Why Marx(ism) and not anarchism? [Archive]

AmilcarCabral

2nd April 2014, 18:23

Because even though both ideologies (marxism and anarchism) have as a goal a communist-anarchist political system, without governments, without money, without borders, without armed forces, without police forces, where people would walk into Wal Marts (but without cashiers) where they would take a cart and pick every thing they need from the shelves at will. The problem I see with the philosophy of anarchism is that it aims to overthrow capitalist governments and then right away replace them with anarchist-communist systems in a relatively short amount of time

While marxists have that same goal, marxists realize that there needs a period of evolution of humans evolving mentally, emotionally, spiritually, culturally, philosophically and psychologically into more rational, more altruists, more optimists, healthier, stronger humans so that humans can evolve from the present egocentrical weak negative depressive sad humans toward totally hyper-motivated, optimists, positive, loving, compassionate humble, generous altruistic rational and advanced humans (post-humans if you wanna call it like that) so that humans wouldn't have unchecked appetites, apathy, narcissism, depression, weakness, paranoia, bipolar disorders, borderline disorders, psychopathy, sociopathy and many other mental disorders that millions of humans have as natural behaviour in capitalist societies.

Because do this: try to apply right now in USA this system full of big supermarkets like Wal Marts but without cashiers where people would be able to take shopping carts and take every thing they need. Right now if people do that, they would grab all the computers and all the food in that store's shelves and that anarchist-communist gift-economic system would grind to a halt (because people are not mentally prepared to live in that super-advanced futuristic super modern system

Another goal of the *dictatorship of the workers* (the stage between the end of capitalist governments and the beginning of communist-anarchism) is the destruction of the private sector, and the prevention of the private sector to overthrow the new socialist dictatorship of the workers, along with many other objectives like increasing the amount of industries, food, water electricity, universities, schools, etc. and many other basic needs that the former-overthrown capitalist governments couldn't provide to poor people..

So having all this, i think its real hard to overthrow capitalist governments and then move right away to anarchist-communist system without the temporary phase between the end of capitalism and the beginning of communist-anarchism (the dictatorship of the workers)

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Being that Marx is 'big' among leftists, I wonder why do people accept his ideas.

I understand socialism as having as it's base worker control over production, and I see as a logical derivation of that, and indeed a correlate to it- a general idea of libertarianism, in the sense that Dejacque, the coiner of the term, had in mind, so, in the sense, as Goldman said- "a striving for emancipation economic, social, political and spiritual of the human race". For me, the real leftism and real revolutiunary movement is that with aims at worker control over production, people's control over community, and a society based on free association.

Coming from that perspective I don't really see the appeal of Marx or marxism. It's view of history seems to me irrelevant, the class analysis confused and in it's totality unsocialist. I see the authoriatian marxist tradition as simply reactionary and anti-socialist, and the left marxist tradition as confused, or least they they confuse me and I'm projecting, and the confusing question there is why don't they simply go anarchist.

There are here and there bits and pieces in the voluminous work of Marx that have the sound of libertarian socialism about them, but I don't see that as any reason to accept Marx or marxism, being that such ideas that sporadically and vaguely surface in his works are found in abundance and clear form in the anarchist tradition.

Can someone give me some simple rational arguments as to why should a person of libertarian socialist sentiment or any left-leaning person accept Marx or marxism (and not anarchism)?

Sinister Intents

2nd April 2014, 18:37

Because even though both ideologies (marxism and anarchism) have as a goal a communist-anarchist political system, without governments, without money, without borders, without armed forces, without police forces, where people would walk into Wal Marts (but without cashiers) where they would take a cart and pick every thing they need from the shelves at will. The problem I see with the philosophy of anarchism is that it aims to overthrow capitalist governments and then right away replace them with anarchist-communist systems in a relatively short amount of time

Indeed the communist Marxists and anarchist share the same end results. Generally they disagree on semantics of situations, but anarchists in some cases have ideas regarding the overthrowal of the state that doesn't necessarily disagree with Marxist and Leninist thought. Some anarchists do in fact see the need for some kind of transitional period or transitional state. I for one am one of very few anarchists that agree with Lenin's idea of the DotP to an extent, I believe in a modified version of it, but it doesn't deviate too much, and you must understand that I started at Leninism when I became a communist, and I realize I get moments of cognitive dissonance because I agree with both Marxists and anarchists, but mostly the anarchists. What I'm getting at is there are anarchists who see the need for a transitional period to defend against counter revolution and eventually destroy the class system and the state once and for all. To establish a better society without statism, class systems, castes, horrible divides between people, and to eliminate money and create a gift economy predicated on mutual aid.

While marxists have that same goal, marxists realize that there needs a period of evolution of humans mentally, emotionally, spiritually, culturally, philosophically and psychologically so that humans can evolve from the present egocentrical humans toward totally altruistic rational and advanced humans (post-humans if you wanna call it like that) so that humans wouldn't have unchecked appetites, apathy, narcissism, depression, weakness, paranoia, bipolar disorders, borderline disorders, psychopathy, sociopathy and many other mental disorders that millions of humans have as natural behaviour in capitalist societies.

See above, also once capitalism and patriarchy are eliminated the roots of the problems we endure in society will be torn from the ground and violently burned to death so that these issues may never plague us again. Eliminate the roots and we'll see these issues fade away, but there will remain those with issues who can be treated and helped, so that problems don't arise and they can live a happy and fulfilling life. Some disorders happen as the results of genetics and these can be helped.

Another goal of the *dictatorship of the workers* (the stage between the end of capitalist governments and the beginning of communist-anarchism) is the destruction of the private sector, and the prevention of the private sector to overthrow the new socialist dictatorship of the workers, along with many other objectives like increasing the amount of industries, food, water electricity, universities, schools, etc. and many other basic needs that the former-overthrown capitalist governments couldn't provide to poor people..

Okay, again I don't necessarily disagree with the DotP or other methods that communists and anarchists seek to use, mostly they're semantical arguments, and some can be seen as situational, and we'll truly see what happens in the future. If and when we get there.

So having all this, i think its real hard to overthrow capitalist governments and then move right away to anarchist-communist system without the temporary phase between the end of capitalism and the beginning of communist-anarchism (the dictatorship of the workers)

Indeed it'll be a very arduous and taxing process on the proletariat of the world, but it'll be very wonderful once it's attained for all of the people.

synthesis

2nd April 2014, 18:50

I would like to find things that are like "Marxism Simplified" but not to a point where it's ridiculous/inaccurate.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism

AmilcarCabral

2nd April 2014, 18:54

Sinister: Hi, there is a sociologist called Virillo who writes about the urban planning, the architecture of capitalist nations. Even the urban planning, architecture, and many other physical infrastructures and technologies need to be reformed or destroyed by the workers-dictatorship. Like for example, there is an excess of ultra-individualist actions planned by US capitalist planners like for example "self service" gas stations, the ultra-egocentric form of transportation of USA (SUVs, tall vehicles), the zero public parks, the zero public areas in US cities, the zero collective activites, the zero community neighborhoods gatherings (except churches), but there is a catch-22 with the american christian churches, because most christian churches of USA are part of capitalist-christianity and not christian-communists, and religious-communism.

They are great places for social activities, but at the same time they are bad places as well, because most US capitalist-right-wing christian churches preach a right-wing imperialism capitalism christianity.

And many many other things that you see in USA in the infracstructures of USA, in the roads, buildings, highways and physical structures of the whole country that promote in an extremist way an Ayn Rand Tea Party ultra-narcissistic philosophy of life

So having said all this: I think that the workers-dictatorship needs to build more collective things in order to promote love between all the citizens of any nation like trains, more buses, less cars. More public parks, public gyms, more public movie theaters, more book fairs, and more public collective cultural activities.

More human touch, more social contact between people

.

Indeed the communist Marxists and anarchist share the same end results. Generally they disagree on semantics of situations, but anarchists in some cases have ideas regarding the overthrowal of the state that doesn't necessarily disagree with Marxist and Leninist thought. Some anarchists do in fact see the need for some kind of transitional period or transitional state. I for one am one of very few anarchists that agree with Lenin's idea of the DotP to an extent, I believe in a modified version of it, but it doesn't deviate too much, and you must understand that I started at Leninism when I became a communist, and I realize I get moments of cognitive dissonance because I agree with both Marxists and anarchists, but mostly the anarchists. What I'm getting at is there are anarchists who see the need for a transitional period to defend against counter revolution and eventually destroy the class system and the state once and for all. To establish a better society without statism, class systems, castes, horrible divides between people, and to eliminate money and create a gift economy predicated on mutual aid.

See above, also once capitalism and patriarchy are eliminated the roots of the problems we endure in society will be torn from the ground and violently burned to death so that these issues may never plague us again. Eliminate the roots and we'll see these issues fade away, but there will remain those with issues who can be treated and helped, so that problems don't arise and they can live a happy and fulfilling life. Some disorders happen as the results of genetics and these can be helped.

Okay, again I don't necessarily disagree with the DotP or other methods that communists and anarchists seek to use, mostly they're semantical arguments, and some can be seen as situational, and we'll truly see what happens in the future. If and when we get there.

Indeed it'll be a very arduous and taxing process on the proletariat of the world, but it'll be very wonderful once it's attained for all of the people.

Art Vandelay

2nd April 2014, 19:04

Generally they disagree on semantics of situations, but anarchists in some cases have ideas regarding the overthrowal of the state that doesn't necessarily disagree with Marxist and Leninist thought. Some anarchists do in fact see the need for some kind of transitional period or transitional state.

Anarchists and Marxists don't just quibble over semantics, there are very real differences between the two bodies of thought. No anarchist supports the notion of a transitional state, if they do, they aren't an anarchist.

Sinister Intents

2nd April 2014, 19:18

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism

Wikipedia isn't a great source, he could simply ask the Marxists here like Remus Bleys, 9mm, and so on for a simplified idea of Marxist thought, et cetera.

Sinister: Hi, there is a sociologist called Virillo who writes about the urban planning, the architecture of capitalist nations. Even the urban planning, architecture, and many other physical infrastructures and technologies need to be reformed or destroyed by the workers-dictatorship. Like for example, there is an excess of ultra-individualist actions planned by US capitalist planners like for example "self service" gas stations, the ultra-egocentric form of transportation of USA (SUVs, tall vehicles), the zero public parks, the zero public areas in US cities, the zero collective activites, the zero community neighborhoods gatherings (except churches), but there is a catch-22 with the american christian churches, because most christian churches of USA are part of capitalist-christianity and not christian-communists, and religious-communism.

I see what you're saying, but the way you word things makes it difficult on someone with Asperger's and FLD. This egotism and other problems are a result of conditioning from the capitalist institutions such as schools and churches. Get them while they're yound indoctrinate them, and trim them into future employees, rather than train them useful life skills and allowing them to go their way and follow their own interests et cetera. So many different methods exist to normalize capitalist bullshit to people, for example advertising such as commercials and the like. They're not only trying to get you to buy products, they're subliminally selling you ideas or rather bluntly putting reactionary thought down to perpetuate it. As communists we're going to have a difficult struggle to attack these measures the capitalists are utilizing to destroy class consciousness and to normalize this parasitic system that is literally destroying us and this world.

They are great places for social activities, but at the same time they are bad places as well, because most US capitalist-right-wing christian churches preach a right-wing imperialism capitalism christianity.

I believe that as communists we must attack the religious institutions, for Christianity and related Abrahamic religions have been used to justify the system and slavery of the past and is today being used to justify the current state of things. Organized religion is harmful to socialist thought and must be vehemently opposed, but personal religion that harms no one is alright, for it is that person's choice to adhere to said religion, whichever it may be. At the current churches and such places are places of indoctrination and they breed reactionary thought. Give them a god and you control the masses, give them something else to focus on rather than the present state of things. Religion is quite literally the opiate of the masses, its addicting and draws people's attention away and they focus on their superstitions and fears, such as fear of the god's wrath or hell.

And many many other things that you see in USA in the infracstructures of USA, in the roads, buildings, highways and physical structures of the whole country that promote in an extremist way an Ayn Rand Tea Party ultra-narcissistic philosophy of life

I wouldn't say it's necessarily the infrastructure of the USA, it's more how they're marketing things to us. From our youth we're inundated with trash in advertising that promotes a variety of things from sexist gender roles et cetera.

So having said all this: I think that the workers-dictatorship needs to build more collective things in order to promote love between all the citizens of any nation like trains, more buses, less cars. More public parks, public gyms, more public movie theaters, more book fairs, and more public collective cultural activities. More human touch, more social contact between people

Indeed we need to collectivize and communize many things, we need to spread a large variety of things and ideas, but I feel this will come with raising class consciousness and fighting the system and promoting socialist thought among proletarians and other people who'll align with the proletariat. We're bound to have millionaires and other bourgeois people assist in the revolution and dismantle the capitalist machine.

Sinister Intents

2nd April 2014, 19:21

Anarchists and Marxists don't just quibble over semantics, there are very real differences between the two bodies of thought. No anarchist supports the notion of a transitional state, if they do, they aren't an anarchist.

I understand this comrade, I mean that there are anarchists who have other ideas in mind that would take the place of the idea of the DotP and would probably function similarly to it to prevent counter revolution et cetera. I know there are differences and not just semantical differences, I'm just trying to be quick in my posts while I get ready to head to school tonight, so I'd add more to elaborate, but I haven't really the time to do so at this time.

Brutus

2nd April 2014, 19:24

I believe that as communists we must attack the religious institutions, for Christianity and related Abrahamic religions have been used to justify the system and slavery of the past and is today being used to justify the current state of things. Organized religion is harmful to socialist thought and must be vehemently opposed, but personal religion that harms no one is alright, for it is that person's choice to adhere to said religion, whichever it may be. At the current churches and such places are places of indoctrination and they breed reactionary thought. Give them a god and you control the masses, give them something else to focus on rather than the present state of things. Religion is quite literally the opiate of the masses, its addicting and draws people's attention away and they focus on their superstitions and fears, such as fear of the god's wrath or hell.

