Is anti-dialectics a "non-bullshit" Marxist stand?

[el_chavista]

Just take a look at Sean Sayers' "Whatever happened to analytical Marxism (http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/articles/sayers/cohenreview.pdf)?",Radical Philosophy 104, Nov/Dec 2000, pp39-41.


Apart from Cohen, prominent members included Jon Elster, John Roemer and Erik Olin Wright. They were known as the "September group" because they met annually in that month, alternatively as the "non-bullshit Marxism group".

All talk of "dialectic" together with the other mystical trappings of Hegelian metaphysics was to be banished, Marxism was going to be "rationally reconstructed".

[Broletariat]

I don't think it's exclusive to "non-bullshit" Marxism considering I tend to identify as a Left Comm or just a straight Marxist and am also a anti-dialectician.

[KC]

Eric Olin Wright is a fucking idiot liberal who talks about how socialism will not come about through "ruptures".

Most people that write about dialectics don't understand it. Most overstate its importance. There is a reason Marx never wrote an explicit work on his dialectical method and that is because it's philosophical crap.

[Uncle Rob]

Dialectical Materialism is the philosophical worldview of Marxism. It's the philosophy Marx worked by and Marxism cannot be fully understood if you do not wrangle with it. I fail to see why so many of the so called "Marxists" on here reject it, but then again this place is a breeding ground for liberals and anti-communists so I can't really say I'm surprised either.

[Book O'Dead]

Dialectical Materialism is the philosophical worldview of Marxism.

And here I thought it was historical materialism! Go figger.


It's the philosophy Marx worked by and Marxism cannot be fully understood if you do not wrangle with it.

What part of Marxism do we miss out on if we fail to "wrangle" with DM or, having "wrangled" it into its corral, outright reject it as mystification?


I fail to see why so many of the so called "Marxists" on here reject it, but then again this place is a breeding ground for liberals and anti-communists so I can't really say I'm surprised either.

Maybe your failure to see why is connected to your apparent dogmatic attitude toward "so-called 'Marxist'", who reject it.

In my book, the conscious and informed acceptance of the Law of Value, the class struggle and the revolutionary nature of the industrial proletariat are what make a person an authentic Marxist, not the acceptance of an obscure quasi-mystical "philosophical world view" such as DM.

BTW, most workers (whom Marxian socialism seeks to attract and elevate) couldn't possibly give a rat's asshole about DM. Wouldn't you agree?

[ZeroNowhere]

And here I thought it was historical materialism! Go figger.I'm fairly sure that materialism is a prerequisite of the materialist conception of history.


What part of Marxism do we miss out on if we fail to "wrangle" with DM or, having "wrangled" it into its corral, outright reject it as mystification?Most of it.


In my book, the conscious and informed acceptance of the Law of Value, the class struggle and the revolutionary nature of the industrial proletariat are what make a person an authentic Marxist, not the acceptance of an obscure quasi-mystical "philosophical world view" such as DM.You can't sum up Marxism in conclusions. The result is not the actual whole.


BTW, most workers (whom Marxian socialism seeks to attract and elevate) couldn't possibly give a rat's asshole about DM. Wouldn't you agree?Marxism seeks to attract the truth, and nothing more. I'm not sure about what most workers could give a rat's asshole about, although a large portion of them are probably too busy trying to get food for themselves and their family to be too concerned about much else, but I do agree that romantic pseudo-philosophizing generally makes for better conversation, and has been known to be good at attracting members of the opposite sex if you're into that kind of thing.

[eyeheartlenin]

My introduction to Marxism, when I was in college in the sixties, was reading in a thick English-language textbook on Marxism from the Soviet Union, and Soviet Marxism apparently isolated three laws of dialectics; when I mentioned that to someone in the SWP (of Cannon and Dobbs), the comrade was skeptical and told me laws were no part of dialectics.

Someone I admire greatly is a big enthusiast about a certain Rosa (our contemporary, not Rosa Luxemburg) who spends a lot of effort on-line attacking dialectics. I would be interested to know from anyone who is knowledgeable about that, if Rosa's stance on that has affected her politics. My friend says no, but I wonder.

With commie greetings to everyone

[Hit The North]

BTW, most workers (whom Marxian socialism seeks to attract and elevate) couldn't possibly give a rat's asshole about DM. Wouldn't you agree?

Unfortunately most workers don't give a rat's asshole about socialism or Marxism either, so I'm not sure we can take much comfort from their ambivalence toward DM.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I am beginning to study this topic in earnest by reading

"Materialism and the Dialectical Method" only now am i just getting to the point about dialectics though.

By Maurice Cornforth i believe.

[Broletariat]

I'm fairly sure that materialism is a prerequisite of the materialist conception of history.

Certainly, but Materialism is not DM


Most of it.

Strange because you seem to approve of my summaries of at least the first 14 chapters of Das Kapital, and I use no dialectical method of any sort there.



Marxism seeks to attract the truth, and nothing more.

I thought as Marxists "we make no pretensions to support anything greater than simply working class interests."

[Lenina Rosenweg]

My introduction to Marxism, when I was in college in the sixties, was reading in a thick English-language textbook on Marxism from the Soviet Union, and Soviet Marxism apparently isolated three laws of dialectics; when I mentioned that to someone in the SWP (of Cannon and Dobbs), the comrade was skeptical and told me laws were no part of dialectics.

Someone I admire greatly is a big enthusiast about a certain Rosa (our contemporary, not Rosa Luxemburg) who spends a lot of effort on-line attacking dialectics. I would be interested to know from anyone who is knowledgeable about that, if Rosa's stance on that has affected her politics. My friend says no, but I wonder.

With commie greetings to everyone

Rosa Lichtenstein, formerly a RevLefter who was banned. Just google the name and you will get her website.As I understand she works with but is not a member of the British SWP. She believes that "dialectics" is responsible for the splintering of the Marxist and especially Trotskyist movements.Few people would agree with her.

Anyway Marx himself never used the term "dialectical materialism". That term was coined by Engels and Plekhanov after Marx's death. Soviet Stalinism developed a very reductionist, metaphysical version of DM, "diamat". This appears to be radically different from Marx's method in Capital and elsewhere.Marx had a highly dialectical view of value and of the laws of motion of capitalism but his dialectics viewed humanity as an active participant, not passively obeying predetermined social laws.

[citizen of industry]

I wouldn't go about rejecting it all as "bullshit," but it doesn't have to turn into an incomprehensible intellectual discussion all the time. As far as workers being able to understand everything, I suppose you could argue the point is to elevate the working class, not dumb things down. That being said I take the points that interest me the most when I'm reading a work of Marx, and explore those concepts the most. And I dumb the philosophical points down to the simplest understanding possible, just enough to follow the rest of the work. Dialectics? What, negation of the negation, everything turns into its opposite, then to a resolution. That about right for Hegel? So we can say capitalism is not permanent, society is always changing, and it will turn into its dialectical opposite, communism. As for Feuerbach, athiesm, everything is made of matter, so we can say labour is the basis for everything. That's about all I care to explore with those philosophers. I don't have time to read everything in the world.

