in Marx's critique of capital as a social relation which must exist if he characterized capital as a social relation, and if it is, as you claim, a thing.

Like I said, the man's analysis of capital and capitalism is apt. The fact remains, he does not use the term to suggest that "capital" is a relation. Period. You have to be the one to show that he does.


What I believe about Marx's grasp of logic is immaterial. The question is the quality of his historical analysis, the material analysis of capital's existence as a specific relation of labor to the conditions of labor.

You keep saying this, yes.


So again, what is capital? What defines capital? Where is capital a thing that exists outside, separate, apart from the specific social relation of production. Why is an instrument of production capital, and how did it get that way?

For those who have progressed beyond the afterward to the 2nd edition of volume 1, we can ask the same question about value: is value a social relation or a thing? Marx after all uses tangible objects in his discussions of value. So what makes tangible objects values?

[...]

JR, if you think capital and value are not identical, do not share an identity, are not in fact momentary expressions of the exact same.... pick one: condition, relation, organization... well, once again you are going to have to demonstrate how in fact capital and value differ; how in fact one becomes the other if they both don't exist as a social relation.

So JR .... what is capital? What is value?

[...]
Without answering those questions, the essence of your argument becomes: "capital is defined as a noun in the dictionary. Nouns are persons, places, or things. Capital is not a person, not a place, but it is a noun, so it must be a thing." We're a bit beyond your sort of nonsense logic.

[/quote]

Again, I've already agreed with most of what you've posted on capital. Odds are, I'd more or less write what you've written and then you'd charge me with just copy-pasting it, or just straight copying you. That's why it's a trick question.

[JazzRemington]

Things being in relations? A car is a thing. How can a car be in a relation? "He is in a relation with his car. He is having relations with his car. He is related to his car??" In the U.S., esp., people are very attached in an emotional way to their cars. They are bombarded daily, hourly with images of cars and the relations they can have with their cars. Happy cars, tough cars, the best in Texas cars, cute cars, and the all time favorite: sexy cars. You can be sexy and attract beautiful women if you are this car! It's not enough to simply own the thing; that is merely an economic fact.

[...]A thing can be perceived as being in a relation with a human being only if it is a magical thing, a fetish, like a voodoo doll, a rabbit's foot, a BMW. A "commodity," a thing produced by capital has this fetishistic quality.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "relation". There are other uses of the term that don't denote relations between humans. Whether something is to the left of something depends on the positional relationship between the two. This is also the case when you say something like "Italy is south of England." This describes as positional relationship between Italy and England." This is similar to saying "the car I want is to the left of that man standing there." You're describing "car" and "man" to be in a relation to one another so you can point out what car you're talking about. They're only in a relation because you've described them as being in such in an ad-hoc manner. People apply the term to a wide variety of situations.

And no, not everything that is in a relation is related. Normally "related" refers to the fact that similar characteristics are shared but yet aren't shared to the extent that we'd say they are the same thing. A related term in a bibliographic thesaurus is one that shares some characteristics to the main term (e.g., it might be a synonym or a part of the whole, if the term is one that could be described as having parts). Two people are said to be related when they are in the same family, by any degree. If you say "Italy" is related to "England" because the former is south of the latter, then you're misusing "related" because normally we don't say countries are related to one another, even if, say, one country is a split from another (like a lot of Eastern European countries after the fall of the USSR). If you say "Italy is related to England", you'd have to explain what you take to mean "related". And being in a relationship does not work here. Just because you're putting them into a (ad-hoc) relation for the purposes of description or explanation, doesn't mean they're related.


This quality exists because a commodity, a type of thing, is produced by a social relation (labor, capital) but appears to be have an objective, non-social reality. The thing, the commodity, is not in a relation; it is a thing which expresses a social relation.

Really, relations don't produce anything. They facilitate production, if anything. But just because something is produced via a relation does not make the thing produced a relation, period. As I've said before, this is a logical fallacy because you're saying that a part or quality (produced via a relation) is true for the whole (is a relation).


But your complaint is, as I understand it, that capital, a thing, cannot be a relation.

You agree that a machine in a factory used to produce cell phones is a thing. Is that machine capital? Of course; it is a capital expenditure; it is used to produce profit for the owner. How did that thing come into existence? It was produced in a factory. Who produced it? A lot of human beings. Do the producers own the thing? No. That is what makes it capital.

But how does this make "capital" into a relation? I've never denied the example you're giving. I just deny this makes "capital" a relation.


What do you think capital is?

