Dialectical Materialism?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

What is this you call dialectical materialism?

I asked Rafiq about this, and was going to ask him again had he not blocked me for posting something about morality in his profile page.(which was not related in any way with dialectical materialism)

So, what the hell is dialectical materialism, why is it part of marxist theory?

[Hit The North]

Why don't you look at the existing thread on Revleft that deal with this issue?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Why don't you look at the existing thread on Revleft that deal with this issue?

Because that thread has been flooded with replies and it is easier for me to just make another one.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Here is a writing on dialectics by Bordiga. Actually, the quote in my sig. comes from it.

http://libcom.org/library/dialectical-method-amadeo-bordiga

[Caj]

Bordiga's text on dialectics, which Brosa Luxemburg posted above, is really good.

Also, this (http://www.anti-dialectics.co.uk/) site has a lot of critiques of dialectical materialism by an old revleft user (now banned) named Rosa Lichtenstein.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Bordiga's text on dialectics, which Brosa Luxemburg posted above, is really good.

Also, this (http://www.anti-dialectics.co.uk/) site has a lot of critiques of dialectical materialism by an old revleft user (now banned) named Rosa Lichtenstein.

GOOD link, CAJ. I agree with dialectical materialism, but this site provides really good critiques of it. The site helps me understand the other side and makes my theory stronger, honestly. I really support those guys. Best critics of dialectical materialism out there.

[Buttress]

GOOD link, CAJ. I agree with dialectical materialism, but this site provides really good critiques of it. The site helps me understand the other side and makes my theory stronger, honestly. I really support those guys. Best critics of dialectical materialism out there.

How does it make your theory stronger?

[Caj]

How does it make your theory stronger?

Dialectically.

[Valdyr]

Here is a writing on dialectics by Bordiga. Actually, the quote in my sig. comes from it.

http://libcom.org/library/dialectical-method-amadeo-bordiga

Excellent work.

Other "classics" include:

Anti-Duerhing by Engels
Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy by Engels
Philosophical Notebooks by Lenin (vol. 38 of collected works)
Materialism and Empirio-criticism by Lenin
Socialism and Philosophy by Labriola
Marx's doctoral dissertation

And more recent good works include:

In The Tracks of Historical Materialism by Perry Anderson
Dance of the Dialectic by Bertell Ollman
Marx's Ecology by John Bellamy Foster (despite the title)

Finally, I'd also recommend reading the work of the more "Hegelian" Marxists like Lukacs, Korsch, Marcuse, Adorno etc. as one of the great tasks of 21st century Marxism (in my view) is moving beyond the divide between "diamat" and ultra-Hegelian "Western Marxism."

[Mr. Natural]

TheRedAnarchist23, I'm a strong advocate of dialectics as understood and employed by Marx and Engels. Indeed, dialectics works with the organization, motion, and development of life and society as systemic processes, which they are. Dialectics get little respect these days, though, as does Marxism. Coincidence? No. Hegelian dialectics brought Marx's mind to life. Marx then "materialized" idealized Hegelian philosophy and dialectics, thereby bringing them to Earth and potential use, and the abandonment of dialectics is an abandonment of Marxism. The materialist dialectic was to be developed and brought to life, not abandoned.

Rosa Lichtenstein is a very bright, fanatic reductionist who lives to speciously attack dialectics. It used to be that any mention of dialectics anywhere on Revleft would immediately summon page upon page of reductionist philosophy and references accompanied by snide putdowns from her. Rosa L. lives to bury dialectics and I find her attitude and her contributions to be counterproductive--to put it euphemistically.

There should be no confusion as to the importance of dialectics to Marx and Engels. They defined dialectics as "the science of the general laws of the motion and development of nature, human society, and thought." (Anti-Duhring) So, according to Marx and Engels, to what are dialectics not essential?

Marx and Engels did not refer to "dialectical materialism," though. That term was independently developed later by both Georg Plekhanov (the original Russian Marxist) and Joseph Dietzgen, the autodidact Marxist tanner who lived in the US.

I strongly recommend that you read Bertell Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic (2003). He alone gets Marx's roots in Hegelian philosophy and dialectics right, and he writes to be understood by regular people.

My project is to apply the new sciences of organizational relations to the materialist dialectic and thereby bring it, Marxism, and revolutionary processes to life. I'll now depart this post to see what if anything develops.

My red-green best to you and your struggles in Portugal.