I enjoyed reading Capital but I did have to wrangle with it quite a bit. Wage Labour and Capital and Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts were easier to grasp for me. Those guys that get the pen and paper out and write down mathematical formulas for Marx's theory with xy symbols creep me out. I'm a worker with no college education so I won't be ashamed of my inability to take part in an intellectual debate over fuzzy points, but I don't begrudge those with a better understanding either. Some people are stronger in certain areas. I do my best, that's all. We need worker-bolsheviks and marxist-intellectuals both.

Ever read Georg Lukaks History and Class Consciousness? Went right over my head. Someone shoot me if I start talking like that.

[Broletariat]

capitalism is not permanent, society is always changing, and it will turn into its dialectical opposite, communism.

Well I guess we can all go home, Capitalism will become communism inevitably, deterministically, regardless of any sort of material reality. Why? Because Dialectical Materialism says so of course!

No use studying any of this stuff I guess, we'll get to Communism eventually anyway.l

[Uncle Rob]

And here I thought it was historical materialism! Go figger.

They're the same thing. Historical Materialism is Dialectical Materialism applied to human society.




What part of Marxism do we miss out on if we fail to "wrangle" with DM or, having "wrangled" it into its corral, outright reject it as mystification?

If one cannot see contradiction in social, political, economic sphere one will inevitably fail to be a revolutionary. Failure to adopt the view that matter is in motion, rife with contradiction and the resolution of such contradictions will lead to no other consequence then mystic, subjective and idealist conclusions.




Maybe your failure to see why is connected to your apparent dogmatic attitude toward "so-called 'Marxist'", who reject it.

Surely you hold steadfast to your conceptions? Obviously, I couldn't see any other reason why you would take time out of you day to reply to something you conceive as incorrect. Perhaps you too are dogmatic!


In my book, the conscious and informed acceptance of the Law of Value, the class struggle and the revolutionary nature of the industrial proletariat are what make a person an authentic Marxist, not the acceptance of an obscure quasi-mystical "philosophical world view" such as DM.

Any fool can write a book rejecting the philosophy of Marxism, people have been doing it since the conception of Marxism. Just because you said so does not mean it is so. We should inquire as to why the industrial proletariat is revolutionary, how the law of value came into existence, and what drive class struggle. I will quote here in full Marx's Preface of "A contribution to the critique of political economy" in order to better demonstrate the correlation between Dialectical Materialism and the latter issues you described as being the prerequisites of being an authentic Marxist.


In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.
The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.
At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.
Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production.
No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the tasks itself arises only when the material conditions of its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.
In broad outlines Asiatic[A], ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs in the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonisms, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formation brings, therefore, the prehistory of society to a close.

Now pay very close attention to the passage. The idea the material conditions give rise to social consciousness is the entire edifice of historical materialism. But notice the language Marx uses, "development", "contradiction", "process". It is very clear in this work and nearly all of his works that Marx recognizes dialectical materialism even if he did not use the term directly. This is not some arbitrary mistake, or some slip of the pen but the only logical conclusion given the facts. Only he how fails to look at the philosophical side of Marxism could fail to realize that any ideology is nothing more than a process of material reality reflected on the human mind and only when the idea fails to conform to the laws of nature in practice can an idea be rightfully called incorrect. But Dialectical Materialism is not incorrect. Matter is in motion, seasons change, species adapt out of conflict their enemies, water "leaps" to steam at a certain temperature, these are all facts,real processes in nature not a "obscure quasi-mystical" worldview as you say. The only thing you have demonstrated is your complete ignorance and denial of the facts before the entire revleft forum, for all to see in brilliancy.



BTW, most workers (whom Marxian socialism seeks to attract and elevate) couldn't possibly give a rat's asshole about DM. Wouldn't you agree?

I do agree. But the does not mean I will bow to backwards consciousness of the masses. One of the most important aspects of a revolutionary is to raise their consciousness, not make concessions for it.

[Broletariat]

They're the same thing. Historical Materialism is Dialectical Materialism applied to human society.

Actually, that's quite wrong. HM is a science, whereas DM is philosophical, and Marx himself was an anti-philosopher as per

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

....

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

[RadioRaheem84]

A.) Are not the analytical Marxists merely market socialists? Most of them applying shitty presupposed libertarian nonsense to explain why Marx was correct?

B.) Isn't historical materialism the application of dialectics to human society?

C.) Wouldn't you need to have some sort of belief in dialectics to be Marxist?

[Thirsty Crow]

C.) Wouldn't you need to have some sort of belief in dialectics to be Marxist?
Why would a belief be necessary for one to be a Marxist?
A method should be employed not because of belief, but rather its effectiveness. And it's hard to understand how the law of interpenetrating opposites (or some other crap similar to this), which accounts for not only human history, but also natural phenomena, could be useful for a revolutionary theory.
Maybe it can be useful for demagoguery, though.

[ZeroNowhere]

Well I guess we can all go home, Capitalism will become communism inevitably, deterministically, regardless of any sort of material reality. Why? Because Dialectical Materialism says so of course!
It does, yes, but that doesn't preclude the study of history, but rather lays the basis for it. Or, rather, it doesn't say that capitalism will become communism regardless of any sort of material reality, whatever that even means (capitalism is a material reality, communism is a material reality...), but it is the case that communism is simply practical materialism, and that capitalism contains its own end immanent to itself due to its conflict with human practice as such, the conflict between the alienated capitalist form of production and the simple production process.

While capitalist production contains the conflict and separation of purchase and sale, capital and labour, use-value and value, these being simply reflections of its separation of production and consumption, society and the individual, subject and object, etc., these latter conflicts are resolved in human practice, and this conflict becomes palpable in the form of crises where the working class faces these separations as a lack ('the feeling of separation is need', etc.), and may only overcome them through positing themselves as the state, hence as society, and expropriating the expropriators, returning their objects to themselves. This returns us to the general basis of human practice, and forms an end to human pre-history, returning the human essence to humanity itself and hence realizing materialism in practice.

As Marx once put it, communism "is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species." Materialism resolves these conflicts in theory, but only by basing their resolution on human practice and social life, where they are in fact still to be realized, but on the other hand where they are to be realized as an immanent result of its own movement.

Classical political economy had to be superseded by seeing capitalism not as the highest realization of reason, in which case its abolition could only be the result of something external to human, rational practice itself (hence Ricardo's theory of the rate of profit), a regression in social forms or arbitrary emotions and whatnot, but rather simply the highest development of alienation, which hence comes into conflict with the development of human reason in practice and hence takes on a transitory and passing character. Reason develops through unreason, but at the same time this irrationality contains a finite character within its own nature and, though rational for a time, eventually falls away in time's progress.


Certainly, but Materialism is not DMYes, in the same way that socialism isn't Marxist communism, insofar as the category also includes utopian socialism.


I thought as Marxists "we make no pretensions to support anything greater than simply working class interests."Context. That was used to contrast Marxism with system-building moralsms, if I recall correctly, not to establish Marxism as a moralism in favour of the working class. In fact, my point there would seem to complement my point here, namely that the point is not to 'attract' the working class to Marxism or whatever, as if all leg-spinners must learn the advanced physics of the Magnus effect in order to bowl well, but rather the working class' struggle in their own interests.

Marxism itself involves a wider analysis of the historical place and condition of the working class in the development of human practice, and it is because of this that we support the struggle of the working class as such, and its development as a class, and see the general interest and human, universal morality boasted of by most ideologies as ultimately illusory. The working class itself may fight in the name of any kind of moral phrases, but ultimately its struggle is still a question of class interests.