We should take away their privileges, but we shouldn't attack them. What we need to do is to abolish the conditions that make people turn to religion- poverty, economic uncertainty, etc.- and bring heaven down to earth (for lack of a better term). To call for people to give up their illusions first requires the abolition of the conditions that make these illusions necessary.

Sinister Intents

2nd April 2014, 19:35

We should take away their privileges, but we shouldn't attack them. What we need to do is to abolish the conditions that make people turn to religion- poverty, economic uncertainty, etc.- and bring heaven down to earth (for lack of a better term). To call for people to give up their illusions first requires the abolition of the conditions that make these illusions necessary.

Indeed this is very true, I should be more clear in that I'm talking about attacking things like the Vatican and large relgious institutions. Though I'm probably not very clear to begin with :( but I try, I'm sure I'll be more eloquent and accurate in my politics in time

synthesis

2nd April 2014, 20:02

Wikipedia isn't a great source, he could simply ask the Marxists here like Remus Bleys, 9mm, and so on for a simplified idea of Marxist thought, et cetera.

Uh, I'm a Marxist as well, I've been reading Marx for about 14 years and I think it's a decent introductory article that explains the core concepts of Marxism in a way that is both accessible and unbiased.

Wikipedia is generally a great source as long as you know how to read it critically and look into the citations and so on. "Simple English" Wikipedia is pretty good for getting started on a subject.

Sinister Intents

2nd April 2014, 20:06

Uh, I'm a Marxist as well, I've been reading Marx for about 14 years and I think it's a decent introductory article that explains the core concepts of Marxism in a way that is both accessible and unbiased.

Wikipedia is generally a great source as long as you know how to read it critically and look into the citations and so on. "Simple English" Wikipedia is pretty good for getting started on a subject.

Ahhhh alright, sorry comrade. Also I didn't know you were a Marxist :o
I've been constantly told not to use and trust Wikipedia as a source, and I barely use it as a source. I'm probably just forgetting how useful it is, I used to go on a lot and read on different things, until it got blocked in high school and people couldn't use it because of the teachers. I should probably look at that page.

Slavoj Zizek's Balls

2nd April 2014, 20:51

Read Marx and Engels, ignore Marxism (in terms of adopting an ideology, but appropriating useful analyses is a good idea) and integrate what you learn with your general world view. An anti-authoritarian view of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is absolutely fine, especially if you read Marx's 'Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy'. Also I suggest you take a look at Communisation Theory as well as the journal 'Aufheben'.

PhoenixAsh

2nd April 2014, 21:37

This conflict between Anarchists and Communists has been best represented in the first "socialist revolution" which is the rise of the Paris Commune. Sure, having the common enemies of democratic liberalism, reactionary monarchism, and fervent nationalism, the two factions seemed to have a lot in common. But the significant differences were almost immediately shown in just setting up the administration over Paris. It showed the problems with Anarchism.

Wauw. Gluckstein much?

Actually...you need to actually clarify WHY it showed the problem was with Anarchism rather than anything else. And then you need to explain how the failure of the commune was directly related to anarchism and not to the "communists". Now you are just giving us an opinion based on the fact that you think a government was the solution:

Firstly, there is no revolutionary strategy to Anarchists. Hence their name. What they want is simply Anarchy, which basically means pre-Civilization. Making it almost a left-wing version of extreme primitivism. Once the Communist branch of this revolutionary regime started working on the formation of a new government the Anarchist side was immediately opposed, causing an inner schism in the Commune before it was reclaimed by the bourgeois Third Republic of France.

I like how you just totally make up a definition of anarchism which is derived from Greek and quite literally translates as: "without rulers".

So we could just as well conclude that IF the "communists" hadn't enforced a government in their image then there would have been no problem. And the opinion that the "government" was actually the problem is equally valid as the opinion that anarchism was the problem.

Rather I think the situation is far more complex than this.

Most of what you call anarchists were Proudhonists....and even though later Marxists, especially the authoritarian once, tried to distance Marxism from Proudhonism, and they do have significant differences, they are remarkably similar and Marx was in fact heavily influenced by Proudhon. Because you use what is useful and throw away what is not (answering OP). The main criticism of the commune was not exactly government itself. It was the way government was organized as an exact copy of bourgeois government and wasn't revolutionary in its form of organization and made it too bureaucratic and isolated from the revolutionary forces within the commune.

THIS is entirely different from rejecting government as you claim.

Secondly, there's no unifying factor between Anarchists. Now sure, people are simply different and that doesn't change between Communists. But at least ideologies like Communism, neo-Fascism, Capitalism, etc. are united by the agreement in a certain form of managing the means of production. The umbrella-term "Anarchist" can mean Anarcho-Capitalist, Anarcho-Socialist, or even National Anarchist for all we know. There's no reliance that they would have anything nearer to socialist, nor further from chaos, assuming they could unite well enough on their own to even take the government.

:blink:

And yet...Anarchists know EXACTLY what differences there are and you are starting to sound like you haven't actually read anything substantial on Anarchism

Again...most Anarchists within the commune where Proudhonists which knew EXACTLY how they wanted to organize the economy. Like most of the French members (overwhelmingly Proudhonists by the way) were federalist collectivists favoring decentralized collective ownership and workplace associations.

Finally, counter to your statement that Marxism "in practice" is "authoritarian," and "anti-socialist." Well Anarchism in practice has largely been either political assassins, terrorists, or just severely unrecognized, but nonetheless fanatic, activists proposing an end to government and no solution. Besides, dictatorships like the USSR, China, DPRK, and Vietnam abandoned Marxism arguably during the revolution itself. Now today, the USSR literally fell to free enterprise under Gorbachev, while China and Vietnam are just state-sponsored "socialist markets" and the DPRK is just Asian fascism gone real sour.

Really? So basically you are just lumping all the different strands of anarchism together and distill one common node of activism from that? Ignoring the organizing of trade unions, movements and mass protests ... most anarchists know pretty well what they want to do and how they want to organize society.

You need to read up on some Anarchism. Start here: http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.html

So there is no relationship between State-Capitalist dictatorships and actual Communists. Marxism has a whole, professional economic thesis to validate its views, and are continuing to improve on them for the 21st Century. While, Anarchism is still just pro-Anarchy as it always was. Unable to even come to an ideology of its own due to its disunity. In fact, RevLeft is the closest unity I've seen between Anarchists in history! And that's just through a computer screen.

I think we have discovered the problem...well...your problem. You actually need to read some more on the topic of Anarchism because apparently you have read some blogs or something and missed most of the important stuff.

Again...start reading up on it. You would be surprised.

bropasaran

2nd April 2014, 23:06

You don't see the appeal of Marxism because you see everything through the lens of libertarian ethics and Marx wasn't an ethical libertarian.
So? Are you assuming that a value judgement of me being wrong and Marx being right in this case is something that is given, or just making an observation?

if you want to 'get' Marxism you'll have to abandon trying to evaluate it from the outside and try and understand what Marx was concerned with and took as foundational, then you'll be able to see the attraction of Marxism as a system which has internal coherence.
Sure, I can entartain a thought without accepting it, and I am still willing to consider Marx, even though I've contemplated his work for some time. Could you give a simple explanation of fundamentals of marxism and an argument as to why should I accept those?

He was just brilliant economist.
How? His idea of exploitation is a divergence (an understatement) from the original socialist rationalistic thought which is clear-cut, into totally confused system about value which has two contradictory interpretations, both of which are faulty. His idea of class is contradictory to the libertarian socialist one, it puts some workers outside the working class and puts some members of the ruling class into the working class.

He was the man who predicted inevitability of economic crises in capitalism. Hi discovered that capitalism is system internally contradictory.
Actually, he plagiarised that from Proudhon who wrote about overproduction based on contradiction of the double character of value, it's use and exchange values. And if I remember correctly, William Thompson wrote about it before Proudhon, and I am sure that also some other writers did, socialism and economic thought similar to socialism has existed for decades before Marx started to write about such things.

Problem is that almost no one read Proudhon's work, but got their misinformation from Marx' "critiques" of it, which are rife with calumny and falsifications. Peope at anarchism.pageabode have done a great job in footnoting the entire The philosophy of poverty referencing Marx' misquotations, so that's a great place to read that book (along with the essay "Proudhon and Marx", a great piece).

He as one of the first ones discovered that parliamentary democracy is just bourgeois rule.

Actually Proudhon wrote in 1840 about the state being an instrument of class rule. Also, he renounced the idea that it should or could be used by the working people, as oppossed to Marx who continued until the end of his life to support participation in the elections and write reformist programs for such purposes. The only error in Proudhon is the absence of class struggle attitude, but that's why there's Bakunin.

Besides he predicted exactly end. of capitalism and reasons for that. But for that we still must wait unfortunately.
Firstly- which one- that there's going to be a violent revolution of the wage-workers, or that there's going to be peaceful and gradual revolution in the parliamentary systems? Secondly- if we're still waiting for it, how can then we know that he predicted it exactly?

What they want is simply Anarchy, which basically means pre-Civilization. Making it almost a left-wing version of extreme primitivism.
Not really.

H.2.3 Does anarchism yearn "for what has gone before"?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secH2.html#sech23

3. Does anarchism "glorify values from the past"?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append31.html#app3

The umbrella-term "Anarchist" can mean Anarcho-Capitalist, Anarcho-Socialist, or even National Anarchist for all we know.
No, not even close. Anarchism means abolishing all oppressive and exploitatory institutions, which in practice means establishing workers' control over production, people's control over communities and society of free association. Having that in mind, "anarcho-capitalism" and "anarcho-nationalism" are contradiction in terms, just like "anarcho-feudalism", "anarcho-patriarchy" or anything similar would be.

Well Anarchism in practice has largely been either political assassins, terrorists, or just severely unrecognized, but nonetheless fanatic, activists proposing an end to government and no solution.
Obviously you haven't read about the Free Territory of Ukraine and the Anarcho-Syndicalist Spain, which were the only instances ever where people organized to abolish capitalism in their midst and start to organize a classless society. I would suggest reading through this entire volume:

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secHcon.html

bropasaran

3rd April 2014, 01:11

Marxism is an analytical tool which enables one to better understand the progression of history and the foundation of societal power structure.
Could you explain and argument this?

I would describe myself as a Libertarian Marxist. It seems you are operating under the assumption that Marxism constitutes a set political agenda, which is false. Marxism is an analytical tool which enables one to better understand the progression of history
Wind-mills produce feudalism, and steam-mills produce capitalism, is that a marxian/ marxist idea?

Marx pretty much eradicated the mystification around the emergence of bourgeois society. He observed what was happening around and before him
Did he? Didn't he 'observe' that capitalism started with the industrial revolution? Because if he did, he was wrong, being that it stared with the enclosure movement.

but it is the struggle between classes at the economic base of society which determines these things.
I always found this idea of Marxism interesting, and especially it's interesting to me that right after saying this you start to talk about anarchist practice. Having in mind this Marxist idea, that economy is the substance and the politics the 'shadow', isn't the logical conclusion of that to accept the anarchist praxis of centrality of the social revolution, as oppossed to insist on the primacy of conquering political power?

Anarchism, especially in terms of practice, when devoid of Marxist analysis generally winds up itself very confused about what is to be done and how it is to be done,
I assume you do know about anarchist participation in the first International, so I don't know how could you fail to know that anarchists were clear about wokers organizing for class struggle on "a single path, that of emancipation through practical action" as Bakunin said. The anarchist idea about the general federation of workers in the International and a specifically anarchist Alliance working within it was sabotaged by Marx, but the idea itself of anarchists participating in the labor movement and it's struggles and in the same time radicalizing it from within was and is clear; as well as the anarchist idea of the revolution which both political and economic from the start, in which the organized working people are to take possession of the means of production and the means of state force, organizing also the working people's militia to defend the process of the revolution from the reaction. What I see a lot of marxist do, saying how anarchism doesn't know what to do about this or that- is simply unfamiliarity with anarchism. Could you give some concrete points as to about anarchism is confused?

(maybe also these question I pose in this thread are also simply my unfamiliarity with libertarian marxism, but that's the point of discussion as I see it- all of us could learn something)

it finds itself straying further and further from the worker's movement until we just have petty-bourgeois children
Again with this meaningless notions. Back when people has semblance of rationalism to them, using words as terms instead of vague emotionally charged labels, I could maybe agree with Landauer in that calling anarchists petty bourgoise was to be considered neither incorrect nor insulting, but today with those words literally just being turned into an insult, with three overlaping definitions two of which make the term anti-socialist and incorrect for application to anarchism, I do have to react and explicitly reject the entire nonsensical framework of which the label 'petit-bourgeoise' is a part of. If we are to use it, let's define it as a term, see if it's applicable, and if it is- what bearing does that have.

As for what this society will look like, Marx didn't have much to say about that. A very, very small fraction of his work is dedicated to describing a future society, Marx worked with what he had and did not pretend to be able to see into the future.
The first I think is a bad thing, and the second I think is incorrect, isn't the idea of laws of history a part of marxism?

Read Marx and Engels, ignore Marxism
Well, there's problem of the contradiction in the works of the two. I've mentioned the two contradictory interpretations of marxist theory of exploitation, they are Marx' literal words on one side, and Engels' (and Kautsky's) interpretation of them on the other side.

Marx talks in confused terms about whether exploitation happens only production or also in circulation. I say confused because he himself says that he's saying is contradictory, it seems to him that exploitation can happen in circulation but his own definition of what capital isc onfines exploitation to production. He doesn't give a definite view, he gives reasoning for both positions, but his use of phrases like "merchant capital" and "interest capital" points to his acceptance that exploitation can happen both in production and exploitation, and thus we have the notion of "merchant capitalism" accepted by the later marxist movement, even though it's contradictory with Marx' definition what capital is, and what Engels, Kautsky, Lenin, Bukharin, Luxemburg and other major early Marxist thinkers accepted.

