Marx's Optimism

[Kronsteen]

According to Marx, the system after capitalism can only be communism - or possibly 'the mutual destruction of the contending classes'. Is there any reason to accept either of these predictions?



Marx was an optimist, and optimism is a form of teleology. He was a good enough thinker to reject teleological views of history most of the time, but sometimes he slipped up.

In The Communist Manifesto, he wrote that the worker's revolution was inevitable, though he didn't specify a timeline. He made the same claim in letters to Engels.

In Capital (I forget exactly where) he sometimes described capitalism as inevitably doomed by its own internal contradictions - even going so far as to postulate 'countervailing tendencies' to explain why the doom was being constantly delayed.



So, is there a good reason to believe that after the overthrow of capitalism, the only possible economic system is communism? Or was Marx being inconsistent and unmarxist when he wrote it?

[Jose Gracchus]

Haven't you already asked this question like three different ways in three different threads?

[Kronsteen]

Haven't you already asked this question like three different ways in three different threads?

I have asked:
Is Marxism a Theory (as opposed to a political project)?
What Would Make You Doubt (your tendency)?
(Why is marxism) Stuck in Second Gear?
(The marxist version of) The End of History.

The last of these is related to the current question. This one is more specific.

[Jose Gracchus]

I think the talk of "teleology" is basically twice-warmed over Popperism. At its core is basically the proposition that no real patterns or dynamics to history can be ascertained, so nothing can be extrapolated about the future, and therefore we should commit ourselves to empirically-demonstrable immediately available piecemeal changes (Bernsteinite social democracy), lest we become somehow totalitarians by trying to impose our evil utopias on real human beings blah blah blah.

Michael Macnair attacks a lot of these propositions in his review of Banaji's book, here (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004237) (and parts 2 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004246) and 3 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004278)), despite my strategic and some historical and political misgivings with Macnair, I agree with a lot of his overall points.

We can toss out "teleology", but you're basically calling for us to dismiss Marx's entire concept of class and material conception of history. And what we're left with after that, I don't know, other than simply a really morally compelling version of ethical or utopian socialism, maybe a left capitalism.

I think it is quibbling to whine over "inevitability". I certainly think that there are tendencies within the capitalist mode of production that set the stage for a possible society of freely associated labor, organized democratically in the pursuit of the needs of all, in a way which was not possible under any pre-modern social formation. The fact is I think that is either our future, or it is likely capitalism will lead us to either terminal barbarism and degeneration followed by extinction, or more quickly to just extinction.

[Kronsteen]

At its core is basically the proposition that [...] nothing can be extrapolated about the future

That's one notion of 'teleology', but what I'm talking about is the idea of fate, predestination, foreordination. The idea that the universe has a plan with a defined goal towards which it's working.

Such an idea (I think) should have no place in a scientific socialism, but it's at the core of Hegel's system, and it looks like Marx took some of it when he adopted (and 'inverted') parts of Hegelianism.


Michael Macnair attacks a lot of these propositions

Added to my reading list.


you're basically calling for us to dismiss Marx's entire concept of class and material conception of history.

No, I'm asking why should we accept Marx's assertion that after capitalism must come communism, and not some other system. The concept of class society doesn't preclude post-capitalist class societies, and a materialist conception of history doesn't necessitate future abolition of classes.

[Jimmie Higgins]

According to Marx, the system after capitalism can only be communism - or possibly 'the mutual destruction of the contending classes'. Is there any reason to accept either of these predictions?History, the history of class conflict - specifically the history of early labor struggles as well as the history of capitalism replacing feudalism in Europe. Marx recognized that the class conflicts that were arising in their day could not be reconciled within capitalism ultimately because what workers wanted was at odds with what the capitalists wanted. Since Marx reasoned that there could be a materially feasible way for modern workers to live in a communist manner thanks to the potential surplus of capitalism, he believed that a communist society could be achievable and that the demands of working people and their position in the economy made it possible. Finally, that the pressures of the system would also from time to time result in class conflicts made some kind of battle inevitable. Since there have been many revolts and a few revolutions of workers, I don't think someone can say he was "wrong" on this point - usually critics just argue that class conflict is solved and a thing of the past.

The history of fighting feudalism as capitalism grew informs the idea that in class conflicts, one class will win out or both will be destroyed.



Marx was an optimist, and optimism is a form of teleology. He was a good enough thinker to reject teleological views of history most of the time, but sometimes he slipped up.How is optimism a form of teleology? Why do you say he was an optimist? What does this even mean anyway?

Do you mean that he had a baseless faith in the inevitability of class conflict or revolution or socialism? His major contribution to the socialist movement is identifying the material mechanisms which would make it a possibility and a necessity. Disagree with his formulations or the basis of his theories, many have, but you can't say he was just pulling this out of wishful thinking. He definitely felt that he was developing a material and scientific framework for understanding modern society and social change.


In The Communist Manifesto, he wrote that the worker's revolution was inevitable, though he didn't specify a timeline. He made the same claim in letters to Engels.Yes, as a tendency, not a predictive timeline. You can know, informed by physics and various theories, that if you push a ball down a steep mountain, it will fall to the bottom. You might even guess the speed, but there is no way of knowing exactly how and at what rate the ball will roll because of the many different variables at play. Understanding society is very similar and Marx tried to understand the framework and possible outcomes for things but he wasn't trying to predict the future.


In Capital (I forget exactly where) he sometimes described capitalism as inevitably doomed by its own internal contradictions - even going so far as to postulate 'countervailing tendencies' to explain why the doom was being constantly delayed.Yes and if friction is a countervailing force on momentum, does that disprove the idea that an object in motion will tend to stay in motion? Does identifying other factors in movement such as friction or whatnot mean that scientists are just coming up for excuses for why the theory does not always cause every moving object to move indefinitely?

[Kronsteen]

The history of fighting feudalism as capitalism grew informs the idea that in class conflicts, one class will win out or both will be destroyed.

I can't think of a single example of a failed revolution resulting in barbarism - conceived as a meltdown of economics and society leading to a brutal pseudo-hunter-gatherer society - the stuff of postapocalyptic dystopian movies co-starring Tina Turner.

There's been plenty that resulted in the old order being restored and cracking down hard, but that's hardly the same thing.

