The end of human development

[Sand Castle]

I remember reading the Communist Manifesto a few years ago and seeing a part where Marx said that communism isn't the end of human development. Then, a few years later, I hear people saying that communist theory states that once communism is achieved, that society stops developing. I tried searching the Manifesto for that passage I read a few years ago but can't find it. Maybe I'm confused and it was in another pamphlet.

This question seems basic, yet often neglected.

Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Does anyone have a quote or something? Or am I remembering things that I didn't read? It has been a while, and often memory will blur things.

Thanks.

[FreeFocus]

I've come across this as well. I don't agree. Societies aren't perfect, ever. I can't imagine a higher or more just economic arrangement, but I also don't want to project my views in the 21st century onto the entirety of human existence in the future. From what I understand about the world and history, I don't think humanity can develop beyond a fair, egalitarian society; the only thing possible could be regression.

Technology will continue to develop, but I'm speaking in terms of social development.

[apawllo]

Correct me if I'm wrong; wouldn't a materialist argue that we wouldn't know what our options would be until communism actually came into existence?

[scarletghoul]

Contradictions between classes will be gone; other contradictions will remain, and some new ones will emerge. What this means is that society will stop developing in terms of class struggle (which is currently the determining factor in human history), but things like technology, art, philosophy, and so on will continue to develop.

[BIG BROTHER]

Yes, in fact I don't know anymore were this comes from, but Communism will be the final end of Pre-history and the beguning of humanity's real history.

[Sixiang]

I agree with all of the previous answers. I also have one more thing to add, though. I would assume that it may have something to do with the idea that Communism is just the last mode of production. And, like someone said before, at the present, I see nothing beyond absolute egalitarianism. Only time will tell. We can't see into the future. Who knows where we could go?

[ckaihatsu]

I remember reading the Communist Manifesto a few years ago and seeing a part where Marx said that communism isn't the end of human development. Then, a few years later, I hear people saying that communist theory states that once communism is achieved, that society stops developing. I tried searching the Manifesto for that passage I read a few years ago but can't find it. Maybe I'm confused and it was in another pamphlet.

This question seems basic, yet often neglected.

Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Does anyone have a quote or something? Or am I remembering things that I didn't read? It has been a while, and often memory will blur things.

Thanks.


Looked up the term 'end of history' at Wikipedia and found this:





Historical materialism and the future

In his analysis of the movement of history, Marx predicted the breakdown of capitalism (as a result of class struggle and the falling rate of profit), and the establishment in time of a communist society in which class-based human conflict would be overcome. The means of production would be held in the common ownership and used for the common good.

Marxist beliefs about history

"Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand."

— Karl Marx, Grundrisse, 1858 [4]

According to Marxist theorists, history develops in accordance with the following observations:

1. Social progress is driven by progress in the material, productive forces a society has at its disposal (technology, labour, capital goods, etc.)

2. Humans are inevitably involved in production relations (roughly speaking, economic relationships or institutions), which constitute our most decisive social relations.

3. Production relations progress, with a degree of inevitability, following and corresponding to the development of the productive forces.

4. Relations of production help determine the degree and types of the development of the forces of production. For example, capitalism tends to increase the rate at which the forces develop and stresses the accumulation of capital.

5. Both productive forces and production relations progress independently of mankind's strategic intentions or will.

6. The superstructure -- the cultural and institutional features of a society, its ideological materials—is ultimately an expression of the mode of production (which combines both the forces and relations of production) on which the society is founded.

7. Every type of state is a powerful institution of the ruling class; the state is an instrument which one class uses to secure its rule and enforce its preferred production relations (and its exploitation) onto society.

8. State power is usually only transferred from one class to another by social and political upheaval.

9. When a given style of production relations no longer supports further progress in the productive forces, either further progress is strangled, or 'revolution' must occur.

10. The actual historical process is not predetermined but depends on the class struggle, especially the organization and consciousness of the working class.

This sketch is abstract - real historical understanding needed for developing political strategy and tactics must involve "concrete analysis of concrete conditions" (V.I. Lenin).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism#Historical_materialism_and_ the_future





Correct me if I'm wrong; wouldn't a materialist argue that we wouldn't know what our options would be until communism actually came into existence?


No. I consider myself to be a "hard-line" materialist and I maintain that, by using the scientific method, we can arrive at some general conditions (realities) that would most likely be valid, given the realized premise of a fully communist global society. One example would be that, based on the principle of self-determination, no one could be *coerced* into labor or activity against their will. The prevailing norms of such a society would be sufficient to bring out everyone's best abilities, in self-directed and socialized ways, while also providing to them their expressed needs from the society's collectively produced surplus.





I've come across this as well. I don't agree. Societies aren't perfect, ever. I can't imagine a higher or more just economic arrangement, but I also don't want to project my views in the 21st century onto the entirety of human existence in the future. From what I understand about the world and history, I don't think humanity can develop beyond a fair, egalitarian society; the only thing possible could be regression.

Technology will continue to develop, but I'm speaking in terms of social development.





Contradictions between classes will be gone; other contradictions will remain, and some new ones will emerge. What this means is that society will stop developing in terms of class struggle (which is currently the determining factor in human history), but things like technology, art, philosophy, and so on will continue to develop.


Just noting here -- the development of things like technology, art, philosophy, etc., isn't based on any kind of *societal*, social-relations-based large-scale *contradiction*, as the class struggle is.

Any social ills you can think of only exist due to the existence of the class division -- there would be *no* contradictions remaining once opposing class interests are superseded.

[apawllo]

No. I consider myself to be a "hard-line" materialist and I maintain that, by using the scientific method, we can arrive at some general conditions (realities) that would most likely be valid, given the realized premise of a fully communist global society. One example would be that, based on the principle of self-determination, no one could be *coerced* into labor or activity against their will. The prevailing norms of such a society would be sufficient to bring out everyone's best abilities, in self-directed and socialized ways, while also providing to them their expressed needs from the society's collectively produced surplus.