Engels and Kautsky don't use the terminology Marx uses as a basis for a definite view, and they give the opposite interpretation- exploitation happens only in production. They say that being that money and commodity production existed before the establishment of the capitalist system and can function (have functioned and do function) without capitalistic attributes- those two notions in themselves are pre-capitalist and non-capitalist notions. They inteprent Marx' writing about "merchant capital" in the first and third volume of Capital as not refering to capitalism, but to a pre-capitalist (/non-capitalist) mode of production, that Marx does mention and describe in light of theoretizing the possibility that exploitation is only in the production, and they thus reject "merchant capitalism" and name that theoretical mode of production 'simple commodity production' (theoretical because it never existed as a general economic system).

First interpretation has a big problem because of Marx' equivocation of M-C-M' transaction with M-M' transaction, which makes any trader a capitalist, which was not only nonsensical for Engels and Kautsky so they rejected it, even Marx himself saw there was something wrong with it and couldn't say it was true, in fact said it was impossible, but he didn't know how to solve it, it wasn't consistent with his definition of capital either way, and hense the recognized contradictoriness of the theory.

The second interpretation escapes the contradiction, but has the inverse problem, it must see rentiers and usurers as not being capitalists. This opens up a new problem, it means either seeing them as some pre-capitalist exploiters, whose exploitation has some other definition because it's from some other economic system, and a new name has to be invented both for the system and them; or to consider them a-ok and to see nothing exploitatory about their activities, problem which is ignored, probably on the assumption that they're not going to exist for much longer because everything is going to be nationalized (due to the laws of history).

The whole conondrum itself is nonsensical from a libertarian socialist perspective- which predates Marx. Labor theory of property which was put forth Hodgskin thus instituting socialist thought in 1825, and it's reworking by Proudhon in 1840 into what can be called 'labor theory of possession', is a simple and clear idea- all wealth/ property/ possessions/ value is produced by labor and thus belongs to labor, every appropriation or income that is not based on labor (but on previous property) is illegitimate and basically a type of theft (recognized as legal because the thieves made the laws), which then tells us that exploitation happens in two ways- by alienation of labor (working for a boss) or by rent of anything considered property (goods, land, money, etc), in production both can happen, in circulation the latter. No contradictions, no confusions, basically in a few words solves the economic problem of labor not only in capitalism but for all societies.

AnaRchic

3rd April 2014, 01:33

For me it's not a question of "marxism or anarchism", we really ought to see the value in both. Historical materialism, taken as a method of studying history and society rather than as a dogma, is immensely valuable to the revolutionary left. To dismiss this foundational understanding of history and society is to shoot ourselves in the food. Marxism also tends to be more pragmatic and less idealistic in its overall approach to revolution, which is a very good thing generally, though it can bring forth potential dangers. Overall the Marxist tradition contains much of value to the struggle for revolutionary socialism in the 21st century.

Likewise, anarchism has much of value to us. The anarchist movement acts as an ever-present tension away from authoritarian control and toward increasing democratization and freedom, which is of tremendous value. If we seek the self-emancipation of the working class, as both marxists and anarchists do, we are impelled to value forms of class organization with maximum degrees of participation and democracy, and minimal degrees of hierarchy. To ignore this push for democratization and decentralization is to inadvertently open the door for elitism and bureaucracy.

Also, the anarchist emphasis on direct action is very important in shattering reformist delusions, though on the other side of the coin this anti-political fetishism can serve to divide revolutionaries from the masses in times of relative stability.

Anarchism and marxism are like two ends of a revolutionary left spectrum, the black and white if you will. Nothing in life is really black and white, but rather many shades of grey, and the best approach for a revolution in this day and age lays somewhere between the two tendencies. A robust synthesis of both traditions, updated to present conditions, is the best approach.

AmilcarCabral

3rd April 2014, 04:31

Mr: I know this is off-topic, because this topic is about marxism and anarchism. But i just would to say that another negative impact of right-wing religious organizations, is the thinking and preaching taught by most right-wing churches that the human body is irrelevant, that people can binge-eat all they want because physical image, health and physical strength is not really required in this earthly world, because all they need is to be moralists, and obey laws and authorities.

I've noticed how many church goers in America do not really about their health, they only care about their physicality and health when they have diabetes, heart disease, cancer etc or some other dangerous disease. We also need to rescue the human body, which is right now so despised and so destroyed by churches, and by externalities like luxuries etc.

.

We should take away their privileges, but we shouldn't attack them. What we need to do is to abolish the conditions that make people turn to religion- poverty, economic uncertainty, etc.- and bring heaven down to earth (for lack of a better term). To call for people to give up their illusions first requires the abolition of the conditions that make these illusions necessary.

AmilcarCabral

3rd April 2014, 04:42

impossible: You know I am a little bit marxist-leninist but at the same time I am also at times anarchist (even though most marxist-leninists hate anarchists).

Because I love psychology, and observing the behavior of humans and humans wether right-wingers of left-wingers and when they are in a high powerful job with a lot of economic power they tend to get tempted to harass and oppress people who are below them.

That's why it has been almost impossible for the socialist party of France, the communist party of china to apply and install a pure socialist workers-state, not only because workers-states (socialism) in 1, 2, 3 or 4 countries is impossible while all other nations have capitalist-states, but because I think that even the best marxist of this world, the most honest and purest marxist of this world if they see themselves in a job like Obama's job, being US president, and other high powerful government jobs with lots of millions of dollars, they get tempted by the sweet honeys and pleasures of political economic power. And it is almost impossible for them not to get corrupt once in power

That's why i am anarchist-communist as well, because I think its the only true scientific way that we might see a world without rich and without poor people, without oppressors and oppressed, without governors and governed.

.

.

Could you explain and argument this?

Wind-mills produce feudalism, and steam-mills produce capitalism, is that a marxian/ marxist idea?

Did he? Didn't he 'observe' that capitalism started with the industrial revolution? Because if he did, he was wrong, being that it stared with the enclosure movement.

I always found this idea of Marxism interesting, and especially it's interesting to me that right after saying this you start to talk about anarchist practice. Having in mind this Marxist idea, that economy is the substance and the politics the 'shadow', isn't the logical conclusion of that to accept the anarchist praxis of centrality of the social revolution, as oppossed to insist on the primacy of conquering political power?

I assume you do know about anarchist participation in the first International, so I don't know how could you fail to know that anarchists were clear about wokers organizing for class struggle on "a single path, that of emancipation through practical action" as Bakunin said. The anarchist idea about the general federation of workers in the International and a specifically anarchist Alliance working within it was sabotaged by Marx, but the idea itself of anarchists participating in the labor movement and it's struggles and in the same time radicalizing it from within was and is clear; as well as the anarchist idea of the revolution which both political and economic from the start, in which the organized working people are to take possession of the means of production and the means of state force, organizing also the working people's militia to defend the process of the revolution from the reaction. What I see a lot of marxist do, saying how anarchism doesn't know what to do about this or that- is simply unfamiliarity with anarchism. Could you give some concrete points as to about anarchism is confused?

(maybe also these question I pose in this thread are also simply my unfamiliarity with libertarian marxism, but that's the point of discussion as I see it- all of us could learn something)

Again with this meaningless notions. Back when people has semblance of rationalism to them, using words as terms instead of vague emotionally charged labels, I could maybe agree with Landauer in that calling anarchists petty bourgoise was to be considered neither incorrect nor insulting, but today with those words literally just being turned into an insult, with three overlaping definitions two of which make the term anti-socialist and incorrect for application to anarchism, I do have to react and explicitly reject the entire nonsensical framework of which the label 'petit-bourgeoise' is a part of. If we are to use it, let's define it as a term, see if it's applicable, and if it is- what bearing does that have.

The first I think is a bad thing, and the second I think is incorrect, isn't the idea of laws of history a part of marxism?

Well, there's problem of the contradiction in the works of the two. I've mentioned the two contradictory interpretations of marxist theory of exploitation, they are Marx' literal words on one side, and Engels' (and Kautsky's) interpretation of them on the other side.

Marx talks in confused terms about whether exploitation happens only production or also in circulation. I say confused because he himself says that he's saying is contradictory, it seems to him that exploitation can happen in circulation but his own definition of what capital isc onfines exploitation to production. He doesn't give a definite view, he gives reasoning for both positions, but his use of phrases like "merchant capital" and "interest capital" points to his acceptance that exploitation can happen both in production and exploitation, and thus we have the notion of "merchant capitalism" accepted by the later marxist movement, even though it's contradictory with Marx' definition what capital is, and what Engels, Kautsky, Lenin, Bukharin, Luxemburg and other major early Marxist thinkers accepted.

Engels and Kautsky don't use the terminology Marx uses as a basis for a definite view, and they give the opposite interpretation- exploitation happens only in production. They say that being that money and commodity production existed before the establishment of the capitalist system and can function (have functioned and do function) without capitalistic attributes- those two notions in themselves are pre-capitalist and non-capitalist notions. They inteprent Marx' writing about "merchant capital" in the first and third volume of Capital as not refering to capitalism, but to a pre-capitalist (/non-capitalist) mode of production, that Marx does mention and describe in light of theoretizing the possibility that exploitation is only in the production, and they thus reject "merchant capitalism" and name that theoretical mode of production 'simple commodity production' (theoretical because it never existed as a general economic system).

First interpretation has a big problem because of Marx' equivocation of M-C-M' transaction with M-M' transaction, which makes any trader a capitalist, which was not only nonsensical for Engels and Kautsky so they rejected it, even Marx himself saw there was something wrong with it and couldn't say it was true, in fact said it was impossible, but he didn't know how to solve it, it wasn't consistent with his definition of capital either way, and hense the recognized contradictoriness of the theory.

The second interpretation escapes the contradiction, but has the inverse problem, it must see rentiers and usurers as not being capitalists. This opens up a new problem, it means either seeing them as some pre-capitalist exploiters, whose exploitation has some other definition because it's from some other economic system, and a new name has to be invented both for the system and them; or to consider them a-ok and to see nothing exploitatory about their activities, problem which is ignored, probably on the assumption that they're not going to exist for much longer because everything is going to be nationalized (due to the laws of history).

The whole conondrum itself is nonsensical from a libertarian socialist perspective- which predates Marx. Labor theory of property which was put forth Hodgskin thus instituting socialist thought in 1825, and it's reworking by Proudhon in 1840 into what can be called 'labor theory of possession', is a simple and clear idea- all wealth/ property/ possessions/ value is produced by labor and thus belongs to labor, every appropriation or income that is not based on labor (but on previous property) is illegitimate and basically a type of theft (recognized as legal because the thieves made the laws), which then tells us that exploitation happens in two ways- by alienation of labor (working for a boss) or by rent of anything considered property (goods, land, money, etc), in production both can happen, in circulation the latter. No contradictions, no confusions, basically in a few words solves the economic problem of labor not only in capitalism but for all societies.

Zanthorus

3rd April 2014, 12:08

So? Are you assuming that a value judgement of me being wrong and Marx being right in this case is something that is given, or just making an observation?

Well obviously Marx's word is sacred and given to us for all time as proof of his covenant with us, so as a true believer I have to take it as given that he is right and you are wrong. But also on an observational level, the way you phrase the question as why a libertarian socialist should accept Marxism, it's obvious that your ethical viewpoint is regarded as something prior to and above your acceptance of Marxism.

Sure, I can entartain a thought without accepting it, and I am still willing to consider Marx, even though I've contemplated his work for some time. Could you give a simple explanation of fundamentals of marxism and an argument as to why should I accept those?

Maybe, but it would be an exercise in futility, like reciting the Nicene Creed to Richard Dawkins with some watered down theological commentary and expecting him to convert to Catholicism right there on the spot.

LuÃs Henrique

3rd April 2014, 17:33

Could you explain and argument this?

Wind-mills produce feudalism, and steam-mills produce capitalism, is that a marxian/ marxist idea?

As you can see, Marx himself was guilty of oversimplifying his own thought in the attempt to getting understood.

Of course wind mills don't produce feudalism; only people can "produce feudalism" (and yes, they produce feudalism using wind mills, but that is another issue). However, feudalism cannot come into existence from a blueprint by some feudal-minded genius. It arises from particular conditions, some of which are political, some of which are, yes, technological. A society without agriculture and husbandry cannot be feudal, a society without the ability to use horses and catapultas as weapons in war cannot be feudal, and a society without the ability to use some sources of energy, especially water and wind, cannot be feudal.

On the other hand, a feudal society cannot support too much advanced technology either. Gun powder, navigation against the wind, compasses, will put feudalism in crisis, and steam mills are completely incompatible with it. Which means the opposite of what your Marx quote seems to say; it is not that we need to have steam mills in order that feudalism can rest in peace, but that feudalism needs to be abolished so that steam mills can come into existence.

Did he? Didn't he 'observe' that capitalism started with the industrial revolution? Because if he did, he was wrong, being that it stared with the enclosure movement.

No.

Marx didn't, as far as I am informed, establish a single, simple date or event that marked the "start" of capitalism.

Usually the French Revolution of 1789 and the English Revolution of 1640-1688 are considered "bourgeois revolutions". But the industrial revolution began in England much after 1640, and in France certainly after 1789 (though it can be of course argued that the feudal system in France in 1789 was under the brutal competition from English capitalism in its starts).

If Marx considered the industrial revolution as the start of capitalism, then he would be certainly wrong (and in great trouble to explain the English and French revolutions). But he didn't. He also didn't think it "started" with the enclosures, even if he obviously thought that there could not be capitalism without the enclosures either. For capitalism to exist, it is necessary that the mass of immediate producers ("workers") are thoroughly separate from the means of production. They have to be evicted from their land parcels, and the labour instruments of the artisans have to be made in some way inaccessible to them. So the enclosures (or other forms or expropriation of the direct producers) were absolutely necessary to the formation of capitalism, but they don't create capitalism in and of themselves, for other conditions (primitive accumulation of capital, suppression of internal customs, unified national monetary system, a State that supports accumulation of capital, etc.) must also be present.