'Socialism or barbarism' makes a good slogan, but what's the empirical basis? Or failing that, what theoretical points lead to it?


How is optimism a form of teleology? Why do you say he was an optimist? What does this even mean anyway?

If I'm optimistic about my chances of winning a lottery, it means I believe the universe is skewed away from chance in favour of an outcome that I want. That the world is on my side. That god is working on giving me what I want. That what is desirable is rendered more likely somehow because it's desirable.

A pessimist believes the universe is arranged to make bad things happen. An optimist believes it's arranged to make things turn out right in the end. A materialist...shouldn't be either.


Do you mean that he had a baseless faith in the inevitability of class conflict or revolution or socialism? His major contribution to the socialist movement is identifying the material mechanisms which would make it a possibility and a necessity.

Possibility, yes - with the working class so massively outweighing the ruling class and having access to the products of industry, they could indeed take over.

Necessity, yes - life under capitalism is unnecessarily harsh and unfulfilling. It needs overthrowing.

Fine. But what is there in the materialist analysis of capitalism which leads to the following?

1) There will be periodic flareups of worker resistance, one of which will eventually succeed. Why?

2) The result of this success will not be a new form of capitalism or some as yet undefined economic system with different classes, but a classless society. Why?

3) There can be no intervening systems between capitalism and the classless society. Why?


He definitely felt that he was developing a material and scientific framework for understanding modern society and social change.

I'm sure he did feel exactly that. And mixed in some wishful thinking. Revolutionaries are dreamers, not just activists.



he wrote that the worker's revolution was inevitable
Yes, as a tendency, not a predictive timeline.

As I said, he didn't give a timeline. But what was the reasoning behind asserting the tendency? What is there in the evidence he cites or the explanations he gives that justifies the assertion?


Marx tried to understand the framework and possible outcomes for things but he wasn't trying to predict the future.

It's true he made few predictions. He gave many explanations, in the same way that Darwin didn't predict future evolution, but gave very full explanations of recorded speciation.

But this is a prediction - or rather several related ones. And I'm asking about their basis.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I can't think of a single example of a failed revolution resulting in barbarism - conceived as a meltdown of economics and society leading to a brutal pseudo-hunter-gatherer society - the stuff of postapocalyptic dystopian movies co-starring Tina Turner.Many societies have collapsed due to their own internal contradictions and when it has not lead to either restoration of the old system or the rising of a new class to power, regression has been the result. We don't know for sure but many non-Marxist anthropologists believe this happened with American civilizations that "disappeared" without outside invasion or European disease or colonialism. The destruction of the Roman system was not as complete but it also took a long time before new European classes developed a feudal hegemony.


'Socialism or barbarism' makes a good slogan, but what's the empirical basis? Or failing that, what theoretical points lead to it?When applied to modern capitalism, this is not just a slogan. We know from history how capitalism solves its own crisis - by crushing workers wages and living standards to the point that some profitability can return; increasing capitalist competition up to wars between imperialist countries; allowing the rise of fascism or other brutal forms of governing in order to destroy workers movements and independent opposition to the capitalist order; large-scale war against urban populations and the rival's means of production; nuclear war if they had to.


If I'm optimistic about my chances of winning a lottery, it means I believe the universe is skewed away from chance in favour of an outcome that I want. That the world is on my side. That god is working on giving me what I want. That what is desirable is rendered more likely somehow because it's desirable.And like I said, Marx, unlike previous utopian socialists, was coming from a place and time where there were workers movements already in existence and fighting, and at odds with the interests and logic of capitalism.


A pessimist believes the universe is arranged to make bad things happen. An optimist believes it's arranged to make things turn out right in the end. A materialist...shouldn't be either.Yes and if Marx were a blind mechanical optimist like you seem to be suggesting, why would he have even bothered with any of these theories and with what people subjectively can do about the society we live in - it would all just be inevitable anyway.


Fine. But what is there in the materialist analysis of capitalism which leads to the following?

1) There will be periodic flareups of worker resistance, one of which will eventually succeed. Why?Well there's the empirical level of simply observing this tendancy to be true from industrial England to China today... since capitalism makes money off of the exploitation of labor and since workers need to sell their labor to make a wage, then obviously there are some cross-purposes there and tensions will ensue.

As to why one or the other? Again, that's due to inherent conflicts. Capitalism can not allow labor to become too expensive to make a profit off of or else the system doesn't work and because of competition there is a pressure for capitalists to increase exploitation (more hours or less pay usually) - since this makes life for workers worse, then people will push back against this. You can have a stalemate, you can have one side win out over the other, but you can't have an indefinite balance because of the very nature of capitalism.


2) The result of this success will not be a new form of capitalism or some as yet undefined economic system with different classes, but a classless society. Why?Because capital and labor are the two big antagonistic forces in society - both are essential for capitalism to exist, but both are in conflict which makes it an unstable system. If you want to play the hypothetical game, then sure at some point maybe the forces of production are slowly changed within capitalism and some new form grows within the system and develops to the point where this new class needs to win hegemony and reshape society to suit this new mode of production. But then Marx also never spoke of the ramifications of an alien invasion's effects of capitalism either. It's "what if" at this point, worker/capitalist conflict exists now, maybe something else will happen someday and change the variables, but it hasn't yet.


3) There can be no intervening systems between capitalism and the classless society. Why?Well this would be a subject of debate among Marxists since many following Marx developed ideas about a transition of a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat over society as the working class reshapes society along socialist modes of production and social decision making.