Your situation is still based on existing conditions though, is it not? Regardless, even if you're using steadfast laws that will never break, and nothing else, it would be difficult to use those to assess how a society that hasn't yet existed would make adjustments to itself, or progress, using materialist analysis, no?

[FreeFocus]

Any social ills you can think of only exist due to the existence of the class division -- there would be *no* contradictions remaining once opposing class interests are superseded.

I disagree. Any time you have people living together, there will be some type of conflicts and disagreements. It's just the nature of social interaction. Additionally, while crime like theft will cease in a communist society, you think things like murder and rape will automatically cease? I don't think so. I think that some people are predisposed to being aggressive. Not everyone has the same temperament, and some people will act on what they're thinking, regardless of what the predominant mode of production is at the time they're living.

Most of the world's ills are due to social macro processes. Some ills are created by macro processes, some are exacerbated by macro processes, and others have nothing to do with macro processes, but rather just stem from human-human interaction.

I know that in a communist society, there will still be assholes that piss me off. If people get caught on a bad day, they might act on their feelings. Communism won't change that. There will still be some type of conflict and problems, albeit much less serious than war, mass poverty and starvation, etc.

[ckaihatsu]

I disagree. Any time you have people living together, there will be some type of conflicts and disagreements. It's just the nature of social interaction. Additionally, while crime like theft will cease in a communist society, you think things like murder and rape will automatically cease? I don't think so. I think that some people are predisposed to being aggressive. Not everyone has the same temperament, and some people will act on what they're thinking, regardless of what the predominant mode of production is at the time they're living.

Most of the world's ills are due to social macro processes. Some ills are created by macro processes, some are exacerbated by macro processes, and others have nothing to do with macro processes, but rather just stem from human-human interaction.

I know that in a communist society, there will still be assholes that piss me off. If people get caught on a bad day, they might act on their feelings. Communism won't change that.




There will still be some type of conflict and problems, albeit much less serious than war, mass poverty and starvation, etc.


This is the key point here -- as a mass population with distinct class-based interests we can build our consciousness on a working-class-oriented basis to collectively direct our attentions and efforts to overcoming this most-common divide, or social ill....

I'll also suggest that, given civilization's now-robust data infrastructure capabilities, a post-capitalist collectivist society may be (socially) better-equipped to formulate a kind of formalized social status for each person / liberated laborer. Once society has superseded the objective motivations that exist for private aggrandizement one's social position may be much more easily agreed-upon, in standardized and non-controversial ways. If so, then people would develop themselves in a social environment containing healthy *disincentives* towards anti-social behavior, free of institutionalized racism and discrimination (etc.).

[ckaihatsu]

Your situation is still based on existing conditions though, is it not? Regardless, even if you're using steadfast laws that will never break, and nothing else, it would be difficult to use those to assess how a society that hasn't yet existed would make adjustments to itself, or progress, using materialist analysis, no?


Yes, I'll readily admit that one can only *extrapolate* based on certain givens of a proposed (and fought-for) revolutionary and post-revolutionary society. This means that *details* are certainly unknowable.

But, as in studying recorded history, the "study" of a realistic, possible *future* social order is enabled to some degree by knowing certain timeless qualities of human civilization, *and* established principles of a liberated society that we're fighting for now -- this is the materialist analysis part....

I base my foundational reasoning on the premise that a society / civilization will produce a *surplus*. Given this surplus society then has to have a way of deciding how to dispose of that surplus. It's from this central premise that reasoning can be carried on "outward" from there, exploring further chains of causation that lead "inward" towards the production of that surplus.

[apawllo]

Yes, I'll readily admit that one can only *extrapolate* based on certain givens of a proposed (and fought-for) revolutionary and post-revolutionary society. This means that *details* are certainly unknowable.

But, as in studying recorded history, the "study" of a realistic, possible *future* social order is enabled to some degree by knowing certain timeless qualities of human civilization, *and* established principles of a liberated society that we're fighting for now -- this is the materialist analysis part....

I base my foundational reasoning on the premise that a society / civilization will produce a *surplus*. Given this surplus society then has to have a way of deciding how to dispose of that surplus. It's from this central premise that reasoning can be carried on "outward" from there, exploring further chains of causation that lead "inward" towards the production of that surplus.

If you assume certain aspects of society come to fruition based on your vision of communism, I suppose you could attempt to analyze a bit using "timeless qualities of human civilization." Still, it seems a bit presumptuous to assume that this would be the end of human development without having seen the society develop and so forth.

[ckaihatsu]

If you assume certain aspects of society come to fruition based on your vision of communism, I suppose you could attempt to analyze a bit using "timeless qualities of human civilization." Still, it seems a bit presumptuous to assume that this would be the end of human development without having seen the society develop and so forth.


Sure -- I hear ya. To clarify, I never said that communism would make for the end of human development. Rather, the reasoning is that with the ending of the class contradiction there would no longer be any more human history in the sense of events caused by the stresses and frictions of interminable large-scale competitiveness (to put it gently).

Many revolutionaries would argue that human existence on its own would be remarkably unremarkable, and so people would probably make writings and other cultural artifacts, but such creations would take place in wholly plain and unassuming ways, defying any consistent pattern that we would currently call "history" or "narrative" by modern-world, eventful norms.

I, myself, happen to conceptualize a post-capitalist collectivized existence as potentially being very dynamic, vibrant, and possibly hyper-industrial, using mass scales of liberated labor in technologically advanced ways, given such willing cooperation. But I wouldn't *presume*, of course...(!)