Anyway Marx himself never used the term "dialectical materialism". That term was coined by Engels and Plekhanov after Marx's death. Soviet Stalinism developed a very reductionist, metaphysical version of DM, "diamat". This appears to be radically different from Marx's method in Capital and elsewhere.I don't recall Engels having used it, either. It's not an inaccurate label by itself, though, and I think that it gets the point across well enough (as was expressed by, for example, Marx's characterization of earlier materialisms as 'naturalistic materialism' in the Grundrisse introduction, while he had earlier commented that his view, "as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism"). You're right about it having a bit of a historical baggage, though, which is why I generally won't use the term 'dialectical materialism' au pied de la lettre if nobody else brings it up first.


And it's hard to understand how the law of interpenetrating opposites (or some other crap similar to this), which accounts for not only human history, but also natural phenomena, could be useful for a revolutionary theory.I don't think that an absolute dividing line can be drawn between 'natural phenomena' and 'human history', to be honest.


Actually, that's quite wrong. HM is a science, whereas DM is philosophical, and Marx himself was an anti-philosopher as perHm.

"With all philosophers it is precisely the “system” which is perishable; and for the simple reason that it springs from an imperishable desire of the human mind — the desire to overcome all contradictions. But if all contradictions are once and for all disposed of, we shall have arrived at so-called absolute truth — world history will be at an end. And yet it has to continue, although there is nothing left for it to do — hence, a new, insoluble contradiction. As soon as we have once realized — and in the long run no one has helped us to realize it more than Hegel himself — that the task of philosophy thus stated means nothing but the task that a single philosopher should accomplish that which can only be accomplished by the entire human race in its progressive development — as soon as we realize that, there is an end to all philosophy in the hitherto accepted sense of the word. One leaves alone “absolute truth”, which is unattainable along this path or by any single individual; instead, one pursues attainable relative truths along the path of the positive sciences, and the summation of their results by means of dialectical thinking. At any rate, with Hegel philosophy comes to an end; on the one hand, because in his system he summed up its whole development in the most splendid fashion; and on the other hand, because, even though unconsciously, he showed us the way out of the labyrinth of systems to real positive knowledge of the world."

[Broletariat]

It does, yes, but that doesn't preclude the study of history, but rather lays the basis for it. Or, rather, it doesn't say that capitalism will become communism regardless of any sort of material reality, whatever that even means (capitalism is a material reality, communism is a material reality...), but it is the case that communism is simply practical materialism, and that capitalism contains its own end immanent to itself due to its conflict with human practice as such, the conflict between the alienated capitalist form of production and the simple production process.

While capitalist production contains the conflict and separation of purchase and sale, capital and labour, use-value and value, these being simply reflections of its separation of production and consumption, society and the individual, subject and object, etc., these latter conflicts are resolved in human practice, and this conflict becomes palpable in the form of crises where the working class faces these separations as a lack ('the feeling of separation is need', etc.), and may only overcome them through positing themselves as the state, hence as society, and expropriating the expropriators, returning their objects to themselves. This returns us to the general basis of human practice, and forms an end to human pre-history, returning the human essence to humanity itself and hence realizing materialism in practice.

As Marx once put it, communism "is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species." Materialism resolves these conflicts in theory, but only by basing their resolution on human practice and social life, where they are in fact still to be realized, but on the other hand where they are to be realized as an immanent result of its own movement.

Classical political economy had to be superseded by seeing capitalism not as the highest realization of reason, in which case its abolition could only be the result of something external to human, rational practice itself (hence Ricardo's theory of the rate of profit), a regression in social forms or arbitrary emotions and whatnot, but rather simply the highest development of alienation, which hence comes into conflict with the development of human reason in practice and hence takes on a transitory and passing character. Reason develops through unreason, but at the same time this irrationality contains a finite character within its own nature and, though rational for a time, eventually falls away in time's progress.

Capitalism contains the POSSIBILITY of Communism, and no more than the possibility.

Communism isn't some sort of inevitable fate that will befall humanity, it is a goal to be actively fought for. I can think of any number of different obstacles that would forever stop us from attaining Communism.




Context. That was used to contrast Marxism with system-building moralsms, if I recall correctly, not to establish Marxism as a moralism in favour of the working class. In fact, my point there would seem to complement my point here, namely that the point is not to 'attract' the working class to Marxism or whatever, as if all leg-spinners must learn the advanced physics of the Magnus effect in order to bowl well, but rather the working class' struggle in their own interests.

Knowledge does not simply fall from the sky though, it is QUITE advantageous to the working class for them to be aware of Marxism and know what how and why Capitalism operates and of our past historical failures and why they were failures etc. If Marxism is the ideology that struggles in the interests of the working class, then isn't the working class struggling in its interests... Marxist by definition?





Hm.

"With all philosophers it is precisely the “system” which is perishable; and for the simple reason that it springs from an imperishable desire of the human mind — the desire to overcome all contradictions. But if all contradictions are once and for all disposed of, we shall have arrived at so-called absolute truth — world history will be at an end. And yet it has to continue, although there is nothing left for it to do — hence, a new, insoluble contradiction. As soon as we have once realized — and in the long run no one has helped us to realize it more than Hegel himself — that the task of philosophy thus stated means nothing but the task that a single philosopher should accomplish that which can only be accomplished by the entire human race in its progressive development — as soon as we realize that, there is an end to all philosophy in the hitherto accepted sense of the word. One leaves alone “absolute truth”, which is unattainable along this path or by any single individual; instead, one pursues attainable relative truths along the path of the positive sciences, and the summation of their results by means of dialectical thinking. At any rate, with Hegel philosophy comes to an end; on the one hand, because in his system he summed up its whole development in the most splendid fashion; and on the other hand, because, even though unconsciously, he showed us the way out of the labyrinth of systems to real positive knowledge of the world."

I see this as simply a reinforcement of the idea that Marx was an anti-philosopher, here he says that Hegel showed us the way out of the labyrinth of systems to real positive knowledge of the world. In reference to the ending of philosophy.

[ZeroNowhere]

I see this as simply a reinforcement of the idea that Marx was an anti-philosopher, here he says that Hegel showed us the way out of the labyrinth of systems to real positive knowledge of the world. In reference to the ending of philosophy.Do you, now?


If Marxism is the ideology that struggles in the interests of the working class, then isn't the working class struggling in its interests... Marxist by definition?No, it doesn't. One can struggle for something without explicitly comprehending its overall historical context and necessary end.

[citizen of industry]

Well I guess we can all go home, Capitalism will become communism inevitably, deterministically, regardless of any sort of material reality. Why? Because Dialectical Materialism says so of course!

No use studying any of this stuff I guess, we'll get to Communism eventually anyway.l

If I'm not mistaken that was Hegel's dialectics. Negation of the negation, and then to a "totality." Marx applied this to capitalist society, but if I remember correctly he was critical of the totality becoming an automatic process or "awareness," and not a societal change. So no, we can't sit back and wait for communism. Capitalism will succumb, that much is fact. But to what? To communism, or barbarism? If we wait for the inevitability it will be barbarism, worse than capitalism.