[Thirsty Crow]

No, I'm asking why should we accept Marx's assertion that after capitalism must come communism, and not some other system. The concept of class society doesn't preclude post-capitalist class societies, and a materialist conception of history doesn't necessitate future abolition of classes.
Because "systems" cannot be chosen at will, as if we were peacefully contemplating offered alternatives and choosing freely from them.
Social-economic formations are being formed on the basis of the social organization of production. This is a basic point of the materialist conception of history.
Within this organization of production, we can discern the existence of separate groups of people with separate functions. In the case of capitalism, we have waged labour on one side and capitalists on the other. And you're quite right that the materialist conception of history does not necessitate future abolition of classes. It may very well be that capitalism, the mode of production which affords highest productivity and constant technological development, will end up self destructing, and with it taking a whole lot of human lives, as well as productive capacity, which could lead to a development of a different class society in the future.
But revolutionary development necessitates the existence of a class in whose interests would a revolution be in the first place. The capitalist class at the end of 18th century was one such class, but different from the modern proletariat in that their rise to political power did not, and could not, end exploitation and oppression. The proletariat is different in that there is no social group which would have to be dominated and exploited in order that the political power and consequent social organization corresponding to proletarian rule be established.
Though, one could argue that it is possible that a "new" kind of class society could be established, in which a stratum of the global proletariat would function as a ruling class (the "expert class", or "coordinator"; the class of the party-state bureaucracy, both political and economic, separating the broader layers of the working class from the means of decision making and control over the process of production).

[Kiev Communard]

According to Marx, the system after capitalism can only be communism - or possibly 'the mutual destruction of the contending classes'. Is there any reason to accept either of these predictions?

The "mutual destruction of the contending classes" happen quite often enough in human history - as it was already mentioned, the supposedly mysterious degeneration and fall of many pre-Columbian civilizations in America and the Indus Civilization of the 3rd millennium BCE are the prime examples thereof. With regard to communism, it should be noted that Marx viewed communism not as some closed and self-sufficient project of "ideal society" but the set of real results of socioeconomic experiments by victorious workers' organization in the case of successful revolution ("Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things". - Karl Marx).

So the idea of communism replacing capitalism is not predicated on some historical schematism, but on the assumption of the existence of a mighty revolutionary workers' movement. If that is lacking, the potential for communism is lacking either.

[Rafiq]

Communism was popular during Marx's time. That's why. Communism, throughout history, is always re invented somehow. It's time for us to admit 20th century defeat and re invent it once more.

[Kronsteen]

Because "systems" cannot be chosen at will

No one is saying they can.


The proletariat is different in that there is no social group which would have to be dominated and exploited

The same could be said about the peasantry in a feudal society - or any class which has no other below them to exploit.


in order that the political power and consequent social organization corresponding to proletarian rule be established.

For the proletariat to be the proletariat, there has to be a bourgeoisie - this is Hegel's master-slave dialectic, which Marx accepted.

If they overthrow capitalism and abolish class - as opposed to becoming the new ruling class over a new subordinate class - they can hardly still be the proletariat. Their relation to the means of production would no longer be that they use it without owning it.


Though, one could argue that it is possible that a "new" kind of class society could be established

This is precisely the point. Marx rejected that possibility, but AFAIK gave no reasoning, and it seems not to be entailed by what he wrote.

[KC]

I can't think of a single example of a failed revolution resulting in barbarism - conceived as a meltdown of economics and society leading to a brutal pseudo-hunter-gatherer society - the stuff of postapocalyptic dystopian movies co-starring Tina Turner.

Marx was not referring to such a collapse when he was discussing the "destruction of the contending classes". This destruction is resultant of a failure of the resolution of a conflict between classes which leads to the exhaustion of both classes and the ascendancy of a third power to mediate the conflict. This is where Bonapartism, or state control, comes into play.



If they overthrow capitalism and abolish class - as opposed to becoming the new ruling class over a new subordinate class - they can hardly still be the proletariat. Their relation to the means of production would no longer be that they use it without owning it.

Yes, that is true. What are you trying to get at here?


This is precisely the point. Marx rejected that possibility, but AFAIK gave no reasoning, and it seems not to be entailed by what he wrote.

I think he gave plenty of reasons and analyses why revolutionary overthrow of capitalism would lead to communism. So again, what are you talking about?

[Kronsteen]

the supposedly mysterious degeneration and fall of many pre-Columbian civilizations in America and the Indus Civilization of the 3rd millennium BCE are the prime examples thereof.

The Harappan collapse is usually thought to be
(a) slow, taking about 100 years (1800-1700), and
(b) the result of drought and economic collapse, especially the loss of trading with other empires.

You're saying it was the result of an uprising that was successful enough to topple the previous order, but unable to establish a new one? I'd need to see evidence.


"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things". - Karl Marx

Yes, marxism (communism) is a project to remove capitalism, not to design a postcapitalist world. There's not many on this forum who would disagree with that.


the idea of communism replacing capitalism is not predicated on some historical schematism

Precisely. So why the schematic hypothesis of determinate stages?

[KC]

So why the schematic hypothesis of determinate stages?

Marx himself stated that these are only a guide, and only based on his study of western european history. Different modes of production obviously exist historically, Marx just didn't analyze them all.

[S.Artesian]

No, I'm asking why should we accept Marx's assertion that after capitalism must come communism, and not some other system. The concept of class society doesn't preclude post-capitalist class societies, and a materialist conception of history doesn't necessitate future abolition of classes. bold added


The analysis of class society means that the abolition and overthrow of one form of class rule is accomplished by another class organized, emerging, within the very mechanisms of accumulation that are part of the existing society.

So for the overthrow of capitalism to lead to another form of class society, we have to find that class, its role in production and accumulation, organized, emerging, growing within capitalism itself. That "new" class would have a new, qualitatively distinct organization of property, of ownership, of direction of the means of production.

Do we see such a class, other than the proletariat, in capitalism? Do we see new modes of accumulation, not just not based on capital, but antagonistic to capital? Do we see the potential for a mode of accumulation antagonistic to capital that does not require the abolition of the conflict between labor and the conditions of labor?

All those questions have the same answer-- "no." Marx's argument is not based on teleology but on the "logic," the social organization of capitalist accumulation as a specific expression of social labor.

[Thirsty Crow]

The same could be said about the peasantry in a feudal society - or any class which has no other below them to exploit.But the peasantry was not predominantly an antagonistic, revolutionary class with respect to feudal structures in that their interests could not afford the formation of a mode of production superior to that of the feudal one. It was the nascent and fully formed bourgeoisie that was most affected by feudal rule in relation to their development as a class and consequent development of the productive forces and society as a whole.


For the proletariat to be the proletariat, there has to be a bourgeoisie - this is Hegel's master-slave dialectic, which Marx accepted.
If they overthrow capitalism and abolish class - as opposed to becoming the new ruling class over a new subordinate class - they can hardly still be the proletariat. Their relation to the means of production would no longer be that they use it without owning it.