I always found this idea of Marxism interesting, and especially it's interesting to me that right after saying this you start to talk about anarchist practice. Having in mind this Marxist idea, that economy is the substance and the politics the 'shadow', isn't the logical conclusion of that to accept the anarchist praxis of centrality of the social revolution, as oppossed to insist on the primacy of conquering political power?

Many "Marxists" hold this simplistic idea that "economy is substance and politics are the shadow", but it is certainly a very mistaken idea, and quite probably not really a Marxian one.

Certainly, "the economy" - or to put things correctly, the material conditions of production of life, which only constitute "the economy" in capitalist societies - set the scenary upon which class struggle develops. In a feudal society there is no class struggling for the reintroduction of slavery, as well as there is no class positing the abolition of private property and the establishment of communism. That is because no class in a feudal society can have those as political objectives. But class struggle is political struggle in its essence. As much as the feudal State had to be forcibly removed so that a capitalist society could freely develop, the bourgeois State has to be forcibly removed so that a communist society can thrive. And indeed, the centrality of such suppression is the kernel of "anarchist praxis" as well - or are anarchists proposing that we can advance the cause of communism under the bourgeois State, without destroying it, in any other sence than a political one?

Could you give some concrete points as to about anarchism is confused?

I won't deal with the struggle between anarchists and Marxists within the 1st International here, for I fear that nothing else besides sectarian bullshit will come out of that, but the confusion, if there is one, seems to be expressed in your previous paragraph ("Marxism" focuses in the "political revolution" albeit believing politics is only a shadow of the economy; anarchism focuses on "social" - curiously, not economic - revolution, not in the destruction of the State; but neither side of this disjunctive seems to hold strong after even superficial examination). In other words, there seems to be a tendency among anarchists (not that Marxists are exactly immune from this malady) to oscillate between spontaneism (we must wait for the social revolution instead of taking political action) and voluntarism (the revolution is a question of resolve, not of recognising and preparing economic, political, ideological conditions).

(maybe also these question I pose in this thread are also simply my unfamiliarity with libertarian marxism, but that's the point of discussion as I see it- all of us could learn something)

I can't help you here; I don't think the concept of "libertarian Marxism" refers to any unified political camp that I can identify. Marxism is itself utterly "libertarian", emancipatory, or it is not Marxism at all (and the deviations from Marxism into authoritarian practices and ideologies seem to me increasingly based upon Proudhonian misunderstandings of society than anything else).

Again with this meaningless notions. Back when people has semblance of rationalism to them, using words as terms instead of vague emotionally charged labels, I could maybe agree with Landauer in that calling anarchists petty bourgoise was to be considered neither incorrect nor insulting, but today with those words literally just being turned into an insult, with three overlaping definitions two of which make the term anti-socialist and incorrect for application to anarchism, I do have to react and explicitly reject the entire nonsensical framework of which the label 'petit-bourgeoise' is a part of. If we are to use it, let's define it as a term, see if it's applicable, and if it is- what bearing does that have.

I can agree with you that the phrase "petty bourgeois" is nowadays mostly used as an empty insult - and that the fault of this misuse is basically on people who call themselves Marxist. But "rationalism" isn't the answer to anything, and the petty bourgeoisie has existed as a class, and even though it dwindles everyday in its material importance and objective existence, its practical ideology still - and even increasingly, as paradoxal as it may seem - holds enourmous sway over the opinions of people, especially those in the intermediate layers of society. And such ideology is a practical emanation of the alienation of labour, the fetishisation of commodities: the incomprehension of the extent to which our present society is deeply socialised. To give you one example, once a self-described anarchist here in revleft argued me that in a communist society each person would do their own job, and others should not be allowed to interfere with it. I don't know to what extent such an opinion is representative of anarchism, but it certainly is very representative of petty bourgeois ideology. There is no longer something as someone's "own job", all labour in a late capitalist society being so deeply intertwinned that it cannot be separate again without a radical destruction of the forces of production.

The first I think is a bad thing, and the second I think is incorrect, isn't the idea of laws of history a part of marxism?

No, though it is obviously a part of what everyone, from Pol Pot to Ron Paul to Marine Le Pen to Gonzalo believes is Marxism. There are no trans-historic laws; there are "laws" that govern a given mode of production (for instance, in a capitalist society, labour power is always superabundant and increasingly cheap if there is no resistance, whereas in a slave-based society labour power is always scarce and increasingly expensive), and these evidently set the limits of each given mode of production, and even the conditions, objective and subjective, of its superceding, but the Stalinist myth that "after primitive communism comes slavery, after slavery comes feudalism, and then capitalism, and then finally socialism and communism" is gibberish.

Well, there's problem of the contradiction in the works of the two. I've mentioned the two contradictory interpretations of marxist theory of exploitation, they are Marx' literal words on one side, and Engels' (and Kautsky's) interpretation of them on the other side.

There are many contradictions between different Marxist authors. To read Marx and Engels, as other poster counseled, is good; but if you want to actually understand Marxism, which is not a doctrine fixed in the 19th century, but an evolving body of knowledge, it is necessary to read other authors too. For my part, I like Rosa Luxemburg, Trotsky, Lenin, Althusser, Poulantzas, Rosdolsky, Robert Kurz, Roswitha Scholz, even though I disagree, sometimes strongly, with what they write. But if I was in search of a non-contradictory doctrine I would rather go for scholatics or political Islam (and even there, would probably be disgruntled).

I seem to have missed the post where you pointed to the contradiction you mention. It is possible that such contradiction exists (a few years ago I read an introduction to Paul Lafargue's Right to Lazyness by a Brazilian Marxist philosopher that gives an explanation of surplus value that is completely contrary to everything I have read by Marx or other Marxist authors, so those things do happen), but I would have do reread the thread to understand what you are talking about. So later.

Marx talks in confused terms about whether exploitation happens only production or also in circulation. I say confused because he himself says that he's saying is contradictory, it seems to him that exploitation can happen in circulation but his own definition of what capital isc onfines exploitation to production. He doesn't give a definite view, he gives reasoning for both positions, but his use of phrases like "merchant capital" and "interest capital" points to his acceptance that exploitation can happen both in production and exploitation, and thus we have the notion of "merchant capitalism" accepted by the later marxist movement, even though it's contradictory with Marx' definition what capital is, and what Engels, Kautsky, Lenin, Bukharin, Luxemburg and other major early Marxist thinkers accepted.

I am sorry, but such confusion certainly doesn't exist. There are many kinds of exploitation, but the specifically capitalist exploitation is only possible in production, not in circulation, though it requires a step - the sale and purchase of labour power - that is located in circulation. There is no capitalist exploitation without capitalist production, ie, without a wage system, commodity production, and capital accumulation. But there are other kinds of exploitation - such as usury, commercial profit, pure and simple theft and swingling, be it illegal or even institutionalised such as that of Christian ministers over their "sheep", that predate capitalism, or thrive in its interstices.

Engels and Kautsky don't use the terminology Marx uses as a basis for a definite view, and they give the opposite interpretation- exploitation happens only in production.

Because they are clearly referring to especifically capitalist exploitation, having much less interest in previous forms of exploitation (though I suppose that Engels deals with these in his work on the origins of family, State, and private property, even if he possible uses a different terminology).

They say that being that money and commodity production existed before the establishment of the capitalist system and can function (have functioned and do function) without capitalistic attributes- those two notions in themselves are pre-capitalist and non-capitalist notions.

Yes, money, commodities, and even capital, predate capitalism by centuries. Capitalism is when capital takes hold of production, which usury capital and merchant capital don't. So merchant capital and usury capital are pre-capitalist entities; with the advent of capitalism they morph into commercial capital and interest capital more or less seamlessly, but they are deeply revolutioned in the process.

They inteprent Marx' writing about "merchant capital" in the first and third volume of Capital as not refering to capitalism, but to a pre-capitalist (/non-capitalist) mode of production, that Marx does mention and describe in light of theoretizing the possibility that exploitation is only in the production, and they thus reject "merchant capitalism" and name that theoretical mode of production 'simple commodity production' (theoretical because it never existed as a general economic system).

Seems a reasonable interpretation, though I am sure that there are many Marxists that disagree (I remember for instance reading a (Marxist) guy about how 'simple commodity production' is a myth and can nowhere be found in Marx, but, frankly, it seems to me the kind of scholastics in which academic Marxists are fond of entangling themselves).

First interpretation has a big problem because of Marx' equivocation of M-C-M' transaction with M-M' transaction, which makes any trader a capitalist, which was not only nonsensical for Engels and Kautsky so they rejected it, even Marx himself saw there was something wrong with it and couldn't say it was true, in fact said it was impossible, but he didn't know how to solve it, it wasn't consistent with his definition of capital either way, and hense the recognized contradictoriness of the theory.

Well, no. M-C-M' is the general formula of capital, and can certainly exist in pre-capitalist societies - but generally only in long distance trade, where the value of the commodities in each end of the transaction is unknown in the other end. Capitalist especific cycle of capital is M - C ... C' - M', in which the capitalists buys one set of commodities (his raw materials, etc.) and uses them to produce an entirely different set of commodities, which he then sells.

The second interpretation escapes the contradiction, but has the inverse problem, it must see rentiers and usurers as not being capitalists. This opens up a new problem, it means either seeing them as some pre-capitalist exploiters, whose exploitation has some other definition because it's from some other economic system, and a new name has to be invented both for the system and them; or to consider them a-ok and to see nothing exploitatory about their activities, problem which is ignored, probably on the assumption that they're not going to exist for much longer because everything is going to be nationalized (due to the laws of history).

That would be wrong.

Modern commercial and finance capitalists are capitalists, period. True, they exploit workers only indirectly, through parasitising agricultural and industrial capital, but they are not "usurers" (who lent money for consumption, not for production) or "merchants" (who traded pre-capitalist commodities and were only able to make profits due to complete disinformation in their markets) anymore.

The whole conondrum itself is nonsensical from a libertarian socialist perspective- which predates Marx. Labor theory of property which was put forth Hodgskin thus instituting socialist thought in 1825, and it's reworking by Proudhon in 1840 into what can be called 'labor theory of possession', is a simple and clear idea- all wealth/ property/ possessions/ value is produced by labor and thus belongs to labor, every appropriation or income that is not based on labor (but on previous property) is illegitimate and basically a type of theft (recognized as legal because the thieves made the laws), which then tells us that exploitation happens in two ways- by alienation of labor (working for a boss) or by rent of anything considered property (goods, land, money, etc), in production both can happen, in circulation the latter. No contradictions, no confusions, basically in a few words solves the economic problem of labor not only in capitalism but for all societies.

Well, this is quite confuse, and even falls into hocus-pocus, as the notion that exploitation is "theft", when obviously theft pressuposes property, which in turn pressuposes appropriation (and so again "theft", etc). Contradictions and confusions, lots of them, and the transhistoric, and consequently false, chimera of "solving the problem of labour for all societies", when it is quite obvious that the problem of slavery is very different from the problem of wage labour, etc. You seem to be confusing "simplistic" for "simple".

Luís Henrique

bropasaran

3rd April 2014, 23:57

As you can see, Marx himself was guilty of oversimplifying his own thought in the attempt to getting understood.

Of course wind mills don't produce feudalism; only people can "produce feudalism" (and yes, they produce feudalism using wind mills, but that is another issue)
Oversimplification I understand, but this kind of pointless literalism I don't.

It arises from particular conditions, some of which are political, some of which are, yes, technological. A society without agriculture and husbandry cannot be feudal
These are pure assumptions. What is impossible about having feudalism where where there is no agriculture, in an "anarcho"-capitalist society all owners of land would in effect be feudal lords, the system is actually called sometimes neo-feudalism, because the owner of the land would be the sovereign of it, making laws that apply on it, exacting tribute from everyone on it etc., and such a new feudal lord could own a piece of land where he would have only factories and firms, no agriculture. Likewise in a pre-agriculture society there is no impossibility of someone being a feudalist, exacting tribute from some hunter-gatherers that live on the land he rules and 'defends', they being his literally his serfs.

A society without agriculture and husbandry cannot be feudal, a society without the ability to use horses and catapultas as weapons in war cannot be feudal, and a society without the ability to use some sources of energy, especially water and wind, cannot be feudal.
You're just assuming that what has been has been so necessarily, that what happened could not have possibly happened in another way, which is just an assumption, and there's no reason to see it as even as likely true; it more looks like to be on the level of superstition, being that it seems to be unverifiable and unfalsifiable.

And indeed, the centrality of such suppression is the kernel of "anarchist praxis" as well - or are anarchists proposing that we can advance the cause of communism under the bourgeois State, without destroying it, in any other sence than a political one?

I won't deal with the struggle between anarchists and Marxists within the 1st International here, for I fear that nothing else besides sectarian bullshit will come out of that, but the confusion, if there is one, seems to be expressed in your previous paragraph ("Marxism" focuses in the "political revolution" albeit believing politics is only a shadow of the economy; anarchism focuses on "social" - curiously, not economic - revolution, not in the destruction of the State
Anarchist position is that there should be a social revolution, a revolution that is from the start both political and economical, in general encompassing all social relations. Marx insisted that the political struggle is primary, that political power needs no be conquered first, introducing a transitional period where the wage-workers have political power but not yet economic; they are still wage-workers, subjugated economically- which is nonsensical and an effectively impossible concept both when political power is understood as Marx did- parliamentary representatives, and when political power is understood as libertarian marxists do- as a somewhat (directly) democratic rule. Anarchism insists that the revolution should at the same time start with the expropriation of the means of production and with the struggle to destroy the state apparatus.

In other words, there seems to be a tendency among anarchists (not that Marxists are exactly immune from this malady) to oscillate between spontaneism (we must wait for the social revolution instead of taking political action)
IDK, maybe that's the attitude of some anarchists, but surely not of any anarchist thinker, all of whom advocated organization, (except Proudhon) participation in labor struggles, and radicalization of the labor movement from within.

voluntarism (the revolution is a question of resolve, not of recognising and preparing economic, political, ideological conditions)
If you think by this the SPGB attitude, we all just need to want socialism and voila, everything will spontaneously happen and function, that's not an anarchist view afaik; if you think by the opposite view that it is impossible to abolish classes until technology is so advanced to create utopian abundance and do away with the need for toil, that reactionary view is certainly not the view of anarchism.