[Broletariat]

If I'm not mistaken that was Hegel's dialectics. Negation of the negation, and then to a "totality." Marx applied this to capitalist society, but if I remember correctly he was critical of the totality becoming an automatic process or "awareness," and not a societal change. So no, we can't sit back and wait for communism. Capitalism will succumb, that much is fact. But to what? To communism, or barbarism? If we wait for the inevitability it will be barbarism, worse than capitalism.

What the fuck is barbarism and what makes it a unique mode of production different from Capitalism, what class will institute it and why?

[citizen of industry]

What the fuck is barbarism and what makes it a unique mode of production different from Capitalism, what class will institute it and why?

From the manifesto:

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. … that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”

I see barbarism as the common ruin of the contending classes. Here's what Luxemburg said on it:

“The collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration — a great cemetery.”

[Broletariat]

From the manifesto:

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. … that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”

I see barbarism as the common ruin of the contending classes. Here's what Luxemburg said on it:

“The collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration — a great cemetery.”


The manifesto was written as a propaganda piece, and I take that last bit to be more of a sensationalist piece.

Luxemburg based her Socialism or Barbarism from the Saturated Market Thesis, which was flawed.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

What the fuck is barbarism and what makes it a unique mode of production different from Capitalism, what class will institute it and why?

The alternative to capitalism is not necessarily socialism, it could very well be a more barbaric form of capitalism. WTF is barbarism? World Wars I and II, the virtual genocide visited on Vietnam by France and the US, what happened in Iraq over the past 8 years, are all good examples.

You want to see the future of our world if the capitalist mode of production isn't eliminated from the world? Glimpses of it in northern Mexico, Somalia, Congo, Norway. Iraq and possibly soon Libya.The mode of production will be different from today's capitalism in being much more primitive.What class will institute it? Warlords, guys with guns. The second Mad Max movie.

Perhaps financial capital will be, however temporarily, forced to defer to a type of "green fascism", as capitalism desperately seeks to reestablish equilibrium.

[Broletariat]

The alternative to capitalism is not necessarily socialism, it could very well be a more barbaric form of capitalism. WTF is barbarism? World Wars I and II, the virtual genocide visited on Vietnam by France and the US, what happened in Iraq over the past 8 years, are all good examples.

You want to see the future of our world if the capitalist mode of production isn't eliminated from the world? Glimpses of it in northern Mexico, Somalia, Congo, Norway. Iraq and possibly soon Libya.The mode of production will be different from today's capitalism in being much more primitive.What class will institute it? Warlords, guys with guns. The second Mad Max movie.

Perhaps financial capital will be, however temporarily, forced to defer to a type of "green fascism", as capitalism desperately seeks to reestablish equilibrium.


So essentially, it's still Capitalism.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The decomposition of capitalism. Sailor Jay said it well.

[Broletariat]

The decomposition of capitalism. Sailor Jay said it well.

We still haven't explored WHY Capitalism will decompose, why do we assume it will? Perhaps a meteor will destroy us all before either of these things will happen.

The point is, we shouldn't be dealing with these either or black and white type deterministic crap. And if we are going to, we should explain why.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The productive power of humanity is surpassing the need of capitalists to make a profit off of our labor.Capitalism has been in crisis for the past 30 years or so.Naomi Klein does an excellent job of explaining how neo-liberalism was imposed on the world throughout this time period. Why did ruling classes see the need to impose this?

There has been interesting work done on Marxist crisis theory by people like Kliman, and David Harvey and others. Essentially there is an over accumulation of capital Excess productivity must be destroyed to create a new basis for capital accumulation. The last time capitalism was in this situation we got 1914-1948, world wars, depressions, counter-revolutions. That wasn't so fun. The world is more complicated now. We can't afford such an enforced devalorization.

I am not sure how to phrase this most effectively but global capitalism is in a state of decomposition. Why does finance capital have such a stranglehold on politics? What are the dynamics which led to this?

Capitalism certainly is collapsing.The tragedy is that, as yet, we have nothing to put in its place. Marxism isn't deterministic.Its up to us. Without an alternative we are doomed to experience, as Uncle Karl said, "the same old shit"

[RadioRaheem84]

Capitalism certainly is collapsing.The tragedy is that, as yet, we have nothing to put in its place. Marxism isn't deterministic.Its up to us. Without an alternative we are doomed to experience, as Uncle Karl said, "the same old shit"

It may not be Marxism but people are coming up with a series of different alternatives that keep resembling communism.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Dialectical Materialism is the philosophical worldview of Marxism. It's the philosophy Marx worked by and Marxism cannot be fully understood if you do not wrangle with it. I fail to see why so many of the so called "Marxists" on here reject it, but then again this place is a breeding ground for liberals and anti-communists so I can't really say I'm surprised either.

This is meant to be the learning forum and yet you are coming out with sectarian crap like that.

Perhaps you'd be better off, dear enlightened comrade, if you were to try to help explain dialectics to people who don't understand it, or engage in rational debate with those of us who don't see its huge academic importance, rather than wading in with the kind of 3rd rate crap of a post that this place seems to have become a breeding ground for.

[el_chavista]

My OP concerns with both anti-dialectics and "non-bullshit" Marxism sharing a common point of negating DiaMat. According to anti-dialectics its aim is to improve Marxism as only Historic materialism was needed. The non-bullshit Marxism group were doing their western intellectual exercise of investigating Marxism themselves with their analytical philosophy actually intending to prove Marx true, after the failure of the URSS and the consequent loss of prestige of the traditional Marxists.

Of course, "non-bullshit" Marxism gurus aimed higher. According to Philippe van Parijs, these are the areas in which analytical Marxists have been active:
(1) Are the central propositions of historical materialism to be construed
as functional explanations, i.e. as explanations of institutions by references to the functions they perform?

(2) Is it possible, indeed is it necessary, for a Marxist to be committed
to methodological individualism, i.e. to the view that all social-scientific
explanations should ultimately be phrased in terms of actions and thoughts
by individual human beings? Or are there some admissible « structuralist »
Marxian explanations which are radically irreducible to an individualistic
perspective?

(3) Is there any way of salvaging from the ferocious criticisms to which
it has been subjected the so-called theory of the falling rate of profit, i.e. Marx’s celebrated claim that capitalist economist are doomed to be crisis ridded, owing to a systematic tendency for the rate of profit to fall as a result of the very process of profit-driven capital accumulation?

(4) Can one vindicate the labour theory of value, i.e. the claim that the
labour time required to produce a commodity is the ultimate determinant of
its price, against the numerous objections raised against. If not, does this
have any serious consequence for positive Marxian theory, bearing in mind
that Marx himself considered this theory essential to the explanation of
capitalist profits. And does it have any serious consequence for Marxian
normative theory (if any), bearing in mind that Marx’s concept of exploitation is usually defined in terms of labour value?

(5) Does Marx leave any room for ethical statements, i.e. statements
about what a good or just or truly free society would be like, as distinct from
statements about how a society could be more rationally organised or about
what it will turn out to be by virtue of some inexorable laws of history?

(6) Can the concept of exploitation — commonly defined as the extraction of surplus labour, or as the unequal exchange of labour value — be made independent of the shaky labour theory of value? Can it be extended to deal with late-capitalist or post-capitalist societies, in which the possession of a scarce skill, or the incumbency of some valued job, or the control over some organizational asset may be at least as consequential as the ownership of material means of production? Can such a more or less generalized concept of exploitation provide the basis for an empirically fruitful concept of social class?