I've agreed with more or less all of what you wrote, so I think this question is moot. Like I said, even if I do answer this it'd be similar to what you wrote.

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE But just because something is produced via a relation does not make the thing produced a relation, period. As I've said before, this is a logical fallacy because you're saying that a part or quality (produced via a relation) is true for the whole (is a relation).

All you are saying is just because something is produced by a relation that makes it impossible for the product to be a relation. Or, a relation produces a product, therefore the product can never be a relation; parts can never be a relation, therefore a relation can never be parts. This doesn't have anything to do with a compositional fallacy. It is simply you coming up with your own definitions.

You've already said a marriage (relation) produces a child. Your argument is that a child cannot be a relation. A child, of course, can grow up, enter a marriage (relation) and produce a thing, another child.


They (relations) facilitate production,

You are right; money, machinery, labor and capital facilitate the production of capital.


Marx says, I think, is that capital is appropriated labor (not labor of capitalists.) This labor is social labor (not the labor of Robinson Crusoe.) This social labor is a social relation. Therefore, capital is a social relation.

What's so hard about that to understand?

[S.Artesian]

Zero Nowhere has already answered the your first point for me.

As for this:
I've explained this several times: only arguments used to support something can be logically fallacious. Marx may have stated that "capital" is a relation but when he actually uses the term it shows no signs of being a relation itself. Period.You've either never read Marx's critiques, his economic manuscripts, or you have and you're an idiot, or you have and are not an idiot, but a liar.

I could post page after page from Marx's manuscripts where he demonstrates in numerous iterations how capital, in all its manifestations, is just that social relation, but then you'd flip back to your whining about posting walls of text from Marx when that has no bearing. Except now it does, because you've made a claim about how Marx utilizes and examines the manifestations of capital. So now it's your turn to post some text by Marx.

It is not a statement or an argument by Marx that is at stake. It is the content of his critique, whether or not it conforms to the real history, real development, and real accumulation of capital.

So what is capital? What part of capital exists separate, apart, and outside the social relation of labor to the conditions of labor? What is value? What part of value exists outside, separate from the social relation of value?

You say Marx doesn't use capital in any way that shows it is a relation. Would you care to back that up by giving examples that support your claim from Marx's manuscripts, from Capital? You don't recognize Marx's demonstration of capital as a specific social relation of production in his analysis of the exchange between the MOP and wage-labor because either you haven't read Marx, or you have a correct reading that you should be able to demonstrate is correct from a) either Marx's own further writings or b) your own analysis of capitalism, of you have an incorrect reading which we can demonstrate from Marx's analysis of the reproduction of capital-- something that has been done.

If your reading is correct, show us how Marx has capital existing independent of its social relation of production, existing as a thing and not a social relation of production that is expressed in the thing [kind of the definition of commodity fetishism, no?].

Show us in any work of Marx where the reproduction of capital is not dependent upon and does not recreate the social relation that yields labor as wage-labor and the means of subsistence and production as private property.

Show us where constant capital exists outside the organization of the means of production as private property; show us where variable capital exists outside the organization of labor as wage-labor. Show us anything that represents capital without representing, existing as that social relation of production.

As I said, all you've got is your definition of a noun.

[syndicat]

Capital is one side of the capital/wage-labor relation for Marx. When someone "possesses capital" this means they have a certain power to do things...to hire workers at wages low enough to enable the capital owner to profit, they can use this "capital" power to acquire machines, land, etc. It also gives them the power to exclude anyone from working with the equipment and land thus owned except on terms agreed to by the capitalist and under the thumb of the capitalist as boss or his hired managers. This is clearly a power relation...and the relative powerlessness of the wage-workers is the other side of this relation.

For Marx humans are "creatures of practice" so that the role they play within the capital/wagelabor relationship tends to reinforce in them expectations about their role and for the bosses their "right" to continue to have this power. So capitalism doesn't just create products, it also creates, reproduces, the "social relations of production" and thus the specific form the capital/wagelabor relation takes in a given period.

[JazzRemington]

All you are saying is just because something is produced by a relation that makes it impossible for the product to be a relation. Or, a relation produces a product, therefore the product can never be a relation; parts can never be a relation, therefore a relation can never be parts. This doesn't have anything to do with a compositional fallacy. It is simply you coming up with your own definitions.

