Is communism the end of the dialectic?

[edwad]

I know there's another dialectical materialism thread right now, but it's not really answering any of my questions, and it's already spiraled downward into god knows what so I'm just going to make a new one. I'll go ahead and say that I don't know much about dialectics (I know the basics) and i find it easy enough to argue for communism without having to bring dialectical materialism so i've just never cared to learn more than i had to, but one thing has bothered me for awhile. from what i understand, the whole point of dialectics is that everything is in motion, but at what point does the dialectic end? is that at communism? what I've read told me that theres a basic formula thats something like 1. primitive communism (thesis); 2. hierarchical societies (antithesis); 3. communism (synthesis), but why does it end there? shouldn't the synthesis become a new thesis for the next triad? doesn't it eventually create this long chain of triads where each outcome is the beginning to another outcome?

and another thing! the wikipedia page for dialectical materialism had characteristics about each stage of the triad that i mentioned earlier and it looked something like this:

thesis - primitive communism


equality
no wealth


antithesis - hierarchical societies


inequality
wealth


synthesis - final communism


equality
wealth


i understand whats happened in this model, where two opposites compromise and form the synthesis, but why wasn't the outcome inequality and no wealth? isn't there a forth, unexplained possible side to the dialectic where the outcome ISN'T communism? and what if we had that same formula but plugged in a third characteristic for each society so that it actually looked like this:

thesis - primitive communism


equality
no wealth
characteristic X


antithesis - hierarchical societies


inequality
wealth
no characteristic X


synthesis - final communism


equality
wealth
characteristic X


wouldn't there then be even more possible outcomes to the dialectic than that (inequality,no wealth,characteristic X; equality,wealth,no characteristic X; inequality,no wealth,no characteristic X)? which one is inevitable and how do we know?

maybe this is what i get for trying to learn about this from wikipedia, but if someone could clear things up for me, i'd appreciate it.

[Red Economist]

from what i understand, the whole point of dialectics is that everything is in motion, but at what point does the dialectic end? is that at communism?

Communism is supposed to be the end product of historical development. economically, society continues to change- but, yes, communism is meant to be the final organization of socioeconomic activity.


what I've read told me that theres a basic formula thats something like 1. primitive communism (thesis); 2. hierarchical societies (antithesis); 3. communism (synthesis), but why does it end there? shouldn't the synthesis become a new thesis for the next triad? doesn't it eventually create this long chain of triads where each outcome is the beginning to another outcome?

Communism is the product of the law of 'negation of negation'; what is negated by communism is the class nature of society arising from the division of labor, which in turn negated the classless character of primitive communism.
The division of labour develops as a result of technological specialization in the means of production; due to the limits of the technology and the productivity of labor, people simply don't have the time to learn how to do everything, so you end up with the division of mental and physical labour; some people specialize at producing everything we need as a society to live, whilst others specialize in organizing society.
The group doing the organizing (the ruling class) has to 'exploit' the group doing the producing (the working class) so that they can survive. The ability of a society to produce new socioeconomic formations is dependent on the existence of these antagonistic classes, so under communism without the dialectic of class struggle, no new socioeconomic formations can be produced. Only societies based on exploitation, with a ruling class and an exploited class can have 'social revolutions'.

Communism, as a classless society, cannot therefore have a revolution and is therefore the last socioeconomic formation in human history.


wouldn't there then be even more possible outcomes to the dialectic than that (inequality,no wealth,characteristic X; equality,wealth,no characteristic X; inequality,no wealth,no characteristic X)? which one is inevitable and how do we know?

How do we know? well, that's the bummer, I would say don't for certain. As a theory, this is all extremely dependent on dialectical philosophy actually reflecting real, objective processes in society and there is alot of discussion as to whether Marxist conception of history is a philosophy or a science; those who argue science say that it is 'true' and represent the more orthodox position (late 19th century 'orthodox' Marxism, Marxism-Leninism etc.) , the others (including myself) are a little more skeptical and represent a tradition representing 'western Marxism' (like the Frankfurt school and-I think possibly- Antonio Gramsci).
Dialectical materialism is technically a dogma from the current scientific point of view, unless you accept a scientific methodology based on the practice (which I find a bit problematic as I am still a bit of an 'idealist' because it seems unlikely that Marxism can exactly reflect real conditions). The problem starts with whether the current scientific methodology represents a class ideology and hence how 'objective' the truth discovered is.