Marxism is itself utterly "libertarian", emancipatory, or it is not Marxism at all (and the deviations from Marxism into authoritarian practices and ideologies seem to me increasingly based upon Proudhonian misunderstandings of society than anything else
Yes, he has a couple of libertarian sounding phrases in the many tomes of his works, but he also has authoritarian statements, talking about centralization, rejecting self-government, federalism and non-hierarchical organisation of workers. He accepted self-emancipation nominally (in my opinion opportunistically) but then advocated "emancipation" from the top-down, by political representation. If he was such a libertarian, why wasn't then he an anarchist? In fact, he oppossed anarchism and sabotaged it.
The idea that marxist authoritarianism stems from Proudhonian ideas is so intellectually dishonest, I'm speechless.

I can agree with you that the phrase "petty bourgeois" is nowadays mostly used as an empty insult - and that the fault of this misuse is basically on people who call themselves Marxist. But "rationalism" isn't the answer to anything, and the petty bourgeoisie has existed as a class, and even though it dwindles everyday in its material importance and objective existence, its practical ideology still - and even increasingly, as paradoxal as it may seem - holds enourmous sway over the opinions of people, especially those in the intermediate layers of society. And such ideology is a practical emanation of the alienation of labour, the fetishisation of commodities: the incomprehension of the extent to which our present society is deeply socialised. To give you one example, once a self-described anarchist here in revleft argued me that in a communist society each person would do their own job, and others should not be allowed to interfere with it. I don't know to what extent such an opinion is representative of anarchism, but it certainly is very representative of petty bourgeois ideology. There is no longer something as someone's "own job", all labour in a late capitalist society being so deeply intertwinned that it cannot be separate again without a radical destruction of the forces of production.
Give a clear definition of what petty bourgeois is, and then we can see if it's applicable to any part or kind of anarchism, and see why does it matter. I know of three proposed definitions of "petite-bourgeoisie"- as people who own the means of production and employ a small number of wage-workers (and most probably working alongside them); as people who own the means of production but don't employ any workers; as both those groups of people. Are you refering to one of those three meanings?

There are many kinds of exploitation, but the specifically capitalist exploitation is only possible in production, not in circulation, though it requires a step - the sale and purchase of labour power - that is located in circulation. There is no capitalist exploitation without capitalist production, ie, without a wage system, commodity production, and capital accumulation.
Commodity production and capital accumulation are per se unconnected to the capitalist production of relations, that is- wage-labor. Labor purchase being located in circulation doesn't "contaminate" that entire circulation and make it exploitatory, being that it can exist with that purchasing of labor in it, there is nothing impossible in a market existing without a labor market.

But there are other kinds of exploitation - such as usury, commercial profit, pure and simple theft and swingling
As I said, if one identifies capitalism with wage-labor one must see those types of exploitation as non-capitalist exploitative relations, and very peculiar exploitative relations indeed, being that unlike the ones of slave, feudal and capitalist exploitation they are outside of production (I opened that wierd theoretical thread about employism). That's concerning usury, but concerning commercial profit that you mention, e.g. Engels says this: "Whence comes this surplus-value? It cannot come either from the buyer buying the commodities under their value, or from the seller selling them above their value. For in both cases the gains and the losses of each individual cancel each other, as each individual is in turn buyer and seller. Nor can it come from cheating, for though cheating can enrich one person at the expense of another, it cannot increase the total sum possessed by both, and therefore cannot augment the sum of the values in circulation." and therefore makes the conclusion that capitalist exploitation can happen only in production. As I already said, Marx himself said that appearance of capital is circulation is impossible, but he also said that appearance of capital outside of circulation is impossible, and hence the contradiction, which is solved by Engels, Kautsky and others in noting tautologically, as you did, that for production to happen, labor must be found outside of producting, which says nothing, of course people aren't born in factories and work in them as part of their biological functioning like breathing, they first have to be (in capitalism) hired so they can go to the factory and work there.

eems a reasonable interpretation, though I am sure that there are many Marxists that disagree (I remember for instance reading a (Marxist) guy about how 'simple commodity production' is a myth and can nowhere be found in Marx
Yes, I've mentioned it here: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2735551&postcount=29

Well, no. M-C-M' is the general formula of capital, and can certainly exist in pre-capitalist societies - but generally only in long distance trade, where the value of the commodities in each end of the transaction is unknown in the other end. Capitalist especific cycle of capital is M - C ... C' - M', in which the capitalists buys one set of commodities (his raw materials, etc.) and uses them to produce an entirely different set of commodities, which he then sells.
I was refering to talking strictly about circulation, where C-M-C is refered to as "simple circulation", and M-C-M, which Marx talks about as "buying in order to sell dearer", is refered to as "merchants’ capital". As I said the confusion arises at all because Marx rejects the socialist labor theory and therefore can't reject the money-lending M-M' circulation on the basis of reference labor, so he talks about the Aristotelian notion of "natural" use of money.
Also mechant's "capital" doesn't have anything to do with long distance, it can happen in on marketplace among three people, with the merchant buying a commodity from one person and selling it to another for more money then he bought it for and thus walking away with more money then when he got there.

Well, this is quite confuse, and even falls into hocus-pocus, as the notion that exploitation is "theft", when obviously theft pressuposes property
Yes. Not counting the precursors, the first clear articulation of socialist thought was by Thomas Hodgskin in 1825, espousing the "labor theory of property", which is the "natural right to property" as contrasted with the artificial ones that were in effect throught history and still are. As I said, Proudhon reworked that theory into something that can be called "labor theory of possession", thus solving some problems of application that Hodskin's theory could have. It would be nice if you could give any explanations and arguments, and not only derisions like "hocus-pocus", "contradictions" "chimera".

ontradictions and confusions, lots of them, and the transhistoric, and consequently false, chimera of "solving the problem of labour for all societies", when it is quite obvious that the problem of slavery is very different from the problem of wage labour, etc.
Problem of slavery is different from the problem of wage-labor because it's not purely economical, and as I said, Proudhonian labor theory of possession solves the economic problem of labor. But the topic of that other component of slavery is interesting, because Proudhon also adressed that, he didn't only espouse the labor theory, but also the idea of liberty, he rejected not only relations of economic exploitation but also relations of domination, something which Marx not only didn't do, but in fact, he (with Engels) did exactly the opposite- oppossed anarchism and considered it's libertarianism as nonsense.

Which just leads simply to the conclusion that everyone who's into libertarian socialism should reject Marx and accept Proudhon, on account of both idea of labor and the idea of liberty.

Jimmie Higgins

4th April 2014, 15:35

These are pure assumptions. What is impossible about having feudalism where where there is no agriculture, in an "anarcho"-capitalist society all owners of land would in effect be feudal lords, the system is actually called sometimes neo-feudalism, because the owner of the land would be the sovereign of it, making laws that apply on it, exacting tribute from everyone on it etc., and such a new feudal lord could own a piece of land where he would have only factories and firms, no agriculture. Likewise in a pre-agriculture society there is no impossibility of someone being a feudalist, exacting tribute from some hunter-gatherers that live on the land he rules and 'defends', they being his literally his serfs.
This is conflating any form of exploitation for all exploitation. Feudal estates sometimes did do some manufacturing - in the latter era, when capitalism had already begun in other parts of Europe. Roman's had wage-labers. So in that sense, there were induviduals who could be crammed in to fit the definition of worker or slave in societies that were feudal, aristocrats survived the British transition to capitalism for a while, etc. But why did certian forms generalize and become the prominent form of organization at certain points? Why did these developments happen parallel to eachother, why hasn't a classical slave society replaced a capitalist one or a feudal society replaced a capitalist one?

Your argument seems to reduce history to a matter of will. I'm a Marxist, sepcifically, because I think the general understanding of history is accurate and leads to useful emancipatory conclusions for me as a worker.

You're just assuming that what has been has been so necessarily, that what happened could not have possibly happened in another way, which is just an assumption, and there's no reason to see it as even as likely true; it more looks like to be on the level of superstition, being that it seems to be unverifiable and unfalsifiable.No, then we'd all be the poster Baseball. Marxism: materialist history - men make history but in conditions not of their choosing. This makes sense to me historically: people talked about socialism for 1000 years, did Marx "will" himself to develop these ideas... or did his ideas develop through a combination of Democratic struggles in the recent past and the emergence of working class movements as a political/social force. He suggested many things that were speculative in his day and daily reality, and even common sense, in our day. But if he lived 100 years earlier I doubt he would have developed his ideas because there was no working class movements of major social importance yet!

Anarchist position is that there should be a social revolution, a revolution that is from the start both political and economical, in general encompassing all social relations. Marx insisted that the political struggle is primary, that political power needs no be conquered first, introducing a transitional period where the wage-workers have political power but not yet economic; More or less there is some truth to this, but not in the way I think you think it's true. Marx was not making a directive: he was arguing about how he saw a development taking place. You can not dictate "social relations". Capitalists could not dictate: "You, craftsperson: be an unskilled worker now" (although they did sometimes conscript people, but that caused problems). What they did is use political power to change things in ways that would favor them, and therefore capitalist development. I think it would be the same for workers. They could use their democratic political power over the rest of society and expropriate the expropriators (Engel's phrase, I think - just to counter your claims that he was against revolution, which he said he wasn't and that others in the Socialist movement were misinterpreting what he and Marx had argued). From a Marxist standpoint: many class-based anarchists do support a "transition" but that it's more or less instantanious (or sort of pre-organized like with anarcho-syndicalism) but see it happening basically instantaniously with the insurrectionary-phase of the revolution. Either way: workers self-emancipate and reorganize society which creates the possibility for production on a non-exploitative basis. It's the action by workers on society which allows for the "social relations" to change and become "generalized".

they are still wage-workers, subjugated economically- which is nonsensical and an effectively impossible concept both when political power is understood as Marx did- parliamentary representatives, and when political power is understood as libertarian marxists do- as a somewhat (directly) democratic rule. Anarchism insists that the revolution should at the same time start with the expropriation of the means of production and with the struggle to destroy the state apparatus.Marx's texts are contradictory on this - part of it was that his ideas were developing - part of it is that he couldn't always talk openly about revolution in a Europe where despots were being overthrown by revolutions. But engels himself criticized an increasing tendency towards electoralism (that people justified by quoting him or Marx) and I think this idea has largely become a myth due to the politics of 2nd International.

No modern REVOLUTIONARY marxists that I know argue that parlements are a viable way for workers to exhert their power.

Yes, he has a couple of libertarian sounding phrases in the many tomes of his works, but he also has authoritarian statements, talking about centralization, rejecting self-government, federalism and non-hierarchical organisation of workers. In what contexts? Federalism in the organization of the international? Centralization of what? Rejecting what self-government of what?

He accepted self-emancipation nominally (in my opinion opportunistically) but then advocated "emancipation" from the top-down, by political representation. If he was such a libertarian, why wasn't then he an anarchist? In fact, he oppossed anarchism and sabotaged it.LOL. If he was so cool, why was he so geeky? Sorry, this isn't an argument - it's just baiting. If so-and-so was a TRUE american, then they would obviously agree with me and the tea-party.

Commodity production and capital accumulation are per se unconnected to the capitalist production of relations, that is- wage-labor. Labor purchase being located in circulation doesn't "contaminate" that entire circulation and make it exploitatory, being that it can exist with that purchasing of labor in it, there is nothing impossible in a market existing without a labor market.This is part of why I'm a marxist - capitalism is a SYSTEM of relations - wage-labor, markets, commodites CAN all exist in other systems - but CAPITALISM is the generalization of these relationships so that modern capitalists are not like some part-time farmer who sells some extra wool in the market, nor are we like Roman prols who work a few hours a week in a mill and then beg or farm or gather for everything else.

Capitalism is a web and I don't think it's possible just to remove the bits that seem obviously objectionable we need to smash the state so we can also smash these threads holding capitalism together: division of labor from the means of production, the buying and selling of labor power, privite property, economic competition, etc.

That's concerning usury, but concerning commercial profit that you mention, e.g. Engels says this: "Whence comes this surplus-value? It cannot come either from the buyer buying the commodities under their value, or from the seller selling them above their value. For in both cases the gains and the losses of each individual cancel each other, as each individual is in turn buyer and seller. Nor can it come from cheating, for though cheating can enrich one person at the expense of another, it cannot increase the total sum possessed by both, and therefore cannot augment the sum of the values in circulation." and therefore makes the conclusion that capitalist exploitation can happen only in production. As I already said, Marx himself said that appearance of capital is circulation is impossible, but he also said that appearance of capital outside of circulation is impossible, and hence the contradiction, which is solved by Engels, Kautsky and others in noting tautologically, as you did, that for production to happen, labor must be found outside of producting, which says nothing, of course people aren't born in factories and work in them as part of their biological functioning like breathing, they first have to be (in capitalism) hired so they can go to the factory and work there.

I was refering to talking strictly about circulation, where C-M-C is refered to as "simple circulation", and M-C-M, which Marx talks about as "buying in order to sell dearer", is refered to as "merchants’ capital". As I said the confusion arises at all because Marx rejects the socialist labor theory and therefore can't reject the money-lending M-M' circulation on the basis of reference labor, so he talks about the Aristotelian notion of "natural" use of money.

Also mechant's "capital" doesn't have anything to do with long distance, it can happen in on marketplace among three people, with the merchant buying a commodity from one person and selling it to another for more money then he bought it for and thus walking away with more money then when he got there.
I'm not sure what your point here is. It's refuted in the previous section where Engels was asking where the surplus value comes from.

Making "money" and creating Value are different. 3 merchants can sell to eachother and one can come out with more Money, but no additional value is actually added. If the purchaser turns around and try and re-sell the thing he can not easily sell it back for the same rate necissarily - maybe he can get a higher price, maybe conditions change and he has to settle for a lower price - but the thing is still the value of that "thing". If a car doubles in price, you don't have two new cars.