You're right, I am saying that. And it is a compositional fallacy to assert that because something is the product of a relation that it itself is a relation. You're claiming here that a part of the whole (that the product is a product of a relation) is true for the whole (that the product itself is a relation). If you disagree with this, you'd have to explain exactly what you mean by "relation" because it's evident you aren't using it in a normal sense. In ordinary language that everyone uses to communicate with each other (layperson or otherwise), "relation" doesn't normally refer to the product of a relation. You keep saying otherwise, but you've never actually proved it aside from giving examples that you claim proves your point.


You've already said a marriage (relation) produces a child. Your argument is that a child cannot be a relation. A child, of course, can grow up, enter a marriage (relation) and produce a thing, another child.

Yes, something that is the product of a relation can enter into another relation aside from the one that "birthed" it, so to speak. But, how does this make that product itself a relation? Like I said, this is not how "relation" is normally used.


You are right; money, machinery, labor and capital facilitate the production of capital.

Actually, I said "production relations" facilitate production of things. And you are right, capital does facilitate the production of capital. But, that still doesn't make "capital" a relation.


Marx says, I think, is that capital is appropriated labor (not labor of capitalists.) This labor is social labor (not the labor of Robinson Crusoe.) This social labor is a social relation. Therefore, capital is a social relation.

This is still a compositional fallacy, unfortunately. A particular quality of "capital" is that it's appropriated labor that is a relation. This is being used to define the whole: that capital is a relation itself.


What's so hard about that to understand?

You mean, what's so hard about that to explain?

[JazzRemington]

Zero Nowhere has already answered the your first point for me.

As for this: You've either never read Marx's critiques, his economic manuscripts, or you have and you're an idiot, or you have and are not an idiot, but a liar.

I could post page after page from Marx's manuscripts where he demonstrates in numerous iterations how capital, in all its manifestations, is just that social relation, but then you'd flip back to your whining about posting walls of text from Marx when that has no bearing. Except now it does, because you've made a claim about how Marx utilizes and examines the manifestations of capital. So now it's your turn to post some text by Marx.

As I've said, I'm only bringing up Marx because you keep bringing him up. I only criticize your writing style because it's needlessly complex and is more concerned with style than substance and you post texts in place of actually arguing your point. In the past, you've posted text and then failed to explain what exactly is to be gained by them.


So what is capital? What part of capital exists separate, apart, and outside the social relation of labor to the conditions of labor? What is value? What part of value exists outside, separate from the social relation of value?

As I've said, there's no point in answering these questions because I've basically agreed with what you're written about capital. I'd only be repeating it, and you'd claim I'm just copying you. And where did I say "capital" exists outside of the social relations that result in its (re)creation? Remember, I'm only calling you out on defining "capital" as a relation.


You say Marx doesn't use capital in any way that shows it is a relation. Would you care to back that up by giving examples that support your claim from Marx's manuscripts, from Capital? You don't recognize Marx's demonstration of capital as a specific social relation of production in his analysis of the exchange between the MOP and wage-labor because either you haven't read Marx, or you have a correct reading that you should be able to demonstrate is correct from a) either Marx's own further writings or b) your own analysis of capitalism, of you have an incorrect reading which we can demonstrate from Marx's analysis of the reproduction of capital-- something that has been done.

So, you want me to prove a negative? I'm not the one saying he does use it in a way to indicate that "capital" itself is a relation. He may have said that capital is a relation, but as I've said it doesn't come off that way when he actually uses the word. You have to show where this is the case and explain why his use of the word indicates that capital itself is a relation.


If your reading is correct, show us how Marx has capital existing independent of its social relation of production, existing as a thing and not a social relation of production that is expressed in the thing [kind of the definition of commodity fetishism, no?].

Show us in any work of Marx where the reproduction of capital is not dependent upon and does not recreate the social relation that yields labor as wage-labor and the means of subsistence and production as private property.

Show us where constant capital exists outside the organization of the means of production as private property; show us where variable capital exists outside the organization of labor as wage-labor. Show us anything that represents capital without representing, existing as that social relation of production.

As I said, all you've got is your definition of a noun.

I don't see the point in these questions. Remember, I've already agreed with you on what you've written about capital.

[JazzRemington]

Capital is one side of the capital/wage-labor relation for Marx. When someone "possesses capital" this means they have a certain power to do things...to hire workers at wages low enough to enable the capital owner to profit, they can use this "capital" power to acquire machines, land, etc. It also gives them the power to exclude anyone from working with the equipment and land thus owned except on terms agreed to by the capitalist and under the thumb of the capitalist as boss or his hired managers. This is clearly a power relation...and the relative powerlessness of the wage-workers is the other side of this relation.