[Deicide]

Dialectics is mysticism, witchcraft, charlatanism, hocus pocus, a Houdini magic trick, baloney, etc. etc. Bite me.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Anti-D_For_Dummies%2001.htm

[Valdyr]

Dialectics is mysticism, witchcraft, charlatanism, hocus pocus, a Houdini magic trick, etc. etc. Bite me.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Anti-D_For_Dummies%2001.htm

Because we fans of dialectical philosophy have never heard of this website before.

Oh, if only the left would listen to Rosa Lichtenstein, we'd be saved!

[Deicide]

Because we fans of dialectical philosophy have never heard of this website before.

Oh, if only the left would listen to Rosa Lichtenstein, we'd be saved!

Hey asshole, have you considered that perhaps the OP hasn't seen it?

[Valdyr]

Hey asshole, have you considered that perhaps the OP hasn't seen it?

Hey mr. powers of observation, have you considered that it was already linked in post #5 and I just felt like pissing off an anti-dialectician?

[Deicide]

Hey mr. powers of observation, have you considered that it was already linked in post #5 and I just felt like pissing off an anti-dialectician?

I didn't read the entire thread before posting, otherwise I wouldn't of linked it, you slimy charlatan. I'm not surprised it was linked before my post. And FYI, my link is different from Caj's.

[Revolution starts with U]

I'm torn. I always enjoyed the way Rosa would just demolish her opponents in debate, using their own words nonetheless. And her pointing out of and critique of the mysticism found in much leftist philosophy is spot on.

But I can just through my own experience see that the liberation of the proletariat is the negation of the present society. It seems almost self-evident that capital lives off labor, forces everything it can into the labor/capital condition, and cuts labor off from any meaningful decision making, and that for labor to assert its autonomy means the end of the system and a growth into something wholly unrecognizable.

Now what I don't understand is how this is an iron law of all societies. Like.. were the plebs really the negation of patrician dominance? Were the urban merchants really the negation of feudal aristocracy? Were managerial priests really the negation of pastoral egalitarianism?

Idk.. ugh.. philosophy... hocus pocus... :confused:

[Tim Finnegan]

Now what I don't understand is how this is an iron law of all societies. Like.. were the plebs really the negation of patrician dominance? Were the urban merchants really the negation of feudal aristocracy? Were managerial priests really the negation of pastoral egalitarianism?
Dialectics doesn't have to involve too monolithic object-classes butting into each other until one of them falls over. That is, in fact, an undialectical understanding of class, because it poses class society as an accumulation of discrete objects related to each other only externally. The contradictions in question aren't between classes-as-things, but between humans-as-social producers, which is even in capitalism more complicated than the simple picture of "Class A vs. Class B".

[Mr. Natural]

In his plan outline for Dialectics of Nature, Engels referred to "Dialectics as the science of universal interconnection." Indeed, Hegelian philosophy and dialectics and Marx's and Engels' comprehension of life and society as systemic process--as interconnected systems in process--brought living relations to what had been viewed as life's collection of separate things.

So proletariat and bourgeoisie are dynamically related in their opposition within the system of capitalism. This is how Marx, Engels, and the materialist dialectic understand their relation, in marked contrast to Rosa L. and her pack of anti-dialecticians. Rosa L. and the varieties of formal logicians she rides with all wind up viewing life in various ways as a collection of separate things. Rosa L. and logic must ultimately have the proletariat and bourgeoisie "involve two monolithic object-classes butting into each other until one of them falls over," in Tim Finnegan's words.

The materialist dialectic of Marx and Engels understands life and society to be composed of both "things" and their relations. The materialist dialectic therefore embraces life, while the many forms of formal logic wind up considering things and relations as separate phenomena. This is death, not life, and this kind of anti-Marxian, anti-scientific crap is killing Marxism and the human future.

Anti-dialectics takes the life out of life, society, and Marxism. As Engels wrote, "We have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn [nature's] laws and apply them correctly." (Dialectics of Nature) To this I'll add his observation in Anti-Duhring that "there could be no question of building the laws of dialectics into nature, but of discovereing them in it and evolving them from it."

Marx and Engels knew we are natural beings who must learn to live naturally, and a Marxist dialectics informed by the new sciences of organizational relations -- unavailable to the two original Marxists -- would enable revolutionaries to design revolutionary processes out of capitalism into a realized human future.

That's the promise inherent in a developed scientific/philosophical materialist dialectic. The various forms of logic and Rosa L promise only to keep us in place: capitalism's place.

My red-green, dialectical best.