No, this is not primarily Hegel's master-slave dialectic, but rather the basic organization of production. I don't care if Marx agreed with Hegel on this point, but it is clear from his analysis of capital that such social relations exists irrespective of specific philosophical or theoretical explications (in other words, the actual, concrete social relations take precedence over ideological formulations).

And yes, the world proletariat is the only class in human history which is able to abolish their own condition of exploitation and oppression and thereby abolish any semblance of class society. I can't see anything problematic here.



This is precisely the point. Marx rejected that possibility, but AFAIK gave no reasoning, and it seems not to be entailed by what he wrote.It is not true that Marx gave no reasoning for the rejection of this possibility, especially given the persuasion of 19th ct. revolutionary workers' movement that a workers' revolution must be global in scope. In other words, Marx didn't witness the strangulation of the revolutionary wave of 1917-23 which necessitated the development of the USSR as a specific class society. In my opinion, the Soviet experience is vital to Marxism in that it supplements the theoretical framework with additional insights with regard to the process of class formation. But I don't think that there is any other class in current capitalist societies, apart from the working class, which could abolish bourgeois class rule and usher in a new class society, all of this proceeding from their specific function and existence as a class in capitalist society.

If you think there is, demonstrate it.


The Harappan collapse is usually thought to be
(a) slow, taking about 100 years (1800-1700), and
(b) the result of drought and economic collapse, especially the loss of trading with other empires.

You're saying it was the result of an uprising that was successful enough to topple the previous order, but unable to establish a new one? I'd need to see evidence.

Mo, he is not saying that it was a result of an uprising since the formulation "mutual destruction of contending classes" does not necessitate open revolt as a condition sine qua non.

[Jose Gracchus]

Summary:

Closet Lib: Can you ABSOLUTELY PROVE WHAT THE FUTURE BRINGS?

Commiez: Well no, obviously. However, if we examine certain sustained historical tendencies like the sustained necessity of living labor in order to continue accumulation, and the fact the fundamental social relations around which the social production of subsistence can be organized are not totally arbitrary, then we can...

Closet Lib: SO YOU DON'T KNOW YOU CAN'T PROVE IT SO ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE LA LA LA

[KC]

Summary:

Closet Lib: Can you ABSOLUTELY PROVE WHAT THE FUTURE BRINGS?

Commiez: Well no, obviously. However, if we examine certain sustained historical tendencies like the sustained necessity of living labor in order to continue accumulation, and the fact the fundamental social relations around which the social production of subsistence can be organized are not totally arbitrary, then we can...

Closet Lib: SO YOU DON'T KNOW YOU CAN'T PROVE IT SO ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE LA LA LA

True, in a sense. I think Popper's criticisms of Marx as historicism actually apply loosely to classical imperialism theory as teleological.

[Kronsteen]

Marx was not referring to such a collapse when he was discussing the "destruction of the contending classes".

Fair enough - and it does recontextualise Luxomburg's comment about "socialism or barbarism".



If they overthrow capitalism and abolish class [...] they can hardly still be the proletariat.Yes, that is true. What are you trying to get at here?

Just a factor which Menocchio seemed to be missing.


I think he gave plenty of reasons and analyses why revolutionary overthrow of capitalism would lead to communism.

Odd that no one's yet described any of them in this thread.


Marx himself stated that these are only a guide

Ah, so this is another case of Marx talking about an 'iron law of history' that's really only just a guideline. Engels had the same bad habit.





for the overthrow of capitalism to lead to another form of class society, we have to find that class, its role in production and accumulation, organized, emerging, growing within capitalism itself. [...]
Do we see such a class, other than the proletariat, in capitalism?[quote=KC]

Thank you. I knew eventually someone would answer the question - and I might have know it would be you.

Marx's contention that feudalism had 'cracks' between the classes for a mercantile class to grow in, while capitalism has no cracks...is not tautologically true and could prove empirically false. No one thought of traders as a separate class pushing for power until they started pushing for power.




[quote=The Inform Candidate]Closet Lib: SO YOU DON'T KNOW YOU CAN'T PROVE IT SO ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE LA LA LA

If Marx was wrong about something, marxists should damn well know about it. If some tenent of marxism isn't rock solid, we need to make it solid or throw it out. Otherwise, marxism is a waste of time and life.

Calling doubters silly names and knocking down strawmen is not a way to make your politics sound. It's the practice of a cult which will never be more than a cult.

I thought you at least understood that.

[Jimmie Higgins]

and I might have know it would be you.


I thought you at least understood that.What are you a James Bond villain or something? I think maybe we can continue this discussion without the melodrama.

[Jose Gracchus]

That's one notion of 'teleology', but what I'm talking about is the idea of fate, predestination, foreordination. The idea that the universe has a plan with a defined goal towards which it's working.

Such an idea (I think) should have no place in a scientific socialism, but it's at the core of Hegel's system, and it looks like Marx took some of it when he adopted (and 'inverted') parts of Hegelianism.

Marx is not suggesting anything so mystical. Now having also grown up and become educated in a post-positivist intellectual and philosophical universe, I would not use terms like "laws" if I were Marx writing today. But considering his historical context and millieu himself, I do not find it too hard to deal with, and his core theories and postulates regarding history have held up amazingly well, considering most were formulated in an exceptional poverty of scholarship relative to today. Most confusions result from extremely vulgarized versions and revisions of "Marxism" (like Stalinism and various species of officialized, institutionalized Marxism, including the Marxism of the Second International), or deliberate misrepresentations of the core claims.

You should know Marx and Engels praised Darwin for offering a theory of biological change which dispelled mystical conceptions of teleology. I think what Marx is getting at is what I have in my signature: "...the ways in which historical societies produce their material subsistence constrain the sort of general social orders possible" (Michael Macnair). Therefore by looking at the constraints, all other things equal, on the organization and historical progression of the material content of social production, we may percieve and suggest a 'directionality' to history, that, in our stage of history, has profound ramifications for a future of socialism and where the real workers' movement might be headed.

I either believe you are here to try and talk us out of revolutionary socialism based on class struggle, or you're way too hung up on the fact Marx said "law", which no good positivist today would. Point taken, but missing the forest for the trees.