For Marx humans are "creatures of practice" so that the role they play within the capital/wagelabor relationship tends to reinforce in them expectations about their role and for the bosses their "right" to continue to have this power. So capitalism doesn't just create products, it also creates, reproduces, the "social relations of production" and thus the specific form the capital/wagelabor relation takes in a given period.

But look at what you're actually doing here. You're claiming (at least from what I can gather) that "capital" is a relation but you say things like "when someone possesses capital they have a certain power". This would mean that capital is a kind of power and not a relation. It is the case that employers have a certain power over employees by virtue of owning capital, but this wouldn't make capital itself a relation. You've also said that wage-labor and capital are IN a relation with one another, but yet you're claiming that capital IS a relation. If two things are in a relation to one another, it doesn't make sense to suggest that one of those things is itself a relation, or even the name of the relation. If I said that one car is in front of another, we wouldn't normally name this relation anything at all. If I'm married to someone, we would call that relation "marriage" but we wouldn't say I or my partner is "marriage".

[S.Artesian]

As I've said, I'm only bringing up Marx because you keep bringing him up. I only criticize your writing style because it's needlessly complex and is more concerned with style than substance and you post texts in place of actually arguing your point. In the past, you've posted text and then failed to explain what exactly is to be gained by them.

Right, when it comes to understanding capital, the relations between labor and property, I insist on bringing up Marx.

Now you've brought him up. You've made a claim. I say your claim is wrong.. that you cannot tell us what makes capital a thing as opposed to a relation of production. Your claim that Marx when analyzing capital analyzes it as a thing is wrong. So back up what you claim. And I couldn't give a flying fuck less what you think of my writing style.




As I've said, there's no point in answering these questions because I've basically agreed with what you're written about capital. I'd only be repeating it, and you'd claim I'm just copying you. And where did I say "capital" exists outside of the social relations that result in its (re)creation? Remember, I'm only calling you out on defining "capital" as a relation.

No point in answering why you claim that "technically" capital is a thing and not a relation because you agree with what I've written about capital?? Are you fucking kidding me? Everything I've written shows that capital is precisely that, a social relation of production that expresses itself in the objects of production.

You have claimed that defining capital as a social relation is confusing a part with the whole. That means there must be part of capital that is not a social relation of production, which is why I asked you what part of capital exists outside that social relation. If capital cannot be defined as a social relation of production, or if only a "portion" of capital can be defined as a social relation of production, then what constitutes the portion that cannot be so defined and, more importantly, how did that capital come into being, how does it reproduce itself?




So, you want me to prove a negative? I'm not the one saying he does use it in a way to indicate that "capital" itself is a relation. He may have said that capital is a relation, but as I've said it doesn't come off that way when he actually uses the word. You have to show where this is the case and explain why his use of the word indicates that capital itself is a relation.

He did say it was a relation of production, and it does come off that way. He goes into detailed explanations in his manuscripts as to how the manifestations of capital are manifestations of that fundamental social relation; how the negation of capital is contained in that precise social relation.

You bring up the examples of Marx referring to "constant capital" and "variable capital"-- as if his calling them by those terms means that they are not a social relation themselves. Such a claim boggles the mind of anyone who has actually read Marx. The social relation that defines capital is the separation of the laborer from the instruments of production, so that the laborer must exchange his or her labor power, his or her time in the labor process with these now estranged means of production in order to receive the means of subsistence or their equivalent.

Constant capital, whether it is oil, coal, welding machines, or airplanes, and variable capital are in fact Marx's demonstration of the social relation of production that is capital, that is the accumulation of capital. That is why "things" produced by capitalism dominate labor-- we call fetishism-- because the "things" express exactly the social relation at the core of their own production.


I don't see the point in these questions. Remember, I've already agreed with you on what you've written about capital.

You don't see the point? Priceless. You've agreed with what I've written? I've written that capital is a social relation of production. Do you agree with that?

I've written that wage-labor and capital are in fact a unity. They share an identity. I've written that that identity is based in an opposition-- where labor, personified by the laborers, finds itself in opposition to the conditions of labor, those conditions being the private ownership of the means of subsistence and production organizing them as capital, as personified by the capitalists? Do you agree with that?

I've written that capital and wage-labor cannot reproduce themselves individually without reproducing each other.. That each exists in the organization of the other. Do you agree with that?

I've written that the accumulation of capital, its expanded reproduction through the amplification of the productivity of labor is precisely the cause for its contraction, its devaluation, and the immanent prospects for its overthrow and abolition. Do you agree with that?