(7) How can the Marxian commitment to equality (if any) be rigorously
and defensibly formulated? Could the egalitarian imperative that motivates the demand for the socialization of the means of production also be satisfied by an equal distribution of the latter, or by a neutralization of the impact of their unequal distribution on the distribution of welfare? To what extent is this imperative compatible with every individual owning (in some sense) herself, as taken for granted, it would seem, in the typically Marxian idea that workers are entitled to the full fruits of their labour ?

(8) After the collapse of East-European socialism, is it possible to
reshape the socialist project in a way that takes full account of the many
theoretical and practical objections that have been raised against it? Can a
system be designed in which the social ownership of the means of production can be combined with the sort of allocative and dynamic efficiency commonly ascribed to capitalist labour and capital markets?

[citizen of industry]

We still haven't explored WHY Capitalism will decompose, why do we assume it will? Perhaps a meteor will destroy us all before either of these things will happen.

The point is, we shouldn't be dealing with these either or black and white type deterministic crap. And if we are going to, we should explain why.

So you assume that capitalism is permanent, or at least can be? Marx accounted for the meteor as well, if you'd like me to look it up. We could have a nuclear halocaust as well, but I wont throw economic theory in the trash based on those two possibilities. Maybe we'll all die and go to hell too, eh? We assume it will decompose based on its internal contradictions; overproduction, class polarization. The fact that wealth is possessed by fewer and fewer people and poverty is growing. Capitalism can buy time by taking advantage of developing countries for cheap labor, but it has the inconvenient tendency to develop those countries in the process. There are fewer and fewer developing countries. The tendency in developed countries is population decline.

The profit margin on most goods is so small it's a joke. They have to sell all over the world amongst an ever declining number of consumers. Capitalism is definitely on a clock. The environment is on a shorter clock - we're running out of resources and burning off our ozone. When either runs out...socialism if the human race is worth a fuck, or barbarism - mad max, water world, an end to social production and a return to a feudal period.

[Broletariat]

So you assume that capitalism is permanent, or at least can be? Marx accounted for the meteor as well, if you'd like me to look it up. We could have a nuclear halocaust as well, but I wont throw economic theory in the trash based on those two possibilities. Maybe we'll all die and go to hell too, eh? We assume it will decompose based on its internal contradictions; overproduction, class polarization. The fact that wealth is possessed by fewer and fewer people and poverty is growing. Capitalism can buy time by taking advantage of developing countries for cheap labor, but it has the inconvenient tendency to develop those countries in the process. There are fewer and fewer developing countries. The tendency in developed countries is population decline.

The profit margin on most goods is so small it's a joke. They have to sell all over the world amongst an ever declining number of consumers. Capitalism is definitely on a clock. The environment is on a shorter clock - we're running out of resources and burning off our ozone. When either runs out...socialism if the human race is worth a fuck, or barbarism - mad max, water world, an end to social production and a return to a feudal period.

You do seem to be positing the saturated market thesis yourself.

You forget that production is also an act of consumption, that production will become for productions sake, that instead of selling goods to the working class, production will become more aimed to the upper-class.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

You do seem to be positing the saturated market thesis yourself.

You forget that production is also an act of consumption, that production will become for productions sake, that instead of selling goods to the working class, production will become more aimed to the upper-class.

But upper class consumption will not be nearly enough to take up the slack.The circuit needs to be completed or capitalism basically cannibalizes itself.Credit is used to take up the slack.That's how we got the housing bubbles word wide. Anyway under consumption is only part of the problem. the crisis is multi-faceted but ultimately comes from an over accumulation of capital.

[electro_fan]

how many upper class people are there in the world? there are a lot, but there aren't really that many compared to everyone else, it's certainly not enough to justify churning out mass produced goods constantly

[Hit The North]

Of course consumption under capitalism depends on people having money to spend, which depends upon them having employment and a rising standard of living in order to create the expanding consumption crucial to the expansion of production necessary for the health of capitalism. Capitalism cannot exist in a state of equilibrium where production/consumption remains static, so there is a continual race towards breaking point. The circuit of capitalist accumulation runs in a spiral.

EDIT: The above is also evidence of the dialectical nature of capitalism, its constant movement and development. This is why Marx thought it necessary to produce "the first dialectical presentation" of capital - his own assessment of what he was attempting to do with Das Kapital.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Of course consumption under capitalism depends on people having money to spend, which depends upon them having employment and a rising standard of living in order to create the expanding consumption crucial to the expansion of production necessary for the health of capitalism. Capitalism cannot exist in a state of equilibrium where production/consumption remains static, so there is a continual race towards breaking point. The circuit of capitalist accumulation runs in a spiral.

and that's where we can see the laws of motion of capitalism operating dialectically.

[Hit The North]

and that's where we can see the laws of motion of capitalism operating dialectically.

Snap! :)

I just added the same point to my post above. :thumbup1:

[citizen of industry]

There are two general types of philosophy, philosphical materialists (basic reality is physical and natural) and philisophical idealists (reality is supernatural and religious).

Then there are two types of logic, formal logic (fixed and rigid) or dialectical (evolutionary).

So now we arrive at dialectical materialism (reality is physical, natural, and evolutionary, all things are in the process of coming into being, changing and dying). And if we apply that to history we have historical materialism (social life is evolutionary; institutional changes caused by conflict between productive forces and the society produced by this technology).

Capitalism was born, matured and will die because of its contradictory nature - social production and private ownership - and the destructive, anti-human society it creates. What will give it the coup de grace? Revolution by the proletariat, the only class capable of instituting socialism.

[S.Artesian]

So you assume that capitalism is permanent, or at least can be? Marx accounted for the meteor as well, if you'd like me to look it up. We could have a nuclear halocaust as well, but I wont throw economic theory in the trash based on those two possibilities. Maybe we'll all die and go to hell too, eh? We assume it will decompose based on its internal contradictions; overproduction, class polarization. The fact that wealth is possessed by fewer and fewer people and poverty is growing. Capitalism can buy time by taking advantage of developing countries for cheap labor, but it has the inconvenient tendency to develop those countries in the process. There are fewer and fewer developing countries. The tendency in developed countries is population decline.

The profit margin on most goods is so small it's a joke. They have to sell all over the world amongst an ever declining number of consumers. Capitalism is definitely on a clock. The environment is on a shorter clock - we're running out of resources and burning off our ozone. When either runs out...socialism if the human race is worth a fuck, or barbarism - mad max, water world, an end to social production and a return to a feudal period.

Capitalism is on a clock? Of course it's on a clock. Right, capitalism could lead to extermination of the species. Sure. But so what? Is that what you mean by capitalism not being permanent-- that it doesn't get overthrown, it just destroys everything? That's not Marxism.

The environment is certainly being damaged, and destruction is certainly the stock in trade of capitalism, but we are NOT running out of resources, and we are not going to wind up in Mad Max world, or Zardoz, or the Emperor Ming and the planet Mongol or whatever.

Apocalypse-mongering isn't a strong argument for socialist revolution, IMO.

The issue about "consumption" has been dealt with in a different thread. Underconsumption, the disproportion between production and consumption is precisely not what plagues capitalism, Rosa's Accumulation of Capital to the contrary notwithstanding.