No, I'm asking why should we accept Marx's assertion that after capitalism must come communism, and not some other system. The concept of class society doesn't preclude post-capitalist class societies, and a materialist conception of history doesn't necessitate future abolition of classes.

I think this is an empty remark. Of course it cannot be known for certain what will happen in the future. That is a truism. That does not mean that we cannot postulate a likely directionality to history with extremely important ramifications toward social production, modern society, and the workers' movement.


Fair enough - and it does recontextualise Luxomburg's comment about "socialism or barbarism".

There are those who contend that GDP or no GDP, capitalism as a progressive social formation has seen its Sun set since 1914. In fact, this was originally a major thesis of the early congresses of the Comintern.


Marx's contention that feudalism had 'cracks' between the classes for a mercantile class to grow in, while capitalism has no cracks...is not tautologically true and could prove empirically false. No one thought of traders as a separate class pushing for power until they started pushing for power.

Of course it is not tautologically true. That does not mean it is not a sound idea, and one worth pursuing if it is the 'best bet' when one looks at history and the workers' movement. But hiding here is another Popperian presumption: if we cannot hold it as absolutely true, then we should keep it at arm's length and concentrate on what is very likely to be empirically true. The fact is the workers' class struggle cannot be conducted the way Popper (falsely and provably so, ironically) conceived of reiterative experimentation and verification in a physical scientist's laboratory. And furthermore, it bears no resemblance to how the capitalist mode of production superseded the feudal mode, and how the state came to be ruled by the bourgeoisie.

Popper was actually wrong about the empirical means by which scientific knowledge has actually been historically constructed. Which appears ironic, given his supposed aims, but not really when you realize his program was an ideological one to falsify Marxism as false on principle (because it tried to generate any theory of history, however vague or qualified, which Popper wanted to establish as methodologically absurd in its own right, in order to leave us with nothing but the post-war West's domain of tolerable politics).


If Marx was wrong about something, marxists should damn well know about it. If some tenent of marxism isn't rock solid, we need to make it solid or throw it out. Otherwise, marxism is a waste of time and life.

Calling doubters silly names and knocking down strawmen is not a way to make your politics sound. It's the practice of a cult which will never be more than a cult.

I thought you at least understood that.

Allow me to present my sincere thoughts.

Having watched you go through this song-and-dance pretty much verbatim (whatever you claim) in some of the aforementioned threads you started, as well as your lack of any positive hypotheses presented (rather a purely negative critical perspective, which is not bad in of itself, but keep with me).

This, combined with a perusal of your blog, leads me to believe a few basic things.

a.) That I have very strong personal doubts you have ever seriously exposed yourself to, or engaged, Marx's work, method, and theory on its own merits. One clue to this is the idea that major planks of historical materialism or Marx's understanding of class can be simply knocked out of place, and there is something left to discuss. Much of Marx's overall theory forms a coherent, logical whole, and it suggests an ignorance of the commentator on Marx when he suggests one can pick-and-choose among his various hypotheses, and be left with anything coherent.

b.) I think a lot of your claims suggest you adopt a kind of ahistorical Popperian positivism which was conceived openly and deliberately with ideological aims, namely to shore up "State Department socialism" based on the pretense that the workers' movement should aim for immediately-realizable, bread-and-butter reforms, and to attack any conception that attempts to look at history and attempt to ascertain a kind of 'directionality' to it which suggests there is any reason to support a workers' revolutionary movement that abolishes the current features of society in favor of a communistic one. Because HISTORICISM IS DOUBLEPLUS UNGOOD AND LEADS TO TOTALITARIANISM MARX IS PLATO ARRGHHH

c.) Following from that, I think you misunderstand Marx and either deliberately or non-deliberately are pushing a critical program designed to refute or falsify Marxism without anything credible to replace it other than social democracy. When Marx talks about 'scientific socialism', this is what we're getting at: the idea that communism and the workers' movement is supported because class struggle is a driver of history, and at this stage of productive relations there is reason, looking back, to suggest that the workers' movement could lead to a supercession of capitalism and an end to class society. Bereft of this theory, the only remaining possible justifications for communism because either adoption of a utopian blueprint program (typically formulated by intellectuals outside the class movement) or ethical socialism (based again on 'activists' welfarist regard for the 'lowers' in society). Which is itself, of course, based on a liberal conception of history and politics where everything is the movement of the "right ideas" with the "right guys" at the "right times". So might as well get started on trying to market some utopian or idealist system to workers or the public at large, to win the battle of idea or hearts and minds or some other idealistic bilge.

d.) Naturally if one limits oneself to immediately provable historical outcomes, than this very quickly will lead one (logically so) to basically become a defender of this or that 'pragmatic' wing of capital, and to reformism. The fact is both the pragmatic and utopian outlooks which are naturally left as the only alternative bear no resemblance to how history got to where it is today, or ever moved forward at any point, is to be dismissed. We didn't get bourgeois democracy and bourgeois rule in England and France in the 17th and 18th centuries because it just happened that some really smart dudes spread some really smart ideas that only they came up with at that time in history for some reason, and they had it figured out on a blueprint ahead of time. In fact, no historical change or revolution resembles this. Yet this is exactly what the idealist left, from Saint Simon to Paul Cockshott to you, would have us believe has any likelihood of being how things unfold in the future. The practical object of this ideology and these politics is to dismiss class struggle, surrender the fate of the working classes to the mental creativity and generosity of the professional intellectual classes, and to dispel the specter of communism.

e.) Since you not only seem to move in this direction, but have nothing positive to say about any of Marx's method, conclusions, claims, or theories, and no specificity in which Marxist ideas are wrong and why (other than complaining about the 'tone' or word choice with which Marx displays purportedly excessive 'optimism' - how this is a "scientific" or "skeptical" pursuit in of itself, I have no idea), I strongly suspect you're some variety of anti-Marxist who aims here to "just be asking questions" when your object is to refute Marxism which you find ridiculous as a whole. Now, that is fine, if that is how you feel, but since I (and almost everyone here) would disagree in such dramatic fashion with you on almost all basic premises of discussion (including historical facts) if that is the case, I do not find it very productive to engage your 'critique' in a serious manner. My suspicion is you yourself are not engaging in it in good faith.