All of those statements are derived from the existence of capital as, and only as, a social relation of production, where labor confronts and is compelled to reproduce the conditions of labor as alien, estranged, and opposed to itself.

So again, what is capital? How is it derived, how is it maintained, how is it accumulated? What is value? How does it come into being, how is it reproduced, expanded?

[black magick hustla]

if you mean capital "C" communist as in Communist parties, they may have endorsed the official line about historical materialism but that doesn't show it played any role. also, all of those Communuist parties generated dismal bureaucratic class regimes. the anarcho-syndicalist revolutionaries in Spain were small "c" communists but didn't endorse the theory of historical materialism or "dialetics" (even tho Bakunin used that language, having also gone through a Left Hegelian phase in his youth...the language of Hegelian idealism was common among the radical intellectuals of the 19th century, even after they rejected the ideological content).

if Hegel's logic was so important, why do logic teachers throughout the world today completely ignore it, irrespective of how left wing their political views may be? William Kneale's massive history of logic never mentions Hegel's logic at all. because it was highly confused, using lots of metaphysical mumbo jumbo.


i agree with the bit of hegelian logic being some sort of weird anacronysm, but historical materialism is very important. i remember when i was in highschool i took this world history class and the textbook reasoning was very similar to historical materialism.

[S.Artesian]

i

if Hegel's logic was so important, why do logic teachers throughout the world today completely ignore it, irrespective of how left wing their political views may be? William Kneale's massive history of logic never mentions Hegel's logic at all. because it was highly confused, using lots of metaphysical mumbo jumbo.

That's hilarious. "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" "If socialism is so important, why did the Union of Socialist Republics collape?" "If Marx is right, why hasn't he been awarded the Nobel prize?"

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE]=JazzRemington;1905178][QUOTE]

[QUOTE]Yes, something that is the product of a relation can enter into another relation aside from the one that "birthed" it, so to speak. But, how does this make that product itself a relation? Like I said, this is not how "relation" is normally used.[QUOTE]


OK. I am going to focus on one thing. You argue by analogy. A product of a relation can not be a relation. A man and woman enter into a marriage. The marriage is a relation. The man and woman are the, are a relation. They are a marriage. They are a relation. If you disagree with this, please let me know.

The husband and wife have a child. The relation produces a child. This child can never, under any circumstances, be a relation (like its parents), although it, like its parents can enter into a relation and produce a product.

Now, yes or no. Is that your argument?

[RedMaterialist]

if Hegel's logic was so important, why do logic teachers throughout the world today completely ignore it, irrespective of how left wing their political views may be? William Kneale's massive history of logic never mentions Hegel's logic at all. because it was highly confused, using lots of metaphysical mumbo jumbo.

If you go to Amazon you will find that used copies of Hegel's Science of Logic go for $25, and Kneale's (who?) The Development of Logic go for about $18. In 50 years Kneale will be completely forgotten. Hegel's writing is almost impenetrable; if logic and philosophy teachers ignore it, that only proves Marx was right when he titled one of his best known works: The Poverty of Philosophy.

[syndicat]

But look at what you're actually doing here. You're claiming (at least from what I can gather) that "capital" is a relation but you say things like "when someone possesses capital they have a certain power". This would mean that capital is a kind of power and not a relation. It is the case that employers have a certain power over employees by virtue of owning capital, but this wouldn't make capital itself a relation. You've also said that wage-labor and capital are IN a relation with one another, but yet you're claiming that capital IS a relation. If two things are in a relation to one another, it doesn't make sense to suggest that one of those things is itself a relation, or even the name of the relation. If I said that one car is in front of another, we wouldn't normally name this relation anything at all. If I'm married to someone, we would call that relation "marriage" but we wouldn't say I or my partner is "marriage".

You're confused. When someone "possesses" capital...say $20 million dollars in an investment fund...they "possess" a power. A power is a relation. You seem to think that when anyone "possesses" something it must be a "thing", like a rock. But we also "possess" properties, including abilities. And abilities are also powers. you're committing a reification fallacy.


If you go to Amazon you will find that used copies of Hegel's Science of Logic go for $25, and Kneale's (who?) The Development of Logic go for about $18. In 50 years Kneale will be completely forgotten. Hegel's writing is almost impenetrable; if logic and philosophy teachers ignore it, that only proves Marx was right when he titled one of his best known works: The Poverty of Philosophy.

well, interesting approach, using a money value of books to evaluate authors. roughly similar price for a work by a very obscure British academic and a vastly more known philosopher. that tell you something?

anyway, you admit that Hegel's writing is "almost impenetrable." This should tell you something. That it isn't a scientific work. For a work to be a scientific work, it has to be clear enough to people practicing in the field that they can test and evaluate the claims. Hegel's writing is so obscure it leads to a wide variety of interpretations...and that suggests it has no clear meaning.