Capital does not produce for consumption, but for exchange, for valorization, in order to reproduce itself on an expanded basis. Overproduction is the over accumulation of the means of production as capital to the point where labor cannot be exploited with sufficient intensity to generate enough surplus value to valorize the entire network of production. That's why we get a "trend" towards "barbarism," --- more intense exploitation of labor.

[S.Artesian]

Look at all the dialectic: Capitalism/Socialism, Bourgeoisie/Proletariat, Social production/Private ownership, overproduction/underconsumption, revolution.

As a strong admirer, and adherent, to Marx's use of dialectic, I'll ask you to describe the dialectic that exists in the couplets you list above.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Capitalism is on a clock? Of course it's on a clock. Right, capitalism could lead to extermination of the species. Sure. But so what? Is that what you mean by capitalism not being permanent-- that it doesn't get overthrown, it just destroys everything? That's not Marxism.

The environment is certainly being damaged, and destruction is certainly the stock in trade of capitalism, but we are NOT running out of resources, and we are not going to wind up in Mad Max world, or Zardoz, or the Emperor Ming and the planet Mongol or whatever.

Apocalypse-mongering isn't a strong argument for socialist revolution, IMO.

The issue about "consumption" has been dealt with in a different thread. Underconsumption, the disproportion between production and consumption is precisely not what plagues capitalism, Rosa's Accumulation of Capital to the contrary notwithstanding.

Capital does not produce for consumption, but for exchange, for valorization, in order to reproduce itself on an expanded basis. Overproduction is the over accumulation of the means of production as capital to the point where labor cannot be exploited with sufficient intensity to generate enough surplus value to valorize the entire network of production. That's why we get a "trend" towards "barbarism," --- more intense exploitation of labor.

I agree that we are not running out of resources but it does seem apparent that we undergoing regression in many areas as a response to the current crisis.Capitalism is eroding its ability to reproduce itself.As an example (among much else)US infrastructure is not being maintained, bridges and highways are collapsing.

Wasn't Rosa attempting to recuperate Marxist crisis theory as a rebuttal to Bernstein? (however wrong she was).The system is prone to crisis and seems that this one is almost insurmountable without some major blow out sufficient to destroy "surplus" capital. While the Mad Max type movies are a bit over the top, doesn't it seem we are going in that direction?

[S.Artesian]

^^^Kautsky rebutted Bernstein. Rosa's concern was with Marx's schemes of accumulation. She bases her argument on a really flawed understanding of capitalist accumulation, arguing in essence that because capital produces more than can be consumed it must always seek new "non-capitalist" markets in which to invest its excess.

You can't get more wrong than that... about Marx's analysis of expanded reproduction. Of course, capitalism is prone to "crisis," but as Marx painstakingly analyzed, crisis is the way in which capital relieves the pressure of its contradictions; crisis is critical, necessary to the reproduction of capital.

No, it does not seem to me that we are going in the direction of retro-techno-primitivism. We are going in the direction of greater assaults on the working class, pushing wages below the costs of reproduction, but we are definitely not going in the direction of "natural scarcity" and "overpopulation" which is the source of so much of this apocalypse-mongering.

And have worked in one of the most infrastructure-intense industries going, railroads, I don't buy into the "infrastructure is crumbling" school of leftism.

The infrastructure the bourgeoisie need to make money isn't crumbling.

The regression has been social not industrial, not technical. The apocalypso now theorists and fantasists all envision a technical regression.

[citizen of industry]

As a strong admirer, and adherent, to Marx's use of dialectic, I'll ask you to describe the dialectic that exists in the couplets you list above.

Just pointing out the mutual contradictions and revolution being a synthesis.

Hegelian dialectic

 
noun an interpretive method, originally used to relate specific entities or events to the absolute idea, in which some assertible proposition (thesis) is necessarily opposed by an equally assertible and apparently contradictory proposition (antithesis), the mutual contradiction being reconciled on a higher level of truth by a third proposition (synthesis).

[S.Artesian]

That's not Hegel's dialectic, and I didn't ask for the dictionary definitiion. I asked you what determines the dialectic between the couplets you listed. If you want it in more Hegelian terms-- what is the determinate being of both facets in your couplets.

Whjy do I ask? Because as a strong admirer of and adherent to Marx's use of dialectic, I've found that much of the time, many of those spouting off about dialectical this and dialectical that and dialectical materialism this and that basically don't know what they are talking about, and use the term to deflect from their lack of understanding of Marx's transposition of Hegel.

[citizen of industry]

The topic of the thread is "Is anti-dialectics and 'non-bullshit' Marxist stand." I would have to say no, it definitely isn't. We should read it and understand it as best we can. But again, usage of language like "determinate being of both facets in your couplets" is quite useless.

If it can't be put into language accessible to everyone, summarized, and stated simply but accurately, it's useless. Anti-dialectics is a rejection of that kind of language. Hence the reason marxists are often accused of being intellectuals.

[S.Artesian]

The topic of the thread is "Is anti-dialectics and 'non-bullshit' Marxist stand." I would have to say no, it definitely isn't. We should read it and understand it as best we can. But again, usage of language like "determinate being of both facets in your couplets" is quite useless.

If it can't be put into language accessible to everyone, summarized, and stated simply but accurately, it's useless. Anti-dialectics is a rejection of that kind of language. Hence the reason marxists are often accused of being intellectuals.

Come on, you're the guy claiming you understand dialectics, as it is passed down from Hegel. You're the one double dribbling "dialectical materialism" down the court.

So in the first post I asked you to describe the dialectic in the couplets that you claim are "dialectically" connected.

You respond with a dictionary definition pretending to describe Hegel's dialectic, which bears little, if any resemblance to that dialectic.

So put the question to you a second time, using the Hegelian terms, than a student of "dialectics" would certainly recognize, and you come back with the above.

Just answer the original question, using language you wish, that explains what exactly determines that the couplets you list exist in "dialectical relationship" to one another.

Oh, and Marxists aren't accused of being intellectuals because they use terms like "determinate being," which in fact most Marxists don't do-- although Marx himself did use exactly that term in the very first editions of volume 1 of Capital. Marxists are often accused of being intellectuals, because Marxists very often are intellectuals.

I happen to think "analytic Marxism" isn't Marxism at all; has no ability to grasp class struggle as inherent in capitalist reproduction, and determining why it is inherent, but blathering on about "dialectics" is certainly no refutation of analytic Marxism.

So do us a favor and explain what makes those relationships "dialectical"? What makes them actually contradictory?

[citizen of industry]

On the contrary, I believe my exact words were:

I wouldn't go about rejecting it all as "bullshit," but it doesn't have to turn into an incomprehensible intellectual discussion all the time. As far as workers being able to understand everything, I suppose you could argue the point is to elevate the working class, not dumb things down. That being said I take the points that interest me the most when I'm reading a work of Marx, and explore those concepts the most. And I dumb the philosophical points down to the simplest understanding possible, just enough to follow the rest of the work...That's about all I care to explore with those philosophers. I don't have time to read everything in the world.

Then I proceeded to summarize Hegelian Dialectics as I see it, which is the minimum knowledge I think is necessary for reading a work of Marx without having to delve into volumes and volumes of Hegel and Feurbach. Since you seem have the time and inclination, and obviously never tire of reiterating that you are "a strong admirer, and adherent, to Marx's use of dialectic," why don't you do me a favor and explain to me what makes those relationships determinedly diabolically dialectically contradictary or not. Only please do me the favor of explaining in simple language I can understand.