Now I myself am a very poor scholar of Marx compared to some, and I kind of hope S. Artesian or Zanthorus or ZeroNowhere come in here and school me, and in the process, I learn something. But I think you are either hung up on words and missing the core here, or you're here to try and talk us out of Marxian concepts in favor of...what exactly?

[Kronsteen]

I either believe you are here to try and talk us out of revolutionary socialism...

I may be a Bond villain but...are you suggesting I'm a spy? A plant, a provocateur, someone sent by the state the destabilise a movement? A mole?

After all these years, someone finally accuses me of being an agent of THEM. I'd liked to have been George Smiley, but Roy Bland seems more appropriate.

I'll compose a proper response when there's time, which you can of course ignore or not as you choose.

[Jose Gracchus]

Given the board's posting policies it is only natural there would be some closet trolls and cappies who post. Maybe I'm wrong. But my gut response to you is that you're not here to develop theories of class struggle but to disprove them.

[JustMovement]

to the InformCandidate, that was an excellent response. I had a couple of the same questions that Kronsteen had regarding if marx was teleological and that totally explained it.

Why do you not post stuff like that instead of snarky little jabs? It would be good for everyone.

[S.Artesian]

This is precisely the point. Marx rejected that possibility, but AFAIK gave no reasoning, and it seems not to be entailed by what he wrote.

That's not quite right. Marx and Engels did certainly explain their argument that capitalism would be overthrown and replaced, after a transition through the DOTP, a classless, socialist society, where the means of production would be the common property of the producers, and the producers would realize themselves as social beings.

First, the capitalism in it very accumulation of capital impairs, inhibits, degrades its ability to extract sufficient surplus value to maintain the valorization of the means of production presented as capital. This means, short version, capital can longer exploit a mass, the mass, of labor at a sufficient intensity to maintain profitability.

Profit, of course, is derived from surplus value, and we know the source of value is in the organization of labor as wage-labor, as the commodity of wage-labor where in purchasing the labor of the workers for a specific value, a wage, capital obtains the labor-power of the workers, the use-value so to speak of labor under capitalism, which is the ability to meet the value its own needs of subsistence [or the equivalent of those needs] in less than the full working day, and thus yield a surplus labor time. The necessary labor time, which is the time needed to produce that equivalent of the workers needs to appear tomorrow again as a worker, is only part of the working day. The surplus labor time, embedded in the commodity, is expressed as surplus-value.

The capitalist appropriates this surplus value on the basis of the antagonism between labor, and the condition of labor-- the condition of labor being the ownership of the means of production, raw materials, etc. as separate, apart, opposed to the laborers themselves, who in turn possessing nothing but their ability to labor, have no use for that labor, save as a means of exchange for the necessities of life; the necessities of reproducing themselves as laborers.

Capital lives a life based on this class relation where it expropriates the labor of others because it a) cannot exist itself as labor since the means of production must be a condition opposed to labor b) cannot present the products of labor as direct expressions of social need since the private ownership of the means of production means that needs can only be expressed through value.

The abolition of this system means the abolition of that private ownership, the emancipation of labor from its role as a commodity, as a means of exchange purely to reproduce the glorious misery and miserable glory of the valorization process.

It is in fact the emancipation of the labor process, where conscious direction of social production meets, satisfies, creates, enhances the powers of the producers. This can only occur if the producers have overcome the conflict between labor and the condition of labor-- where the ownership of means of production is not separated from the producers actual power to direct the production process.

Consequently, no relations of production are produced where some are owners and others are producers. There is no need for another class to appear to introduce another antagonism between labor and the conditions of labor as the means of production are now social-ized.

[Thirsty Crow]

Just a factor which Menocchio seemed to be missing.




And yes, the world proletariat is the only class in human history which is able to abolish their own condition of exploitation and oppression and thereby abolish any semblance of class society. I can't see anything problematic here.

The italicized part translates into the fact that the proletariat is to abolish itself as a class in order to in order to bring about a global classless, stateless society. I can't see where did I make the mistake of assuming that this is not the case

[Kronsteen]

my gut response to you is that you're not here to develop theories of class struggle but to disprove them.

I'm here because, after a decade or so of going on demos and debating in pubs, I want to know why marxism, which should be a ringing success, is a moribund failure in practice.

There should be millions of workers in a vibrant global movement that's carried the insights of Marx et al to new peaks.

Instead, we've got a scattering of tiny parties, bickering and splitting, who use decontextualised quotes from revolutionaries 50-150 years ago to justify their flipflops.

My own 'gut response' is that Marx needs an update. I can't do it myself because I'm not a genius polymath, but very few others seem inclined to try.

Apologies if that was too melodramatic for Jimmie Higgins.

[Jose Gracchus]

So you belong to endless parade who thinks there's a marketing problem or its "bad ideas" that prevented the development of a revolutionary workers' movement in the last 20 years, and not an ebb in class struggle by the international proletariat grounded in material factors and historical context. Gotcha.

The flipside of this argument is the claim (which I find preposterous) that if Marx or whatever was suitably "updated", than it could be better "sold" to workers, and the radical intelligentsia could thereby impart class struggle onto the working-class. I think that's not only totally unsupported by the historical record, but has dangerous implications.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm here because, after a decade or so of going on demos and debating in pubs, I want to know why marxism, which should be a ringing success, is a moribund failure in practice.

I'd say mostly because the last 30 years of the class struggle has been a loosing one for the working class. A theory for how the working class can free itself doesn't sell very well when people don't think they can even win the vacation days they want. Maybe this is my own impressionism from being in the US where often in this last generation workers don't even feel like they could struggle for (or even deserve) better working conditions. Few people want to hear the st. Crispin's Day Speech after they've already spent 6 months in the trenches, you know?

Secondly, ideas that challenge any ruling class at their Achilles heel and it's not going to get a lot of support. Especially in the US, but also generally, periods of intense revolution are short-lived and explosive in how far and wide radicalism occurs. In the US it was really just a handful of years of union radicalism in the 1930s, in the "60s" which were really the late 60s and early 70s the few years after 1968 led to a poll responce in 1971 that found that a majority of people under 30 identified themselves as "revolutionaries" and thought that a revolution could happen in the US. In between the high point of CIO organizing or IWW organizing there have always been long periods of stagnation and regression for the US working class. I think some of that is due to conditions here, but also some of that is just the nature of anti-status-quo politics.