And Marx's "The Poverty of Philosophy" wasn't about logic. Logic is a formal science, akin to mathematics. "Dialectics" on the other hand is no science. It is philosophy...so if philosophy is impoverished, what does that say about "dialectics"? A concern with "dialectics" marks someone out as a member of a cult.

the Wikipedia entry on history of logic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_logic#Logic_in_Hegel.27s_philosophy

points out that Hegel's "logic" wasn't really a logic because it had nothing to do with understanding valid inference or reasoning.

[RedMaterialist]

JazzRemington

You're right, I am saying that. And it is a compositional fallacy to a In ordinary language that everyone uses to communicate with each other (layperson or otherwise), "relation" doesn't normally refer to the product of a relation.




In ordinary language: A relation is a connection, an association (dictionary.com) A bridge is a connection between two pieces of land, usually over water.

A bridge is a relation. A bridge produces money. In fact people used to own bridges and charge tolls.

Money is used to produce another bridge. A product becomes a relation.




Actually, I said "production relations" facilitate production of things.

Relations produce money (things), you say. You go on to say, Money cannot be a relation, cannot be capital, cannot be used to produce more money.

Modern capitalism stares you in the face and all you can see is a gigantic Robinson Crusoe.

Which probably explains your wallowing in so-called logic: Relation produces a thing; a thing can never be a relation because a relation is the whole and its product is a part of the whole. But a part can produce a part which then becomes a whole, which can't be defined by a part, etc. etc.


You whole argument is full of holes, like a car sold for used parts.

[S.Artesian]

Dialectics, to Marx, was not philosophy. It is the method of investigation of, and the movement itself, of human beings through their own history. Marx's work is an end to philosophy in that he grounds that movement, that history in the material production of social relations-- in the labor process.

Really, a concern with dialectics marks somebody as a member of a cult? Would that include Marx, Engels, Lenin.... etc etc. as members of a cult? And are they members of the same cult, or of different cults? And what cult-like behaviors do Lenin, Marx, Engels, etc. etc. etc. exhibit? What rituals are being practiced that are closed off from general review, investigation, criticism, participation?

Actually, the label of cult is much more applicable to the the anti-dialecticians, at least on revleft, who, in my experience, have nothing to say about the actual manifestations, origin, development of capital; who have nothing to say about the actual content of Marx's works [other than the complete distortion of the afterward to the 2nd edition of volume 1].

[syndicat]

Really, a concern with dialectics marks somebody as a member of a cult? Would that include Marx, Engels, Lenin.... etc etc. as members of a cult? And are they members of the same cult, or of different cults? And what cult-like behaviors do Lenin, Marx, Engels, etc. etc. etc. exhibit? What rituals are being practiced that are closed off from general review, investigation, criticism, participation?



They had the excuse that in the 19th century Hegelian idealism was the dominant philosophical frame, and was a standard part of the education of educated elites in Europe and America. Hegelian idealism and other forms of philosophical idealism, so common in the 19th century, were eventually subjected to rigorous critique and went out of fashion, for good reasons.

you don't have the excuse of the 19th century users of "dialetics" lingo. It's obscurantism does in fact close it off from critique and evaluation. Nobody adheres to this dialectics mumbo jumbo nowadays except a handful of radical intellectuals who have their noses stuck in 19th century texts.

[syndicat]

In ordinary language: A relation is a connection, an association (dictionary.com) A bridge is a connection between two pieces of land, usually over water.

A bridge is a relation. A bridge produces money. In fact people used to own bridges and charge tolls.

Money is used to produce another bridge. A product becomes a relation.


Dictionaries merely chart usage. They don't provide an analysis. You've also engaged in a fallacy of equivocation above. that's because you use "connection" in two senses. If Jack writes to Elizabeth, he remains connected to her, has a connection with her, via his writing. communicating via letters is the relevant relation. but the letters are things.

Think of the relation being older than. I am older than Napoleon was when he took power in France in 1799. is this a "connection" between me and Napoleon? i do stand to Napoleon in that relation.