Personally, I've never been able to figure out why you would get three societies (slave owning, feudal and capitalist) that are exploiting to achieve the 'anti-thesis' to only one- primitive communism- as this doesn't make a lot of sense dialectically.

A third characteristic is possible, but broadly speaking- Marxism tries to deal with whether their is a class society and exploitation (equality/inequality) and at level of economic development (no wealth/wealth) a society is. I think this is because the transformation of economic accumulation leads to social change is a result of the law of transformation of quantity into quality, which is why a third characteristic is probably not included.

In response to the failure of communism to produce a socially harmonious society, it was discussed whether fact communism actually represented a new exploiting society, with a new ruling class (with a new form of 'proletariat' doing all the hard work). It really took everyone by surprise that the theory didn't work and quite alot of intellectual reasoning to get away from the more orthodox position that the USSR etc, were 'socialist' and 'classless' (or had no antagonistic classes because it wasn't an exploiting society).
This debate belongs to the Anti-Stalinist (e.g. the Trotskyists) and the Anti-Leninist (e.g. left communism, social democratic) tendencies within Marxism, who accuse the USSR and those that followed of being a 'bureaucratic' state (or 'state capitalist') representing a managerial or bureaucratic class who have to exploit the workers, rather than a worker's state. The difference between the anti-leninist and anti-stalinist positions is over when the USSR became a 'problem' for the working class.

A decent example of this approach is James Burnham's The Managerial revolution, who was an inspiration for Orwell's 1984 and deals with most of the problems that come up in this area in a fairly logical way. Burnham rejected dialectical materialism as 'metaphysics' and basically developed a 'Marxian' theory of totalitarianism. he became a strong influence on America conservatives and anti-communists who adopted his ideas because it fitted many of these own;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burnham#The_Managerial_Revolution

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

I would like to add that while it may be considered as the end of the dialectic, dialectics itself is a product of its time, a human creation bound by the historical restrictions placed on the thought process from which it arose.


Only when the dusk starts to fall does the owl of Minerva spread its wings and fly.

[motion denied]

First off, your avatar is soo cute. :o

The view of marxian dialectics as "thesis + antithesis -> synthesis" is all too schematic. Perhaps "unitary movement of opposites, formed by parts and constituent of the totality with continuities and discontinuities" would be better. However, I'm not well versed in philosophy.

The dialectic doesn't end. The very notion of human praxis is dialectical (subject x object). What ends with capitalism is class struggle and the labour x capital antinomy.



understand whats happened in this model, where two opposites compromise and form the synthesis, but why wasn't the outcome inequality and no wealth? isn't there a forth, unexplained possible side to the dialectic where the outcome ISN'T communism? and what if we had that same formula but plugged in a third characteristic for each society so that it actually looked like this:

The overcoming of capitalism towards communist society is an historical possibility. Stating that the contradictions of capitalism will inevitably end up in communism is teleological non-sense; even worse if this is covered by some "dialectical" obscurantism.

Sorry if this post is unclear, confused and most likely unhelpful. Things are not clear to me either.

[Comrade #138672]

No. Communism is merely the end of class struggle, which is just one example of dialectics.

[DOOM]

The overcoming of capitalism towards communist society is an historical possibility. Stating that the contradictions of capitalism will inevitably end up in communism is teleological non-sense; even worse if this is covered by some "dialectical" obscurantism.

But it's the only possibility, isn't it? A society wouldn't just decay into an older mode of production. So What other possibility would we have, besides "stagnating" in capitalism?

[bryantsisto]

Communism can lead to tired people. Since people will get a share of what the wealthy ones have. Then everyone can sit back and relax.