Even look at a non explicitly socialist case like Egypt - people there have been fighting for unions and building a democracy movement for a while and it remained small throughout. This wasn't because, as Egyptian academics and pundits stated, Egyptians just were ok with things but because of a number of factors including massive repression of unionists and members of the pro-democracy movement and a basic feeling that there wasn't an alternative. So if people joined anything it was probably the more acceptable (but still illegal) Muslim Brotherhood. But once people saw that the end of the regime was near and that they could demonstrate without consequence, there was a popular explosion which went past the old official politics and even went past the limited and accomodationist politics of the Brotherhood. Of course the flip side to that is that if real change doesn't happen and the inevitable ruling class backlash does, people will be beaten and imprisoned and generally become demoralized and loose hope again.

Lastly, I think Marxism is a living theory and has been changed and modified quite a bit while retaining the same basic framework - this framework and the basic ideas of Marxism have been under attack and called irrelevant each time a capitalist power goes without a war for more than 5 years or the economy enters a boom. Every generation has had people who claim that Marxism is outdated and a new theory is needed - and yet for the most part these ideas have not stood the test of time and have proven to be based on an impression about capitalism at the time that the theory gained a hearing. So some post-WWII Marxists rejected the working class as the agent of change because wages were on the rise in Industrial countries and reforms had been passed... the idea that workers are complacent and bought-off look a little silly in this age of austerity. Just 10 years ago the theories that were popular with the anti-globalization activists (who often told me that Marxism was an outdated theory) included the idea that the capitalist state was less important than multi-national corporations and that state-run wars were ancient history... oops.

Anyway, I am totally against a dogmatic or fetishistic approach to any theory and especially to Marxism, but I think this framework is still the most clarifying about the modern world and the most helpful for trying to change it. The fact that these ideas still do reach an audience of radicalizing people despite the propaganda and misuse by tyrants says a lot about the usefulness and longevity of these ideas.




Anyway, if it was only dogmatism that kept these ideas alive then Stalin-era Marxist-Leninism would still be the dominant ideology:lol:

[Kronsteen]

you belong to endless parade who thinks there's a marketing problem

Incorrect. I'm concerned with the soundness of ideas, not their marketing.

If you read what I wrote, you'll see I never mentioned difficulties in selling the ideas. Only difficulties in the ideas themselves.

[Kiev Communard]

Incorrect. I'm concerned with the soundness of ideas, not their marketing.

If you read what I wrote, you'll see I never mentioned difficulties in selling the ideas. Only difficulties in the ideas themselves.

All complicated socioeconomic and political ideologies are "difficult" by definition, and there is no reason to deny any of them completely merely for the fact of their incomprehensibility to some people. Yes, there is a lot of perhaps unwarranted optimism of Marx's evaluation of the current political situation (i.e. his hopes for immediate socialist revolution in, say, the 1850s Britain), but these weaknesses of Marx's political forecasting do not imply that his socioeconomic and philosophical insights are somehow undone by them.

[Jose Gracchus]

Incorrect. I'm concerned with the soundness of ideas, not their marketing.

If you read what I wrote, you'll see I never mentioned difficulties in selling the ideas. Only difficulties in the ideas themselves.

This is idealism. Marxism doesn't posit that the workers have to be conscious Marxists or even communists to make revolution, just as the bourgeois of 1780 didn't have to be liberal constitutional democrats, much less Jacobins, to make the revolution yet. It posits that these things have fundamentally material basis, from which ideology will follow. You implicitly think we need to push communist revolution the way liberals proselytize their politics.

[Kronsteen]

This is idealism. Marxism doesn't posit that the workers have to be conscious Marxists or even communists to make revolution

You seem to be having a debate with someone inside your own head. The issue of whether revolutionary workers need to be conscious marxists wasn't in this thread before you shoehorned it in, and the for the record I agree with you.


You implicitly think we need to push communist revolution the way liberals proselytize their politics.

I am now going to quote someone who left a pleasant message on my profile:


I like your bashing of the hocus pocus and mysticism brigade. I too don't see why one has to ascribe to "dialectics" or the "Marxist method" to be reasonable and comprehend the world.

[Jose Gracchus]

You seem to be having a debate with someone inside your own head. The issue of whether revolutionary workers need to be conscious marxists wasn't in this thread before you shoehorned it in, and the for the record I agree with you.

Are you interested in advancing a point?

You brought up the sterility of much "Marxist" discourse and connected it to the fact that there's no revolutionary workers' movement today. Implicitly this suggests if Marxism was "updated" (though you of course do not explain what you mean or suggest how this could be done) then these awful symptoms of "backward" or "dogmatic" or whatever Marxism would slip away. If that is not your point, then I don't see why you chose to illustrate an unknown point with an irrelevant example. I would actually say the opposite would be the case: if we were able to rid ourselves of much of the spurious 'compromises' and 'additions' to Marxism usually drawn from liberalism or Keynesianism or Hayek or whatever, and limited ourselves to a tight grasp of Marx and Engels work in their own words, that would be a step forward from where the left is today.

What I am proposing is that:

a.) Much of what is called "Marxism" is not Marxism. Most Marxists seem to regard reading Das Kapital as a kind of optional chore, and think this and other real learning and work can be substituted by reading sectarians' polemics and quote mining. Furthermore, "Marxism" has been shoehorned by various political factions of capital into a mask for their interests. So we should not be surprised this is the case. So much of the "Marxism" you are attacking is an attack upon strawmen. What of Marx and Engels in their own words do you have a problem with? I don't see the point in having a whole thread to complain in essence "they should have said 'it tends' or 'it seems likely'! Saying 'law' or 'inevitable' is in poor taste!!!!shift+one"

b.) You probably have not investigated Marx and Engels in their own words and in context sufficiently to assess whether their program is actually flawed in view of history, and if so how it could be intelligibly "updated". This seems likely since you refrain from ever being specific or substantive in your reiterative attempts at 'skepticism'.

c.) Marxism is actually a coherent program that ought to be considered a single logical whole. The 'skepticism' you provide in this thread amounts to falsifying the Marxist conception of historical materialism and of social class, which by extension is basically falsification of Marxism. Now this is okay, provided you support such a case well and with specific examples and evidence. You have not done so. I suspect any "update" would in essence, like most attempted "improvements" to Marxism, inserting your own spurious program and attempting to appropriate the intellectual credibility and socialist bona fides attached to the Marx "brand." There's a long history of this kind of thing, and I don't see much positive about it. It would be easier to assess any of your arguments if you provided any specific criticisms of Marx's conception of class or history and provided specific empirical findings that you think make them incorrect. And then provide a positive alternative. So far, as I said before, all I detect is reflexive terror at the use of the word "law" or "inevitable". I don't see how either undermines the Marxian program.