Things stand in relations to other things, but it is confusionist to say the thing and the relation are the same. There is a paper currency that you have in your hand. Yes, it is money. But it is money only in the conext of a certain set of social relations. Without those relations remaining intact, it would be but a scrap of paper, a momento of a previous social order perhaps. Within the context of the capitalist social arrangement, a possessor of a large amount of money has certain powers. These are relations to others. So the paper's being money consists in its standing in certain relations, existing in a certain social context.

when the owner of a bridge charges tolls and earns money from that, their ownership of the bridge is a power relation to others....exhibited when they can force the others to pay the toll.

when the bridge bridges a body of water, there is a connection between one piece of land and another, and thus they stand in the relation of being connected by a bridge. but this relation is not the same as the thing, the bridge.

[S.Artesian]

They had the excuse that in the 19th century Hegelian idealism was the dominant philosophical frame, and was a standard part of the education of educated elites in Europe and America. Hegelian idealism and other forms of philosophical idealism, so common in the 19th century, were eventually subjected to rigorous critique and went out of fashion, for good reasons.

I thought Marx referred to Hegel being treated like a "dead dog" in Europe just about the time he began to write Capital.

And I don't ever recall reading that Hegel's logic was the dominant mode in the US.




you don't have the excuse of the 19th century users of "dialetics" lingo. It's obscurantism does in fact close it off from critique and evaluation. Nobody adheres to this dialectics mumbo jumbo nowadays except a handful of radical intellectuals who have their noses stuck in 19th century texts.I don't need any excuses, I'm not an Hegelian. There's nothing obscure about contradiction, negation, antagonism, opposition.

But you contradict yourself when you say "It's obscurantism does in fact close it off from critique and evaluation", after saying just prior to this: "Hegelian idealism and other forms of philosophical idealism, so common in the 19th century, were eventually subjected to rigorous critique and went out of fashion, for good reasons."

So which is it?

Besides, Marx wrote a sustained and pretty thorough critique of Hegel in the years 1843-1844-- Hegel's terminology is not identical to, nor essential to, the dialectic that Marx demonstrates in his critique of capital.

Anyway, moving from the obscure to the concrete... then, what is capital?

[syndicat]

I thought Marx referred to Hegel being treated like a "dead dog" in Europe just about the time he began to write Capital.

one little snippet from Marx and you take that as proof? you're like a fundamentalist quoting scripture. in reality various forms of idealist philosophy remained dominant in intellectual circles until the realist movement of the early 1900s and the logical positivists of the '20s. in the late 1800s Bradley...an idealist influenced by Hegel...was perhaps the most prominent British philosopher, who used similar gambits to Hegel. Schopenhauer's idealism drew a lot on Hegel.



And I don't ever recall reading that Hegel's logic was the dominant mode in the US.


Hegal doesn't have a "logic." Read the Wikipedia entry I linked to on history of logic. It points out that Hegel's "Logic" wasn't about logic.

In the U.S. the Transcendentalists, the intellectual circle that included Thoreau and Emerson, were highly influenced by Hegel. there was even a church founded in the U.S. in the late 1800s based on his philosophy (it still exists, it's called "Unity").

[S.Artesian]

one little snippet from Marx and you take that as proof? you're like a fundamentalist quoting scripture. in reality various forms of idealist philosophy remained dominant in intellectual circles until the realist movement of the early 1900s and the logical positivists of the '20s. in the late 1800s Bradley...an idealist influenced by Hegel...was perhaps the most prominent British philosopher, who used similar gambits to Hegel. Schopenhauer's idealism drew a lot on Hegel.

Yes, various forms of idealist philosophy remained powerful. No they weren't Hegel's forms, no more than the Holy Family was the expression of Hegel's methods, and determinations.

No, I'm not like a fundamentalist. I'm questioning your snippet assertion with another snippet assertion. That's all. So if you've got some other evidence that Hegel dominated intellectual fare fed to students, critics, economists, etc. please feel free to provide it. So far you've provided examples of 1 & 1, Bradley and Schopenhauer.

And the US? How important were the transcendentalists to the development of US capitalism or a critique thereof, after the US Civil War? Zero, I think sums it up. A church was founded in the late 1800s? Well that settles it then.

But either way... that's not the issue. The issue might be the one you ignore, which is what Marx did with his critique of Hegel, his extraction from Hegel- unless of course you want to consider the entire explication of value, the contributions to the critique of political economy, the exploration of the conflict between the labor process and the valorisation process in his manuscripts as nothing but mumbo-jumbo.

And the other issue what is capital if it is not cannot be a relation of production.




Hegal doesn't have a "logic." Read the Wikipedia entry I linked to on history of logic. It points out that Hegel's "Logic" wasn't about logic.