[S.Artesian]

On the contrary, I believe my exact words were:

I wouldn't go about rejecting it all as "bullshit," but it doesn't have to turn into an incomprehensible intellectual discussion all the time. As far as workers being able to understand everything, I suppose you could argue the point is to elevate the working class, not dumb things down. That being said I take the points that interest me the most when I'm reading a work of Marx, and explore those concepts the most. And I dumb the philosophical points down to the simplest understanding possible, just enough to follow the rest of the work...That's about all I care to explore with those philosophers. I don't have time to read everything in the world.

Then I proceeded to summarize Hegelian Dialectics as I see it, which is the minimum knowledge I think is necessary for reading a work of Marx without having to delve into volumes and volumes of Hegel and Feurbach. Since you seem have the time and inclination, and obviously never tire of reiterating that you are "a strong admirer, and adherent, to Marx's use of dialectic," why don't you do me a favor and explain to me what makes those relationships determinedly diabolically dialectically contradictary or not. Only please do me the favor of explaining in simple language I can understand.


Because you made the claim, and I suspect you don't know what you're talking about. Somebody told you, or you read somewhere that those relationships were "dialectical," and somebody else told you that a dialectic means "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" and you put them together, and voila! you decided you now understood what Marx really did when he extracted the rational kernel from Hegel's system.

Based on your lack of understanding of Marx's analysis of overproduction, I just bet you have the same lack of understanding when you talk about "dialectical relationships."

So go ahead and defend your assertion that those couplets exist in a dialectical relationship. Demonstrate that dialectic, because that's what Marx did in his analysis of capital as a social relation of production.

[citizen of industry]

I'm going to assume you are correct, because you obviously have a better understanding of Hegel than I do. So I went back and edited the post, removing the last line that got you all up in a huff. I left the simple definition of the philosophies we are talking about as I understand them. The post now simply reads:

There are two general types of philosophy, philosphical materialists (basic reality is physical and natural) and philisophical idealists (reality is supernatural and religious).

Then there are two types of logic, formal logic (fixed and rigid) or dialectical (evolutionary).

So now we arrive at dialectical materialism (reality is physical, natural, and evolutionary, all things are in the process of coming into being, changing and dying). And if we apply that to history we have historical materialism (social life is evolutionary; institutional changes caused by conflict between productive forces and the society produced by this technology).

Capitalism was born, matured and will die because of its contradictory nature - social production and private ownership - and the destructive, anti-human society it creates. What will give it the coup de grace? Revolution by the proletariat, the only class capable of instituting socialism.

And if a dialectic does not mean "thesis, antithesis, synthesis," or "negation of the negation and totality," can you put it into simple and comprehensible terms I can understand? In other words, without having to reject dialectics and become an "anti-dialectician," is it possible to briefly explain the basics of the philosophies in terms everyone can understand? "You read somewhere..." or "Somebody else told you..." This is what is otherwise known as learning.

[~Spectre]

All philosophical theories are nonsense.

[S.Artesian]

I'm going to assume you are correct, because you obviously have a better understanding of Hegel than I do. So I went back and edited the post, removing the last line that got you all up in a huff. I left the simple definition of the philosophies we are talking about as I understand them. The post now simply reads:

"Somebody else told you..." This is what is otherwise known as learning.

Assume nothing. All I want you to do is to tell me what is "dialectical" about the "pairs" you listed.

I'm not in a huff, not even a little bit. Just explain your assertion.

[citizen of industry]

Assume nothing. All I want you to do is to tell me what is "dialectical" about the "pairs" you listed.

I'm not in a huff, not even a little bit. Just explain your assertion.


All I'm asking you to do is show me, i.e; to teach. You've already proclaimed your expertise in the matter, and I've already admitted repeatedly that I'm no expert on Hegelian dialectics and I require a summary. I posted the assertion because I'm not clear on the matter and use Revleft as a tool for education; putting things in writing helps to clarify things for me in my head. Furthermore, I believe every philosophy that is valid can surely be put in terms accessible to everyone. Since you reacted so antagonistically to my post, it tells me you have knowledge I don't, so please do clarify. And I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically. For a working mother with two jobs, for example, you can't say "read Hegel and get back to me on dialectics," when it comes to union/party organizing and class struggle. But if one is to be a Marxist, surely a basic understanding of dialectics is necessary.

[S.Artesian]

Here are some threads where this has been examined:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/historical-materialism-and-t151413/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/end-history-t152890/index2.html


http://www.revleft.com/vb/question-dialectical-materialism-t152914/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/facets-value-t144942/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/facets-value-t144942/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics-t142758/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxs-dialectic-analysis-t142191/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectical-materialism-learning-t141552/index.html

And for the record I have never proclaimed my "expertise" in this area. I've offered arguments in these areas, evaluations, positions. I've claimed I admire Marx's extraction of the rational kernel. I've stated I adhere to the notion that there was a rational kernel in Hegel's dialectic, but I have never claimed to be an expert.

Why would I claim that? The issue isn't my expertise or lack of it, but what the actual material conditions of social reproduction are.

Right, I wouldn't say that to working mother, just as I didn't say that to you. I asked you to explain what makes those relations "dialectical."

So anyway, read through the threads and then perhaps you'll take the effort to defend your assertions.

[Book O'Dead]

Because you made the claim, and I suspect you don't know what you're talking about. Somebody told you, or you read somewhere that those relationships were "dialectical," and somebody else told you that a dialectic means "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" and you put them together, and voila! you decided you now understood what Marx really did when he extracted the rational kernel from Hegel's system.

Based on your lack of understanding of Marx's analysis of overproduction, I just bet you have the same lack of understanding when you talk about "dialectical relationships."

So go ahead and defend your assertion that those couplets exist in a dialectical relationship. Demonstrate that dialectic, because that's what Marx did in his analysis of capital as a social relation of production.

DM is sufficiently obscure to ensure that many will avow a "belief" in it even when they barely understand what they see.

Mind you, I am not an enemy of dialectics as one of several methods to partially illuminate reality. Please be clear on that. But "Dialectical Materialism" as such is inaccesible, inscrutable and something to be taken as an article of faith. And, as I understand it, in Science as in Marxism there are no articles of faith.

[ZeroNowhere]

Eh, dialectics is probably one of the simpler aspects of Marxist theory, to be honest.

[citizen of industry]

As a strong admirer, and adherent, to Marx's use of dialectic, I'll ask you to describe the dialectic that exists in the couplets you list above.

I read through the links but it is mostly bickering and an extremely wide array of differing opinions. What were the couplets I listed? capitalism - communism, bourgeoisie - proletariat, overproduction - underconsumption, revolution?

There has been a lot of debate around the underconsumption issue and how it is not the cause of periodical crisis, but rather accumulation of capital and an inability to further exploit labour. I'll buy that, and I'm still studying and digesting the theory, but it is a simple way to look at things. So I'll attempt to defend the "dialectic" in the other couplets, using knowledge I've acquired about Hegel's dialectics from sources other than Hegel.