There's a difference between the generalized "rules" of how capitalism works and the subjective ways people work the system. It's possible to ammass a great fortune by theft or graft (or speculative trading and derivitives), but you are just circulating money in your favor, not creating new value.

Problem of slavery is different from the problem of wage-labor because it's not purely economical, and as I said, Proudhonian labor theory of possession solves the economic problem of labor. But the topic of that other component of slavery is interesting, because Proudhon also adressed that, he didn't only espouse the labor theory, but also the idea of liberty, he rejected not only relations of economic exploitation but also relations of domination, something which Marx not only didn't do, but in fact, he (with Engels) did exactly the opposite- oppossed anarchism and considered it's libertarianism as nonsense.Are you saying Capitalism is purely economic? Coersion is at the heart of capitalism just like it was slavery or feudalism - it just takes a different form and requires different methods.

Which just leads simply to the conclusion that everyone who's into libertarian socialism should reject Marx and accept Proudhon, on account of both idea of labor and the idea of liberty.As a Marxist, the heart of it to me is: the self-emancipation of the working class which I interpret as "socialism from below". The reason I am a Marxist and not some kind of Anarchist or some other kind of Socialist is because I think it synthesises the socialist/anarchist "ideals" with the concrete reality of class struggles and movements. I think a Marxist analysis of history is the most accurate and useful framework for understanding capitalism in general and why the working class is the force that can change it and end class rule altogether. I don't really have anything against Anarchism in general and I generally agree with a lot the ideals, but - depending - I think there are some tendencies and baggage I do not agree with at all (as with some Marxism tendencies, there are Anarchist tradditions that vere towards elitism or opportunism). If in the US there was a major Anarchist-oriented syndicalist organization I would most likely want to be a member while remaining a Marxist. I don't do "team sports" in terms of "marxism vs. anarchism" because there are anarchists I have closer politics to than some Marxists and so it depends on "what anarchism" or "what Marxism" is being discussed IMO.

Thirsty Crow

4th April 2014, 16:21

reb

4th April 2014, 16:49

BIXX

4th April 2014, 17:33

The main differences between anarchism and communism is that anarchism came out of a petty bourgeois reaction against capitalist development, originating in places of an artisan and petty bourgeois nature. This continues to this day with the majority of anarchists that I have met being college students. Then often they drop the whole anarchist thing and become social-democrats.

Normally I like your posts but this one, right here, is bullshit. Anarchism was born in multiple ways, you can't generalize it like that. There are petite-bourgeois anarchist movements, but there are also workers' anarchist movements, and a whole lot of anarchist philosophies and ideas as well as anarchists themselves who fall outside of that spectrum entirely,

Slavoj Zizek's Balls

4th April 2014, 17:36

Well, there's problem of the contradiction in the works of the two. I've mentioned the two contradictory interpretations of marxist theory of exploitation, they are Marx' literal words on one side, and Engels' (and Kautsky's) interpretation of them on the other side.

I thank you for sharing your information concerning this. I will consider what you have said when I proceed to read more of Marx (and Engels).

However, the main thrust of what I said was merely based on how you could approach these two figures as well as the rest of 'Marxism'. Engels was the originator of the term I believe, or at least accepted its existence some time after Marx's death (not too sure on this). Kautsky... I have little to say with regards to him except that he was extremely mechanistic in his understanding of Marx's contributions to understanding society and how to achieve human emancipation.

My view, as I stated previously, is that it is worth appropriating what you think to be suitable and effective in an explanatory sense from this theoretical current. If you spot a contradiction, find out if anyone has resolved it or attempt to do so yourself. Otherwise you can temporarily patch over the hole or leave it for the moment, as you mentioned, by going to an alternative set of theories. "Marxism", to my mind, is absolute rubbish as a whole but contains within it a fantastically useful set of concepts and analyses. All I'm doing is informing you of an approach. I would advise you to do the same with Anarchism, but from a cursory glance it appears as if you have appropriated the entire ideology, swallowed it, flag and all.

LuÃs Henrique

4th April 2014, 18:28

LuÃs Henrique

4th April 2014, 18:44

The main differences between anarchism and communism is that anarchism came out of a petty bourgeois reaction against capitalist development, originating in places of an artisan and petty bourgeois nature. This continues to this day with the majority of anarchists that I have met being college students. Then often they drop the whole anarchist thing and become social-democrats.

This is a popular narrative, and one to which there could have been something at the times when anarchism was a mass movement mostly rooted in places where capitalism development was belated, thwarted or arrested, such as 19th century Spain or Italy. But modern college students aren't by any means the historical continuation of 19th century artisans, anarchism is no longer a mass movement, and its importance nowadays is no more actually proportional to the development, underdevelopment, or lack of development of given regions, so I fear that a different analysis would be necessary.

Luís Henrique

AmilcarCabral

4th April 2014, 19:09

Luis Henriquez and friends: Yeah you are right, about Karl Marx over-simplifying his arguments, statements about how to get people out of poverty by overthrowing capitalist-governments and replacing them with socialist governments.

Another thing that I think that Marx, Engels and the other socialist philosophers is that they didn't take into consideration and they didn't predict that the working classes and lower poor class in general were going to be so egocentric, so self-absorbed, so dumb, so stupid, so ultra-individualist and to have such a Robinson Crusoe way of thinking and point of view (the worldview that states that you can get out of poverty and a shitty life into a middle class happy life all by your own self, without politics, without political parties and withou team-work)

Marx didn't predict the excess of mysanthrophy and hatred toward politics of the lower classes of the 21st century (except of course a minority of world-workers that are protesting in the streets in Spain, in Greece and in a few other places. However they are a minority, the great majority of poor people and workers maybe either are too physically tired to protest, or they think that they can get out of poverty and their shitty existance into a middle class life all by their own selves. Another possibility of lack of protesting in most poor people of this conformist world is that most poor people feel very happy in their poor shitty lives and accept their miserable painful existance with pride, and well-being)

.

LuÃs Henrique

4th April 2014, 19:42

Anarchist position is that there should be a social revolution, a revolution that is from the start both political and economical, in general encompassing all social relations. Marx insisted that the political struggle is primary, that political power needs no be conquered first, introducing a transitional period where the wage-workers have political power but not yet economic; they are still wage-workers, subjugated economically- which is nonsensical and an effectively impossible concept both when political power is understood as Marx did- parliamentary representatives, and when political power is understood as libertarian marxists do- as a somewhat (directly) democratic rule. Anarchism insists that the revolution should at the same time start with the expropriation of the means of production and with the struggle to destroy the state apparatus.

Well - political power needs to be conquered first, because if it remains at the hands of our enemies, they will use it to make the expropriation of the means of production impossible. If workers take factories or farms forcibly, the bourgeois State will forcibly return them to the proprietors. If workers occupy abandoned factories or farms, the bourgeois State will see that those workers cannot trade their products, for lack of proper legal paperwork. If workers organise and legally buy means of production, the bourgeois State will still be there supporting other, privately owned, factories and farms, so that the deluded coop workers will still have to overwork themselves as a sacrifice to god capital.

On the other hand, the "expropriation of the means of production" needs to be more than a mere transference of property - the exact mistake where Proudhonism and Stalinism meet in agreement. Simply turning every factory in the country the property of its workers won't abolish the individuality of competing capitals, won't abolish the capitalist competition, and consequently won't abolish wage slavery.

Give a clear definition of what petty bourgeois is, and then we can see if it's applicable to any part or kind of anarchism, and see why does it matter. I know of three proposed definitions of "petite-bourgeoisie"- as people who own the means of production and employ a small number of wage-workers (and most probably working alongside them); as people who own the means of production but don't employ any workers; as both those groups of people. Are you refering to one of those three meanings?

No; those definitions seem to me all very un-Marxist.

The petty bourgeoisie is the class of owners of means of productions that cannot, due to their petty nature, function as capital. They consequently derive a livelihood from their means of production, but they cannot derive capital accumulation from them. The fact that they employ few, or even many, wage-workers, or none at all, is irrelevant (beyond the obvious correlation between the paucity of their means of production and the paucity of circulating money they may have to pay wage-workers), as well as the fact that they labour alongside their employees or not.

As I said, if one identifies capitalism with wage-labor one must see those types of exploitation as non-capitalist exploitative relations, and very peculiar exploitative relations indeed, being that unlike the ones of slave, feudal and capitalist exploitation they are outside of production (I opened that wierd theoretical thread about employism).

Well... I certainly don't identify capitalism with wage-labour, which is much more ancient. Journeymen are as old as the Bible (which refers to them a number of times) at least; but they weren't modern proletarians, nor were they exploited by bourgeois capitalists.

Specific capitalist exploitation is only possible in production, which does not mean that other forms of exploitation cannot exist in a capitalist society (and no, they don't turn a capitalist society into a semi-capitalist one).

That's concerning usury, but concerning commercial profit that you mention, e.g. Engels says this: "Whence comes this surplus-value? It cannot come either from the buyer buying the commodities under their value, or from the seller selling them above their value. For in both cases the gains and the losses of each individual cancel each other, as each individual is in turn buyer and seller. Nor can it come from cheating, for though cheating can enrich one person at the expense of another, it cannot increase the total sum possessed by both, and therefore cannot augment the sum of the values in circulation." and therefore makes the conclusion that capitalist exploitation can happen only in production. As I already said, Marx himself said that appearance of capital is circulation is impossible, but he also said that appearance of capital outside of circulation is impossible, and hence the contradiction, which is solved by Engels, Kautsky and others in noting tautologically, as you did, that for production to happen, labor must be found outside of producting, which says nothing, of course people aren't born in factories and work in them as part of their biological functioning like breathing, they first have to be (in capitalism) hired so they can go to the factory and work there.

I see no problem here. Capitalist exploitation can only happen in production. It doesn't mean that a man who lives at the expense of his wife isn't exploiting her outside production, for instance.

I was refering to talking strictly about circulation, where C-M-C is refered to as "simple circulation", and M-C-M, which Marx talks about as "buying in order to sell dearer", is refered to as "merchants’ capital". As I said the confusion arises at all because Marx rejects the socialist labor theory and therefore can't reject the money-lending M-M' circulation on the basis of reference labor, so he talks about the Aristotelian notion of "natural" use of money.
Also mechant's "capital" doesn't have anything to do with long distance, it can happen in on marketplace among three people, with the merchant buying a commodity from one person and selling it to another for more money then he bought it for and thus walking away with more money then when he got there.

Of course merchant capital has to do with long distance, it is how it historically has always existed.

Yes. Not counting the precursors, the first clear articulation of socialist thought was by Thomas Hodgskin in 1825, espousing the "labor theory of property", which is the "natural right to property" as contrasted with the artificial ones that were in effect throught history and still are. As I said, Proudhon reworked that theory into something that can be called "labor theory of possession", thus solving some problems of application that Hodskin's theory could have. It would be nice if you could give any explanations and arguments, and not only derisions like "hocus-pocus", "contradictions" "chimera".

Evidently the "natural right to property" is bogus; there is nothing like that. There are no "natural rights"; rights are social constructions, and are based on strength relations between social forces. "Nature" works here as a pagan deity, creating social relations instead of human beings, which it quite obviously cannot do. What Hodgskin does is to try and use Ricardo's work, twisting it around, to defend workers against capital; and while it was certainly a noble endeavour, it cannot succeed, because without the recognition of the immediately social nature of human labour, we are condemned to repeat the false bourgeois silogism of the bourgeois (only labour creates wealth, consequently, if one is wealthy, it follows that one has worked a lot).

Problem of slavery is different from the problem of wage-labor because it's not purely economical, and as I said, Proudhonian labor theory of possession solves the economic problem of labor.

Problem is, the "economic problem of labour" is distinctively the problem of capitalist wage labour; feudal "labour", slave "labour" are of a completely distinct nature, not "economic" at all (for the "economy" as such, as a disntinct sphere opposed to "politics" is itself a creation of capitalism.

But the topic of that other component of slavery is interesting, because Proudhon also adressed that, he didn't only espouse the labor theory, but also the idea of liberty, he rejected not only relations of economic exploitation but also relations of domination, something which Marx not only didn't do, but in fact, he (with Engels) did exactly the opposite- oppossed anarchism and considered it's libertarianism as nonsense.

Well, of course, since it is a relic of 18th century enlightenment, with its absurds about "natural rights", the goddess reason, its rejections of history, etc. But I don't think this is the direct cause of practical conflict between Marxists and anarchists within the International, which was referred to Bakunin's conspiratory, undemocratic methods (secret dictatorship, iniciation rituals, brotherhoods, etc).

Which just leads simply to the conclusion that everyone who's into libertarian socialism should reject Marx and accept Proudhon, on account of both idea of labor and the idea of liberty.

Well, no.

Accepting Proudhon instead of Marx will lead us into recreating capitalism under the form of cooperatives, because Proudhon was under the delusion that expropriating the capitalists will in and of itself put an end to capital. Which is false, and was most clearly shown false by the failure of the Russian Revolution. Refuting Stalin conduces directly into refuting Proudhon.

Luís Henrique

bropasaran

4th April 2014, 23:01

Your argument seems to reduce history to a matter of will.
If I would have to "reduce" it, I would reduce it to a matter of will, but to a chaotic interplay of innumerable wills with many factors influencing those wills from all kinds of environments- political, economic, cultural, biological (and of course, to some degree those of pure will). Which is "reducing" it as much as evolutonary theory "reduces" development of organisms to numerous factors, it's a hugely complicated bundle of processes in any case, it is so when one e.g. looks at a family during a few generations, and it is there impossible to speculate with any degree of certainty about general developments unless one has clear facts correlations to base his speculations on, and it is infinitely more impossible to speculate in such a way when talking about history of humanity. One can identify trends of this or that, and make observations based on them, but to claim to know why major historical developments like changes in modes of productios happen is IMO just pure lunacy.