I make it a point never to read Wikipedia entries. And there's definitely a logic to Hegel's analysis, the logic is the movement of human beings through history, only it's an alienated movement in an alienated history, so Hegel expresses it in alienated terms.

It requires a bit of effort to unpack it, and thereby find its limitations and where it runs up the inside of a cage of its own making, but it's definitely there. Marx did a good job unpacking it. Try his critiques of Hegel rather than the Wikipedia.

[syndicat]

And there's definitely a logic to Hegel's analysis, the logic is the movement of human beings through history, only it's an alienated movement in an alienated history, so Hegel expresses it in alienated terms.

how rhapsodic. shows you don't know what logic is. it's a discipline, like mathematics or chemistry, and its field of study is reasoning, argumentation, inference. it's interest is in developing an account of when reasoning confers likelihood of truth on a conclusion based on truth of the premises.

[S.Artesian]

how rhapsodic. shows you don't know what logic is. it's a discipline, like mathematics or chemistry, and its field of study is reasoning, argumentation, inference. it's interest is in developing an account of when reasoning confers likelihood of truth on a conclusion based on truth of the premises.



Spoken like a true idealist. Shows how little your understanding of the materialist interpretation of history is.

We know what formal logic is and that is precisely not the subject for Hegel, nor for Marx.

For Marx, IMO based on the reading of his critiques of Hegel, the logic, the sequence of unfolding, the "then" that follows the "if" at the heart of Hegel's 2 volumes, and also in the Phenomenology is the logic of history. You know, that stuff Hegel keeps referring to as "becoming" and the like.

Marx extracts from this the material logic of society. It is after all, human beings, human social beings we are discussing. That substance is the organization of labor, the social relation of labor to the conditions of labor.

So the validity of the reasoning is based on premises on the actual origins of the social system, and what those origins require of the "actors" in the reproduction of the system. The reasoning, and the reason, expressed in the dialectic is of the actual conditions, and the immanent forces driving, and changing those conditions.

That's why and how Marx could grasp the self-limits to capital; the self-contradiction in the organization of, the "logic," the conclusions necessitated by the 'premises,' in the origin of value.

But nice try, bro. Way to steer clear of the actual issues of dialectic, which are how capital reproduces itself-- what actually constitutes capital.

[RedMaterialist]

how rhapsodic. shows you don't know what logic is. it's a discipline, like mathematics or chemistry, and its field of study is reasoning, argumentation, inference. it's interest is in developing an account of when reasoning confers likelihood of truth on a conclusion based on truth of the premises.

You sound like an "anti-Hegelian." Yet you say that logic is a discipline (a science?) like chemistry. Didn't Hegel argue the same thing? The Science of Logic:

"In no science is the need to begin with the subject matter itself, without preliminary reflections, felt more strongly than in the science of logic...

"Logic on the contrary, cannot presuppose any of these forms of reflection and laws of thinking, for these constitute part of its own content and have first to be established within the science..."

"When logic is taken as the science of thinking in general..."

[syndicat]

"When logic is taken as the science of thinking in general..."

right there you have one of Hegel's confusions. logic isn't a science of "thinking". that is too pscychologistic. an argument can be stated in sentences and then it is independent of what's going on in someone's brain. when a reasoning or argument is stated in sentences, you have the sentence that states the conclusion and then you have sentences that state the premises or evidence to support the conclusion. from Hegel's statement in this quote you'd think he was a psychologist studying the causes and nature of people's thought processes. there is such a thing as cognitive pscychology which does study people's cognitive abilities. but that's not logic. if you pick up any logic text it's not going to talk about what's going on in people's heads.

logic talks about various kinds of arguments or reasonings by which people try to defend a statement, that is, try to give reason for thinking it's true. the property that logic is interested in is the feature of arguments or reasonings that makes them truth-preserving, that is, guarantees at least probable truth for the conclusion given the truth of the premises or data.

that's because when people give reasons or try to back up their conclusions, they are trying to defend the claim that their conclusion is true or a good approximation to the truth.

[RedMaterialist]

right there you have one of Hegel's confusions. logic isn't a science of "thinking". that is too pscychologistic. an argument can be stated in sentences and then it is independent of what's going on in someone's brain.

"Logic is independent of what's going on in the brain." Are you saying that logic is an argument formed in the brain but which then becomes independent of the brain?

Hegel mentions this later in The Science of Logic when he discusses the artificial, for him, separation of the thinking subject and the matter of thought, the object.

Is logic still a valid concept?