Hegel shows negation: everything turns into it's opposite and dies. Then comes a negation of the negation, a positive. Feudalism -- Capitalism -- Socialism. childhood -- youth, maturity, age. Life is movement through contradictions, the identity, unity and interpretation of opposites. Is this what you mean by the "rational kernel?" The couplets I listed are opposites, and it is in that sense I pointed them out as "dialectical." I was not trying to make a sweeping statement defining historical materialism, something like, "So Marx jammed capitalist society into Hegel's framework, and said 'there you go, revolution is inevitable.'" That would be faith.

An organized proletariat is extremely powerful and capable of revolution, but I never said it was inevitable. I said if there is no revolution, there could be barbarism. I used a statement from the manifesto and one from Luxemburg to justify this claim. You disagree, on the grounds that the mode of production are the same - it would still be capitalism. Someone dismissed the manifesto as a propaganda piece and said Luxemburg was basing her conclusions on a faulty economic theory Fine. You also don't envision a world made uninhabitable through human destruction of the environment. Okay. You also don't see an inevitable crash of the capitalist mode of production based on it's internal contradictions, right? That it is adaptable?

I have a question. Capitalism takes advantage of the cheap labor in developing countries, but it also has a tendency to develop each country. So theoretically the market for cheap labor should always be contracting. That would seem to indicate some sort of future crisis in the works. A capitalist told me that is true, but as some countries develop, others will decline, and their roles would be reversed. Capitalism on a global scale could adapt, nations would decline. He cited China as a country on the up, and Japan and the US as countries in decline - people would be willing to work for less, wages would rise in China, for example, and China would invest in Japan to take advantage of a now cheaper workforce. An endless cycle of capitalism, probably with a lot of war to boot.

Help me poke a hole in that one.

[S.Artesian]

[QUOTE=sailorjay;2222341]I read through the links but it is mostly bickering and an extremely wide array of differing opinions. What were the couplets I listed? capitalism - communism, bourgeoisie - proletariat, overproduction - underconsumption, revolution?

There has been a lot of debate around the underconsumption issue and how it is not the cause of periodical crisis, but rather accumulation of capital and an inability to further exploit labour. I'll buy that, and I'm still studying and digesting the theory, but it is a simple way to look at things. So I'll attempt to defend the "dialectic" in the other couplets, using knowledge I've acquired about Hegel's dialectics from sources other than Hegel.

Hegel shows negation: everything turns into it's opposite and dies. Then comes a negation of the negation, a positive. Feudalism -- Capitalism -- Socialism. childhood -- youth, maturity, age. Life is movement through contradictions, the identity, unity and interpretation of opposites. Is this what you mean by the "rational kernel?" The couplets I listed are opposites, and it is in that sense I pointed them out as "dialectical." I was not trying to make a sweeping statement defining historical materialism, something like, "So Marx jammed capitalist society into Hegel's framework, and said 'there you go, revolution is inevitable.'" That would be faith.

Hegel does not show that everything turns into its opposite and dies. Hegel is attempting to provide a history, so to speak of the development of the human being, but Hegel being Hegel and the times being the times, its an alienated history, an idealist abstraction where the humanity is conceived as a consciousness, a spirt, a thought. Hegel's "history" then is an attempt at recording, following the development of that consciousness into self-consciousness.

The rational kernel that Marx extracts is not the telos of Hegel's presentation, the "purposefulness" of history as the product of human consciousness "journeying" to self-consciousnes, but rather that human history is created by human beings. And what is that creation? It begins with the human appropriation of nature. That appropriation of nature is not an individual effort, but always a process of social appropriation, of humans acting on nature through the mediation, the organization of their society. Labor is the appropriation of nature. Labor is a social process. Consequently the appropriation of nature becomes the appropriation of labor. And so the two great poles of Marx's investigation, property and labor, are retrieved from Hegel's abstraction.

When you say feudalism and capitalism are opposites, capitalism and communism, are opposites-- what does that mean, what exactly do you mean. Obviously, these are not logical opposites. The existence of one doesn't preclude, negate if you like, the existence of the other. What counts for Marx, what counts above all other things in analyzing the labor process is the mediation of that process, the exact social organization of the labor. The mediation represents the reproduction of the system, its expansion, and at the same time its limitations.

Consequently, the opposites Marx describes are not like opposites in physical sciences, or in elementary physical sciences-- like hot and cold, light and dark, etc. We are talking about social conditions, relations, not "states."

When Marx describes, identifies capital as a specific, historically determined relation of production, he is not arguing that capitalism is the opposite of feudalism, but that the development of the capitalist organization of social labor, the capitalist organization of property is antagonistic to the organization of feudal property.

When Marx describes capitalism as "contradiction in motion" he is stating that the mediations of its expansion, its ability to accumulate, become the limits to accumulation.

Communism isn't "opposite" capitalism, like the north pole of a magnet is opposite its south pole. The opposition exists in the antagonism of the social organization of labor to the existence of the means of production as private property. The antagonism is generated in and by the very origin and maintenance of capital.

It's not "thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis" that's going on, but expansion of the means of production as capital in order to aggrandize more surplus value, greater surplus value being capitalized as more means of production, greater means of production diminishing, relatively, the source of surplus value, the accumulation of capital then requiring more intense exploitation of labor in order to maintain the process of "reaccumulation" of valorizing all of capital in the production process.

Capital runs up the inside of the wall of the cage of its own making.

Stating that the couplets you produced are "dialectical" because they are opposites explains pretty much nothing, since you define "dialectical" as "opposite." What you need to do is explain the source for the antagonism, examine the mediation of the antagonism, and how it too becomes another obstacle to what was Marx's grasp of the real content of history-- the development of human society through the labor process.

There is no telos in history as an abstraction. There is however a purpose in human, social labor, and that is the development of human social beings. The conflicts, antagonism, obstacles in and to that labor process give the study of history a purpose-- revolution.

That's as simple and condensed as I can make it.




An organized proletariat is extremely powerful and capable of revolution, but I never said it was inevitable. I said if there is no revolution, there could be barbarism. I used a statement from the manifesto and one from Luxemburg to justify this claim. You disagree, on the grounds that the mode of production are the same - it would still be capitalism. Someone dismissed the manifesto as a propaganda piece and said Luxemburg was basing her conclusions on a faulty economic theory Fine. You also don't envision a world made uninhabitable through human destruction of the environment. Okay. You also don't see an inevitable crash of the capitalist mode of production based on it's internal contradictions, right? That it is adaptable?

No, I don't see an inevitable crash as being identical to the end of capitalism. I don't see any such destruction or barbarism as occurring outside the mode of production, and reproduction that is capitalism. That's the difference. We're not going back to feudalism. We're not going ahead to Thunderdome-ism.


I have a question. Capitalism takes advantage of the cheap labor in developing countries, but it also has a tendency to develop each country. So theoretically the market for cheap labor should always be contracting. That would seem to indicate some sort of future crisis in the works. A capitalist told me that is true, but as some countries develop, others will decline, and their roles would be reversed. Capitalism on a global scale could adapt, nations would decline. He cited China as a country on the up, and Japan and the US as countries in decline - people would be willing to work for less, wages would rise in China, for example, and China would invest in Japan to take advantage of a now cheaper workforce. An endless cycle of capitalism, probably with a lot of war to boot.



Countries can replace others at the top of the capitalist heap-- the US replaced Britain. But it takes things like world wars and great depressions to effect such changes.

As for China.... half the population is tied to the rural economy. Average plot sizes are less than one hectare. China isn't going to replace anyone.... without an international revolution, that is.