I'm a Marxist, sepcifically, because I think the general understanding of history is accurate and leads to useful emancipatory conclusions for me as a worker.
How does it do that? As far as I'm familiar with what Marxists say about history it only handicaps any emancipatory strivings.

Marxism: materialist history - men make history but in conditions not of their choosing.
That's just a tautology. Afaik, Marxism claims much more, that conditions by which the actions of humanity is confined to act in a certaing way are so tight that it the history as it happen couldn't have happened any other way, and that the history is likewise going to continue to develop inside those "laws" that confine it. At least that's the impression I got, maybe I'm wrong?

This makes sense to me historically: people talked about socialism for 1000 years, did Marx "will" himself to develop these ideas... or did his ideas develop through a combination of Democratic struggles in the recent past and the emergence of working class movements as a political/social force. He suggested many things that were speculative in his day and daily reality, and even common sense, in our day. But if he lived 100 years earlier I doubt he would have developed his ideas because there was no working class movements of major social importance yet!
I see development of ideas depending on conditions in a totally different way. Although there is nothing impossible for a person or some people to come to libertarian socialist ideas in any epoch or place (and that's why the ideals of LibSoc did appear in bits and pieces in ancient philosophies and religions), it is largely improbable practical-wise because of collective nature of reasoning, because it takes an enormous ammont of intellectual creativity (a level probably impossible by biological limits of our minds) and leisure for someone alone or in a small group to cristalize any ideas thus including this ones, and the only technological development that has influence (not necessarily determining causality, which is a big difference) is the development of means of communicans and flow on information, and it is my opinion that the progress of ideas not in terms of their cristalization, articulation but also in their qualitative progressivness in the enlightenment and later in the labor movement is primarily because it was aided by the devolopment, improvement and proliferation of the printing press. Of course, development of other technologies and events and relations of class struggle and the consequent relations of power between different (sub)classes also has a lot to do with it, I'm just talking about one factor (and I stress that even there this is just an opinion), which is exactly the point. Precisely because of the complexity of different factors and influences, it is impossible to claim knowledge of anything similar to laws of history, let alone of such a thing.

Marx's texts are contradictory on this - part of it was that his ideas were developing - part of it is that he couldn't always talk openly about revolution in a Europe where despots were being overthrown by revolutions.
Anarchists seem to have been free of either of those "difficulties".

But engels himself criticized an increasing tendency towards electoralism (that people justified by quoting him or Marx) and I think this idea has largely become a myth due to the politics of 2nd International.
Or the fact that Marx wrote reformist programs for elections till the end of his life and in fact in the last such program he wrote made a statement that the emancipation of the workers is going to come through the ballot.

In what contexts? Federalism in the organization of the international? Centralization of what? Rejecting what self-government of what?
Federal political organization. He talks about the necessity of revolution going from the center. Self-government of the commune and of the workers in the workplace.

LOL. If he was so cool, why was he so geeky? Sorry, this isn't an argument - it's just baiting. If so-and-so was a TRUE american, then they would obviously agree with me and the tea-party.
You're saying that Marxism is per se libertarian, but that is easily proved wrong by point out that Marxism had libertarians around him, and he not only refused to join them, but oppossed them.

This is part of why I'm a marxist - capitalism is a SYSTEM of relations - wage-labor, markets, commodites CAN all exist in other systems
Just because the whole is called something based on it's (largest) part doesn't mean that it is right to identify the whole with the part. Feudalism was also a system, that doesn't mean that people who were slaves, wage-workers or free laborers in feudalist systems were serfs- they were slaves, wage-workers or free laborers, being part of the feudal system didn't make their relations feudal. Likewise, commodity production being a part of capitalist systems doesn't make it capitalist.

Are you saying Capitalism is purely economic?
No, I'm saying that capitalism has problems in economic relatios, no that those are the only problems it has. Concerning that, I'm saying that the socialist labor theory (of propert/ possession) solves the problem of any possible economic relations, and thus of those in capitalism or slavery (or any other system). Labor theory + libertarianism solves pretty much all social problems of capitalism and such systems, both of which are present in Proudhon.

As a Marxist, the heart of it to me is: the self-emancipation of the working class which I interpret as "socialism from below".
How is that the heart of Marxism? There is virtually just a couple of instances where Marx seems to support such a thing, and there are other instances in his life and work that clearly oppose it, whereas anarchism actually does as it's core have the idea of "socialism from below" (as the only socialism possible). I don't get why would anyone wanting socialism from below accept Marx and not the anarchist tradition.

I think a Marxist analysis of history is the most accurate and useful framework for understanding capitalism in general and why the working class is the force that can change it and end class rule altogether.
Can you exlain concretely what is so useful about it?

I think there are some tendencies and baggage I do not agree with at all (as with some Marxism tendencies, there are Anarchist tradditions that vere towards elitism or opportunism).
The only "baggage" that Anarchism has is one detail of Proudhon's political economy- his view that direct class struggles like strikes etc are futile. That's it. There are no contradiction or confusions in his labor theory, there is no doubt in his anti-authoritarianism, and those two are the root of libertarian socialism. And that one detail that is wrong is "fixed" by Bakunin as the primary exponent of, and the movement of which he was the part of, that of revolutionary anarchism.

If in the US there was a major Anarchist-oriented syndicalist organization I would most likely want to be a member while remaining a Marxist.
IWW?

Just because there exists a story, an ideology claiming that something is possible, it doesn't actually follow that there is a real possibility. In other words, you need to learn to distinguish a real possibility (a matter of examining all of the actual variables relevant to the matter at hand) from a logical possibility.
Let's for a second not treat Marxism as pious Christians treat Christianity, and ask a just a little different question:

Just because there exist a story, an ideology claiming that something is necessary, does it actually follow that it really is (was) necessary?

Just because there exists a story, an ideology claiming that something is possible, it doesn't actually follow that there is a real possibility. In other words, you need to learn to distinguish a real possibility (a matter of examining all of the actual variables relevant to the matter at hand) from a logical possibility.
Note that I'm not saying that if something is possible it is also practically plausible (to happen / to have happened). What I am saying is that something being possible does disprove any theory which says that what it being talked about is impossible [either logically or practically] (to happen / to have happened).

And as a matter of fact, I do think that a sober analysis of these variables in the case of contemporary capitalist society shows, most of all by means of the analysis of the state, that anarcho-capitalism represents nothing but a fantasy. I might as well come up with my own little ideological utopia where only people with 3 legs and 5 heads will work as slaves and there wouldn't be a fundamental distinction between that silly story and anarcho-capitalism.
Capitalism exist and capitalism as "anarcho"-capitalists define it also exists as a part of it, "anarchism" as "anarcho"-capitalist define it possible, further more it has existed, most recent example being Somalia. Can you point out to existence of people with 3 legs and 5 heads, or any facts suggesting the possibility of their existence? If not, this is just a false analogy.

Again, if fantasies with no ground in reality are claimed ...
Can you give some arguments that Marxist theory is anything more then this? I don't how it's any more convincing then the pure Hegelian idealistic materialism.

Dodo

4th April 2014, 23:20

A lot of attention to this thread :)

You see, as a person who have a big trouble with a lot of "Marxists", I'd like to ask you this. What do you think Marxism is?

The problem here and in a lot of places for the radical lefties is that they define themselves through weird tendency-tradition approaches...and they do this without a proper grasp of Marx. Thus we get in our hand a bunch of people who are obsessed with certain reified concepts that are incompatible as representors of their tradition.
The anarchism-marxism debate is the same thing and it misses the point completely.

Both have established their own "traditions", created abstract concepts throughout history and are now fighting over things that do not exist.
A Marxist does not(should not) identify himself/herself through Marx's debates with Bakunin. Anyone who views the world through those abstractions today are in a for a loooong education on how the world has changed.

You should not limit Marxism to abstract concepts that were METHDOLOGIZED BY OTHERS based on HIS ABSTRACTIONS that were a product of his dialectically produced CRITICAL analysis.
While I have no trouble with the abstractions Marx created and their use, acceptance of them as absolute truths of reality is not Marxist. Now if these theories are not really what Marxism is, how can an abstract debate over the role of state be representing Marxism?

Marxism is a CRITICAL TOOL to change the world from within, i.e, with the relations/dynamics of the existing relations.
Marxism is not statist, state as an institution exists and represents a set of relations in the current world. The idea of Marxism is to create the future with what we have now.

There is no "clear" defined role given to state in Marxism as a tool. Only tendencies have solidified BELIEFS and turned them into dogma and lost themselves in pointless debates. A debate of marginals that only serves to reproduction of existing world.

AmilcarCabral

4th April 2014, 23:45

Dogukan: This is a little bit off-topic but related what you said in your comments. You are right, about many leftist thinking that Marx is a religious leader and not a scientist, a writer, a thinker just like Descartes, Kant etc. Many people who a religious-view and a square view of Marx think that if you read non-marxism philosophers and thinkers, you are automatically a right-winger, a fascist, a satanic evil person and should be destroyed. They think that if they wear a Sarah Palin t-shirt, a capitalist shirt, and read a capitalist book, they are already destroying socialism communism and marxism.

That's the sort of mentality that is really a powerful impediment for socialism and anarchist communism in this world, leads to sectarianism. Karl Marx and Engels were philosophers, thinkers, social scientists, not leaders of a religion

.

A lot of attention to this thread :)

You see, as a person who have a big trouble with a lot of "Marxists", I'd like to ask you this. What do you think Marxism is?

The problem here and in a lot of places for the radical lefties is that they define themselves through weird tendency-tradition approaches...and they do this without a proper grasp of Marx. Thus we get in our hand a bunch of people who are obsessed with certain reified concepts that are incompatible as representors of their tradition.
The anarchism-marxism debate is the same thing and it misses the point completely.

Both have established their own "traditions", created abstract concepts throughout history and are now fighting over things that do not exist.
A Marxist does not(should not) identify himself/herself through Marx's debates with Bakunin. Anyone who views the world through those abstractions today are in a for a loooong education on how the world has changed.

You should not limit Marxism to abstract concepts that were METHDOLOGIZED BY OTHERS based on HIS ABSTRACTIONS that were a product of his dialectically produced CRITICAL analysis.
While I have no trouble with the abstractions Marx created and their use, acceptance of them as absolute truths of reality is not Marxist. Now if these theories are not really what Marxism is, how can an abstract debate over the role of state be representing Marxism?

Marxism is a CRITICAL TOOL to change the world from within, i.e, with the relations/dynamics of the existing relations.
Marxism is not statist, state as an institution exists and represents a set of relations in the current world. The idea of Marxism is to create the future with what we have now.

There is no "clear" defined role given to state in Marxism as a tool. Only tendencies have solidified BELIEFS and turned them into dogma and lost themselves in pointless debates. A debate of marginals that only serves to reproduction of existing world.

bropasaran

5th April 2014, 01:12

Well - political power needs to be conquered first, because if it remains at the hands of our enemies, they will use it to make the expropriation of the means of production impossible
The conclusion "political power needs to be conquered first" doesn't follow from the premise that 'we need to prevent reaction from stoping us from the expropriatio of the means of producion'. From that premise follows the conclusion "we need to conquer political power before they use it, to stop them from using it against us", and that conclusion doesn't have just one way in which way it can be effected, it actually, as far as I see, has three. One- we conquer political power the same time as we do economic; two- we conquer political power before we do economic; three- we conquer political power after we do economic, but before they use it against us. Option three is improbable, being that presumably the ruling class will use the political power it has right away or at any prediction of a revolution happening, option one is likewise improbable in an opposite way, if we concquer political power the ruling class will presumably use it's economic power against us as soon as that happens or even more likely, even on pressumption of it happening. It seems to me that the option two, the anarchist option of the revolution being simultaniously political and economical, is the only viable option.

On the other hand, the "expropriation of the means of production" needs to be more than a mere transference of property
Expropriation of the means of production means workers taking possession and control of the means of production. That accomplishes abolition of wage-labor.

The petty bourgeoisie is the class of owners of means of productions that cannot, due to their petty nature, function as capital. They consequently derive a livelihood from their means of production, but they cannot derive capital accumulation from them. The fact that they employ few, or even many, wage-workers, or none at all, is irrelevant
If their having wage-workers is irrelevant, then they are a set of people whose clasification as that set that doesn't have much significance to the analysis of capitalism being that the core of capitalism is the alienation of labor in the relations of wage-labor. Also, if that is irrelevant, it also goes against the definition of the term itself, being that capital isn't just any property or any means of production, but that property (/means of production) that is used to exploit people, and if their exploiting people by their means of production is irrelevant then we cannot mention capital and it's functionality as a reference in defining who "petty-bourgeoise" are.

Well... I certainly don't identify capitalism with wage-labour, which is much more ancient. Journeymen are as old as the Bible (which refers to them a number of times) at least; but they weren't modern proletarians, nor were they exploited by bourgeois capitalists.
Journeyman are not necessarily wage-workers, afaik, the word can be also used for self-employed service provides. Also, if you're saying that wage-labor existed before capitalism, does that mean that you are devorcing capitalism from wage-labor in a way that if wage-labor can exist before and thus without capitalism, doesn't that mean that also capitalism can exist without wage-labor?

Specific capitalist exploitation is only possible in production, which does not mean that other forms of exploitation cannot exist in a capitalist society (and no, they don't turn a capitalist society into a semi-capitalist one).
Then I don't get what you're saying. The only logical of what you seem to be saying is that capitalism existed throughout history, parallel to other systems, which I guess is a claim which does make sense, but opens up an array of other questions. But you don't seem to make such a claim. Would it be correct to say that it is your opinion that capitalist relations existed before capitalism and that capitalism is to be defined as simply a generalization and predominance of those relations?

I see no problem here. Capitalist exploitation can only happen in production. It doesn't mean that a man who lives at the expense of his wife isn't exploiting her outside production, for instance.
I would agree, but what does that mean in regards to e.g. usury, if that is exploitation but not a capitalist one, then what is it?