[Revolution starts with U]

Dialectics doesn't have to involve too monolithic object-classes butting into each other until one of them falls over. That is, in fact, an undialectical understanding of class, because it poses class society as an accumulation of discrete objects related to each other only externally. The contradictions in question aren't between classes-as-things, but between humans-as-social producers, which is even in capitalism more complicated than the simple picture of "Class A vs. Class B".

This makes perfect sense. But I still don't see how we can relate dialectics to anything but Capitalism.

Perhaps you could elaborate, with examples?

Like, from a dialectics view; how did Rome evolve from Res Publica to Imperator, or from Roman aristocracy in general, to fuedal aristocracy. These are all obviously quite marked differences, representing a sort of revolutionary (or at least counterrev) reorganization of society.

[Blake's Baby]

...
Now what I don't understand is how this is an iron law of all societies. Like.. were the plebs really the negation of patrician dominance? Were the urban merchants really the negation of feudal aristocracy? Were managerial priests really the negation of pastoral egalitarianism?
...

No.

I think this is a misunderstanding I'm afraid.

What were the contending classes in Antique Slavery? The patricians and the plebs, and particularly the slaves.

What was the revolutionary class in Antique Slavery, the class that embodied a new property form (new mode of exploitation)? That wasn't the plebs; the plebs didn't bring about the 'negation' of the patricians. It was the contradictions of Antique Slavery as a whole that caused the decay of the system; the new system (feudalism, based on military aristocracy and direct exploitation of the agricultural producers) was not the system of the plebs, but the sytem of the equites (knights) who emerged as the new ruling class and presided over feudalism, which was the solution to the economic problems of Antique Slavery.

Likewise, the urban merchants were not the negation of the aristocracy but the 'answer' to the negation (the peasants). Class struggle in the later Middle Ages was not between the aristocrats and the capitalists, but between the aristocrats and the peasantry. The capitalists were content to grow their economic power, until the controls of the feudal state could no longer contain them - feudalism became a fetter on capitalist development. That's when you get the 'English Civil War', French Revolution etc. After capitalism has already begun to develop.

[Revolution starts with U]

No.

I think this is a misunderstanding I'm afraid.

What were the contending classes in Antique Slavery? The patricians and the plebs, and particularly the slaves.

What was the revolutionary class in Antique Slavery, the class that embodied a new property form (new mode of exploitation)? That wasn't the plebs; the plebs didn't bring about the 'negation' of the patricians. It was the contradictions of Antique Slavery as a whole that caused the decay of the system; the new system (feudalism, based on military aristocracy and direct exploitation of the agricultural producers) was not the system of the plebs, but the sytem of the equites (knights) who emerged as the new ruling class and presided over feudalism, which was the solution to the economic problems of Antique Slavery.

Likewise, the urban merchants were not the negation of the aristocracy but the 'answer' to the negation (the peasants). Class struggle in the later Middle Ages was not between the aristocrats and the capitalists, but between the aristocrats and the peasantry. The capitalists were content to grow their economic power, until the controls of the feudal state could no longer contain them - feudalism became a fetter on capitalist development. That's when you get the 'English Civil War', French Revolution etc. After capitalism has already begun to develop.

Interesting. I was much mistaken. I thought the new ruling class was, in the former society, the negation of that society. Instead it is always the exploited class/es, with the new ruling class merely representing a sort of collaboration between elites (not in a formal conspiratorial sense... necessarily...) to keep some kind of class society in place.

This is interesting because while I was listening to a history of Rome podcast earlier I started to think to myself about the tension between the imperial state and the senatorial aristocracy. Sometimes it even seems that the Roman state sometimes came down on the side of the general populace, tho never in the case of property... and it seems that states often do this throughout history.
Now, I've always observed the state's primary function as to enforce ruling class society (even if I couldn't put it in those terms [which is even more strange because they're such simple terms... fuckin propaganda...]). And I started wondering to myself if this is, in fact, it's ONLY function; to pacify class antagonism.

Long story short, thanks for clearing that up Blake's :thumbup:

[Blake's Baby]

I think, as the situation is different now, that we tend to forget that the 'revolutionary' class in previous epochs is not the oppressed class; now, the proletariat is both the oppressed class, and the revolutionary class; because the proletariat has no more classes to exploit, unlike the bourgeoisie (which, through the development of capitalism, was able to oppress the proletariat) or the feudal aristocracy (which could oppress the peasants as feudalism emerged from Antique Slavery).