I am now going to quote someone who left a pleasant message on my profile:

Are you interested in advancing a point?

Looks to me like you're trying to "trap" me in a contradiction or what you think is embarrassing or something else stupid like that. I made that remark when your first thread seemed to be arousing useful discussion around history, etc. Now you've basically reiterated more or less the same point like five times, and it seems tedious and not en bona fide.

I'm afraid I just do not find these questions and skepticisms very substantive, compelling, or useful. Your compulsion to retreat to matters of my consistency or whatever personal quality you're now trying to argue about only reinforces that impression.

[Kronsteen]

You brought up the sterility of much "Marxist" discourse and connected it to the fact that there's no revolutionary workers' movement today.

No. Marxism could be precise and accurate in every particular and still be ignored. It could also be hopelessly wrong, and popular.


Implicitly this suggests if Marxism was "updated" (though you of course do not explain what you mean or suggest how this could be done)Engels 'updated' (modified) Marxism when he edited Marx's notebooks. Lenin (following Plekanov) made changes as the Russian revolution was progressing. Trotsky and Mao modified Lenin in different directions, one spawning hundred of parties across the world, the other leading another revolution.

Odd how all the great marxists made revisions, and their followers have a horror of 'revisionism'.


if we were able to rid ourselves of much of the spurious 'compromises' and 'additions' to Marxism usually drawn from liberalism or Keynesianism or Hayek or whatever, and limited ourselves to a tight grasp of Marx and Engels work in their own words, that would be a step forward from where the left is today.We'd be ideologically pure. And 150 years out of date instead of only 100.


You probably have not investigated Marx and Engels in their own words and in context sufficiently to assess whether their program is actually flawed in view of history,If you want to judge a theory, you have two options:
1) Spend a decade reading everything you can about it, then ask whether it holds together in its own term and makes accurate predictions, or
2) Look at what's happened when it's been applied.

This notion that 'you can't judge because you haven't read enough of the original books' is largely a dodge - there are always more books, and always more interpretations of them.

Do you dismiss Scientology because you're an expert on Scientology, or because you've met enough scientologists to know their claims to superpowers don't match reality? What about Freud? Keynes?

BTW, I am currently reading Capital. Essays of CLR James and Raya Dunayevskya were last week, Bertell Ollman and Cyril Smith the week before. After Capital I plan to read Plekanov.


and if so how it could be intelligibly "updated". This seems likely since you refrain from ever being specific or substantive in your reiterative attempts at 'skepticism'.I'm asking questions, not providing ready-made answers.


Marxism is actually a coherent program that ought to be considered a single logical whole.Apart from the dialectic. And Marx's inevitabilism. And Trotsky's analysis of Stalinist Russia. Add your own examples.


I suspect any "update" would in essence, like most attempted "improvements" to Marxism, inserting your own spurious programFirst you criticise me for not having an alternative program to Marx's. Now you criticise me for having an unseen alternative program - which you speculate is 'Liberal'.


all I detect is reflexive terror at the use of the word "law" or "inevitable". I don't see how either undermines the Marxian program....apart from the fact that the inevitable events didn't happen, and the iron laws were made of rubber.


I'm afraid I just do not find these questions and skepticisms very substantive, compelling, or useful.You seem to have taken a very long time answering them, given that they're so unsunstantive, uncompelling and useless.


Are you interested in advancing a point?I am interested in getting clear answers to direct questions. I have been met with obscurantism, evasion and namecalling from most people.

[ar734]

I can't think of a single example of a failed revolution resulting in barbarism - conceived as a meltdown of economics and society leading to a brutal pseudo-hunter-gatherer society - the stuff of postapocalyptic dystopian movies co-starring Tina Turner.

Here's one: Failed German revolution of 1918. Resulted in barbarism of Hitler.

Why do you assume hunter-gatherer societies were barbaric? Some of them were based on gift economies.




There's been plenty that resulted in the old order being restored and cracking down hard, but that's hardly the same thing.

What's the difference? Cracking down hard is another way of saying "barbaric." When slaves revolted in the U.S. the slaveholders' response was about as barbaric as you can get. When China and India revolted against British rule in the 19th century, the British responded with mass starvation.

When told that a million Irish had died in a famine in the 19th century, one British politician said something like, "Another million need to starve."



'Socialism or barbarism' makes a good slogan, but what's the empirical basis?

How about history?

[Jose Gracchus]

I think we're in fundamental disagreement Kronsteen. If you think Maoism is Marxism, and that its "application" (again with the presumption that the theory is the causative agent in historical change, idealism) resulted in Mao's China, then we're basically speaking two different languages.

[KC]

(again with the presumption that the theory is the causative agent in historical change, idealism)

Theory and "organization". Don't forget organization!

"If only we organize properly, we can make revolution and construct socialism!"

:rolleyes:

[Kronsteen]

I think we're in fundamental disagreement Kronsteen. If you think Maoism is Marxism

I didn't say it was. Maoism is however derived from Leninism - from what I've read, Mao read some (badly translated) works of Lenin and tried to forcefit it to his own country. With predictably disasterous results.


again with the presumption that the theory is the causative agent in historical change, idealism

I don't recall ever saying such a thing. Theory is involved of course, sometimes in shaping details of the action, sometimes only in providing rationalisations for it. The crusades would have happened without christianity, but they wouldn't have happened in the same way.

And sometimes people really do act according to a theory in their heads - provided the objective circumstance permits it. If they didn't, revolutionary theory would be utterly pointless.