We're both oppressed, and the bearers of a new society; in previous epochs the bearers of the new society were themselves oppressors, because those new social forms were still class societies - just organised on a different basis.

[Revolution starts with U]

Like, from a dialectics view; how did Rome evolve from Res Publica to Imperator,

Ok so correct me where I am wrong.

Since the days of the defeat of the Latins the Roman state represented a collaboration between the plebs and patricians to protect their control of the surplus. During Roman conquest of Italy this system still proved stable at pacifying class antagonism, with only minor revolts and uprisings breaking out.
As the national state of Rome became an international empire the Senate no longer reflected the means by which elites can maintain their status as a ruling class. The import of slaves and move to urbanization had created a new relation to production, that of large slave estates and minor land owners in the countryside and a pre-industrial proletariat in the cities; often enlisted by various senators as partisans in exchange for a minor uplifting of their material situation. I would consider it more of a lumpen-prole, but the relationship of property-less laborer still stands.
The seeds of imperialism had already sown, finally coming to climax during the dictatorships of Marius and Sulla. The old regime simply couldn't contain the new system it had created, and various camps began to purge all opposition to their way of pacifying a revolutionary situation.

The Ceaser's, ever the public's champion :rolleyes:, represented a clear way of dealing with this new situation by giving the proles something to do while simultaneously keeping the senators fat as ever; enlist the city-folk in the army and/or as public laborers. Obviously imperial Rome, for all its faults, was able to maintain a vast empire for 4-500 years. Even with all its infighting and later reforms, it still represented the same mode created in the early days of the Ceasers.

Yes?

[Revolution starts with U]

So the idea is that private property inherently means minority power, and the bourgeoisie spreads itself into all corners of society. The bourgeoisie attempt to make all relationships an owner/worker/buyer relationship, ultimately. So these worker/buyers become the majority population whose revolution has no class below it which to sustain itself as a ruling class. If there is to be a proletariat revolution, it must necessarily be the end of class society.

Correct?

[Blake's Baby]

You know more about the politics of the later Republic than I do; but that all looks pretty convincing. I'd have to go over it and consider more carefully.

On the question of minority rule, class societies and the proletarian revolution necessarily bringing about the end of the class system - yes. If it's successful of course.

[Tim Finnegan]

It's also important to remember just how weird the Roman state got during the imperial period, as a political formation, basically taking a Classical dictatorship and an Eastern despotate and ramming them together in a not-so-elegant fashion. This produced certain additional, "external" tensions in the Empire, i.e. not internal to a given mode of production, that interacted with those internal contradictions in ways that are not always obvious, and are usually bloody confusing.

The upshot of this is is twofold: Firstly, that in the West, there was not simple transition from classical slavery to feudalism, but about four hundred years of meandering, so you get proto-feudal landlordism in the late Empire, while under the Carolingian Empire mass-slavery was still common on many European estates. (There's also been a suggestion that the Carolingian knight was a service-aristocrat, rather than a landowner, but it's still debated.) Only with the collapse of the Carolingian Empire and the emergence of the mounted warrior as the only real source of political authority in Western Europe do we see feudalism proper.
Secondly, that in the East, there was no transition to feudalism at all, with the Byzantine state (which encompassed areas of both "Asiatic despotism" and Classical slavery) developing a tributary mode similar to that found in China, in which the bureaucracy and military formed a "service aristocracy", supported by the land but dispossessed of any access to it except via the state. It's not enough, in my mind, to attribute this to the despotism of the Levant somehow "swamping" the slavery of the Greeks, especially given that the two had coexisted since Alexander's day with no apparent suggestion that this would occur, but rather that the aforementioned "external forces" interacted with the internal motion of slave society in the East as to produce a different resolution to its contradictions than in the West.

The take-away message here being that the movement between different modes of production is not linear and , and that societies may have a number of "options" before them, which they "choose" based on the specific arrangement of factors at a given point in time. Only with capitalism, with its ultimately (albeit sometimes slowly) totalising tendency, can we make a definite claim about what must follow, because only with capitalism do we find such a stark and generalised confrontation of exploiter and exploited.

(It's possible that didn't make much sense, so don't hesitate to poke holes in it.)

[Blake's Baby]

Well, all these definitions are a bit hazy, but I don't have a problem with the Carolingian Empire being feudal, nor do I have a problem with Byzantium being a kind of 'state feudalism'. The point in both cases is a military service political structure with a tributary/service (expropriation of peasant/tied farmers) economic base. The forms they took were somewhat different but the underlying basis was similar.