Evidently the "natural right to property" is bogus; there is nothing like that.
First of all, how is it "evident" where is your evidence for that?
Secondly, if it is bogus, then there can be no exploitation. If there is no natural right to property or possession, how can then someone claim that e.g. alienation of labor in itself is wrong? Which I see as something that socialists must do.

(Note that natural rights are not some religious notion, they can and IMO should be understood as simply norms and imperatives that are correct and proper, e.g. saying that people have a right to liberty, like when Bakunin says that freedom is an "absolute right of every adult man and woman" for me that means simply that no one should be dominated by other people.)

What Hodgskin does is to try and use Ricardo's work, twisting it around, to defend workers against capital; and while it was certainly a noble endeavour, it cannot succeed, because without the recognition of the immediately social nature of human labour, we are condemned to repeat the false bourgeois silogism of the bourgeois (only labour creates wealth, consequently, if one is wealthy, it follows that one has worked a lot).
It more has to do with Locke, but never mind. It is not only a noble endeavour, it is the first exposition of socialism, the point of which is to recognize the obvious logical mistake in the capitalist syllogism and to replace is with a one that is valid and sound, namely- only labor creates wealth, consenquenty- all wealth belongs to labor, and anyone who acquires wealth on the basis of property and not on the basis of labor is in fact stealing from those who labor. Which is similar to Marx' theory of surplus value, only without the confusions and contradictions. Actually, it's the other way around, because the socialist LTP predates Marx, so actually Marx' theories are just socialist LTP made nonsocialist and nonsensical by adding confusions and contradictions.

Problem is, the "economic problem of labour" is distinctively the problem of capitalist wage labour; feudal "labour", slave "labour" are of a completely distinct nature, not "economic" at all (for the "economy" as such, as a disntinct sphere opposed to "politics" is itself a creation of capitalism.
The fact that chemistry as a field of inquiry in itself come into being in one epoch doesn't mean that what it inquires about wasn't present before that epoch, or that it can't inquire about what is from any previous epoch. Likewise with economy and labor theory, yes, they came into being in modern times, and doesn't in any way prevent them from applying their theories to relations that happened before their emergence.

But I don't think this is the direct cause of practical conflict between Marxists and anarchists within the International, which was referred to Bakunin's conspiratory, undemocratic methods
It was Bakunin, who talked about abolishing all hierarchy and domination, that was undemocratic, and not Marx, who accepted centralism, managerialism, electioneering. It's amazing that this kind of Marx' opportunistic slurs and lies about Proudhon and Bakunin are still used, and the delusion of Marxism being "socialism from bellow" still exists. Some popular falsifications about the two anarchist thinkers that are in the the popular essay named after that delusion are debunked here:

About distortions of Proudhon's ideas
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append31.html#app4

About distortions of Bakunin's ideas
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append31.html#app5

And also this is of interest:

Doesn't Bakunin's "Invisible Dictatorship" prove that anarchists are secret authoritarians?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secJ3.html#secj37

Accepting Proudhon instead of Marx will lead us into recreating capitalism under the form of cooperatives
One- Accepting Proudhon instead of Marx will not lead us to accept cooperatives as solution for capitalism any more then accepting Marx instead of Proudhon leads Marxists to accepts electioneering as the solution.

Accepting Proudhon instead of Marx gives someone who desires emancipatio of the working people a proper foundation in labor theory and libertarianism, which he cannot find in Marx with his contradictory economic blather and authorian views on both political and workplace organization.

Two- capitalism cannot recreate under the form of cooperatives, only as a consequence of cooperatives not cooperating with each other, which is what even Proudhon knew and thus advocated agro-industrial federations of worker associations, which revolutinary anarchists advocate with even more, that is, to a higher degree.

because Proudhon was under the delusion that expropriating the capitalists will in and of itself put an end to capital. Which is false, and was most clearly shown false by the failure of the Russian Revolution. Refuting Stalin conduces directly into refuting Proudhon.
Only if we ignore what Proudhon actually said and the Proudhonian libertarian socialist class analysis. Having in mind the first and thus knowing that capitalist subjugation of labor is not abolished only by expropriating the capitalist, but by expropriting the capitalist by workers, we can then look and see if that happened in the Russian "revolution". Having in mind the second and knowing that the "intelectual-managerial elite" as Bakunin called them, are not the workers, and that the political rulers of any state are also not the workers, but are in fact both separate from and above the working class(es), we can look at the Russian "revolution" and see that there was in fact a disposition of capitalists and politicians by technocracts who then themselves took their place and functions of oppressing and exploiting the workering people. We then come to the conclusion that the situation of the USSR actually tells us that what happened there was directly oppossed to libertarian socialism, and that's without even mentioning the persecution and destruction of libertarian socialists by that system or the fact that Leninism is in fact the ideology of the technocrats.

And if we were to look at the fact that Leninism is the ideology of the technocrats and not of the working people, and inquire into how could Lenin base his thinking on Marx if Marx was such a libertarian, who wrote in the first International the worlds about self-emancipation, as is often pointed out, what would we find out? We would find out that Marx has more authoritarian statements in his works then libertarian ones, that he advocated electioneering until the end of his life and that he explicitly held that "emancipation" of the workers will come through political representatives. We would also find out that his class analysis is economically reductionist, and wrong even there because it talks only about ownership and thus conceals the difference between managers and the workers, puting them in the same class of wage-workers and fetishises that class as the only revolutionary one, and we would also find out that he thought that managers commanding the workers is a necessity in any collective labor. We would then come to the conclusion that there actually wasn't anything contradictory in Lenin basing his technocratic ideology on Marx, we would come to the conclusion that Marx' class analysis is an errounous one and that in fact he wasn't a libertarian. If we were someone who really wanted emancipation of the working people we would then reject Marx and any sort of Marxism, either some sort that came into being by the development of authoritarian thought or some sort that came into being by engraftment of libertarianism with Marx' theories; and we would instead accept Proudhon's thought and it's development in the revolutionary anarchist tradition.

Jimmie Higgins

5th April 2014, 09:48

If I would have to "reduce" it, I would reduce it to a matter of will, but to a chaotic interplay of innumerable wills with many factors influencing those wills from all kinds of environments- political, economic, cultural, biological (and of course, to some degree those of pure will). Which is "reducing" it as much as evolutonary theory "reduces" development of organisms to numerous factors, it's a hugely complicated bundle of processes in any case, it is so when one e.g. looks at a family during a few generations, and it is there impossible to speculate with any degree of certainty about general developments unless one has clear facts correlations to base his speculations on, and it is infinitely more impossible to speculate in such a way when talking about history of humanity. One can identify trends of this or that, and make observations based on them, but to claim to know why major historical developments like changes in modes of productios happen is IMO just pure lunacy.Yes, there are any number of factors, objective and subjective, that go into the world. This is why Marxism can only be "science" in a very general sense of "knowledge-based" theory, not in a modern scientific sense of being able to isolate out the variables and experament. This is why Marx, in his writings, attempts to GENERALIZE, to ABSTRACT things in order to see what are the common threads and tendencies. This is why Marxists speak in terms of "potential" and "tendency". The only Marxists who spoke of history in very certain and ridged terms were people in the USSR or other regimes trying to blame "objective history" for why they had to do this or that.

How does it do that? As far as I'm familiar with what Marxists say about history it only handicaps any emancipatory strivings.Does saying that if you jump off a building, you will fall handicap the ability of people to fly? Or does it just argue that one can not fly in that way. It may handicap those who want to just make-up some new society out of their ass, but it's emancipatory to me because it leads to conclusions about how what exists today can be changed through the self-activity of workers fighting as a class. This might sound limited for 1960s college students who want to plant a few bombs or fight the pigs to have a revolution tomorrow - it might sound limited to someone who wants to become a benevolent dictator or lead a benevolent Coup to deliver socialism to the "masses". But to me it's an understanding that connects the "now" to a better world in a very practical - though not easy or automatic - way.

A deterministic-materialism, a Stalinized "marxism", have a pretty bad view of history IMO. Marx and the Marxist tradditions that followed that I find valuable do not take a stageist view or and inevitable view of history. There are always many different possible outcomes, but this is within a range of what is possible given objective conditions. It's a generalization to say than an object in motion stays in motion - and if we couldn't isolate the variables and demonstrate this theory, then I'm sure some would still debate the world of the theory because on the surface, in the real world, no object is free from other forces impacting it. But having that generalization can only tell you tendencies: that if you push a ball from the top of a hill, it will tend to want to roll down. It won't tell you if the ball will bounce, if it will swerve or go straight, or if it will go fast or slow or when it will stop. More theory and more data might get you a more specific prediction, but it's still an educated guess based on general tendencies. "Scientific Socialism", Marxism, is like that - it can't tell us when or how things might change or how or when consiousness might develop in large numbers of people, but it gives us a general framework. It tells us that the ball will likely roll down the hill and not up. An idealist view, a view that "will" alone and not will+world (or subjective action within objective circumstances) is how history works will tend to see a ball rolling up a hill as a possibility equal to the ball rolling down.

That's just a tautology. Afaik, Marxism claims much more, that conditions by which the actions of humanity is confined to act in a certaing way are so tight that it the history as it happen couldn't have happened any other way, and that the history is likewise going to continue to develop inside those "laws" that confine it. At least that's the impression I got, maybe I'm wrong?Marxism does arge that things can go differnet ways - Marx is not Pangloss, far from it. What it does argue is that history does not go in reverse development - balls do not roll uphill. A society might collapse and revert to a different set-up, but it does not "develop" in reverse.

I see development of ideas depending on conditions in a totally different way. Although there is nothing impossible for a person or some people to come to libertarian socialist ideas in any epoch or place (and that's why the ideals of LibSoc did appear in bits and pieces in ancient philosophies and religions), it is largely improbable practical-wise because of collective nature of reasoning, because it takes an enormous ammont of intellectual creativity (a level probably impossible by biological limits of our minds) and leisure for someone alone or in a small group to cristalize any ideas thus including this ones, and the only technological development that has influence (not necessarily determining causality, which is a big difference) is the development of means of communicans and flow on information, and it is my opinion that the progress of ideas not in terms of their cristalization, articulation but also in their qualitative progressivness in the enlightenment and later in the labor movement is primarily because it was aided by the devolopment, improvement and proliferation of the printing press. Of course, development of other technologies and events and relations of class struggle and the consequent relations of power between different (sub)classes also has a lot to do with it, I'm just talking about one factor (and I stress that even there this is just an opinion), which is exactly the point. Precisely because of the complexity of different factors and influences, it is impossible to claim knowledge of anything similar to laws of history, let alone of such a thing.
You are talking about the development of ideas and historical development all at once. Anyone can have any idea at any time, this is different that some ideas becoming viewed as credible by many people or real material development in society IMO.

Anarchists seem to have been free of either of those "difficulties".Are you saying anarchists don't develop their ideas or change their understanding of things based on new developments? I find that really hard to believe.

No, I'm saying that capitalism has problems in economic relatios, no that those are the only problems it has. Concerning that, I'm saying that the socialist labor theory (of propert/ possession) solves the problem of any possible economic relations, and thus of those in capitalism or slavery (or any other system). Labor theory + libertarianism solves pretty much all social problems of capitalism and such systems, both of which are present in Proudhon.And I'm saying that problems of captialism can't be isolated to one thread of a system of entangeled and interlocked historical developments. You can't have capitalism and not have some kind of oppression and repression of "the masses"; you can't have capitalism without the development of imperial tensions and competition; you can't have competative commodity production that doesn't want to increasingly exploit labor power because that's the best way to out-compete other owners.

How is that the heart of Marxism? There is virtually just a couple of instances where Marx seems to support such a thing, and there are other instances in his life and work that clearly oppose it, whereas anarchism actually does as it's core have the idea of "socialism from below" (as the only socialism possible). I don't get why would anyone wanting socialism from below accept Marx and not the anarchist tradition.The self-emancipation of the working class, is the core of Marxism. Under different conditions he may have had various specific arguments about "how" revolutionaries relate to this, but it would be a complete mis-read of Marx to argue that this is not central to his whole conception of how capitalism can end and how the working class can liberate all of humanity from class rule. Electorialists of the 2nd international and USSR-apologists have some self-serving reasons for downplaying this, but that's another story.

Can you exlain concretely what is so useful about it?
It clarifies the general tendencies of capitalism and has been more accurate than other theories (radical or mainstream) in seeing the trends of the system, how it tends to work, etc. Revolutionaries throughout the 20th centry have declared that the working class in not the central agent of social change, that consumption rather than production is centrial to capitalism, that state power no longer matters; capitalists have argued that war is over, class antagonisms are over, that the boom-bust cycle has been solved, that "ideology" and even history have ended. Through all these impressionistic readings of superficial aspects of society, Marxism has been much more realiable (it's an open book, so other Marxists have expanded or incorporated new experiences, some theoryies have been rejected, etc - but on the whole...) in predicting the increasing stratification of labor, the increased mechanization and control of the labor process, in the inability of the bourgoise in acting in a revolutionary way any more, in the inability of craft-workers to maintain their position under capitalist competition, in the tendency towards globalization, in the connection between capitalist states and capitalism, etc.

The only "baggage" that Anarchism has is one detail of Proudhon's political economy- his view that direct class struggles like strikes etc are futile. That's it. There are no contradiction or confusions in his labor theory, there is no doubt in his anti-authoritarianism, and those two are the root of libertarian socialism. And that one detail that is wrong is "fixed" by Bakunin as the primary exponent of, and the movement of which he was the part of, that of revolutionary anarchism.Anarchism has all the baggage of Marxism short of the Regimes that followed the Russian Revolution's implosion but still called themselves "marxist".

Anarchism has really elitist tradditions, anarchism has middle class tradditions, anarchism has chauvanist tradditions, anarchism has it's own verison of "socialism from above" that generally involved Che-like armed movements of non-working class people. I am drawn much more to the very class-oriented Anarchist tradditions and no class radical IMO could look at the anarchists in Spain and not see at the very least some very heroic and principled and inspiring examples. I have my own critiques of what different anarchists did and the general ideas of the main trends in the CNT, but generally if this kind of anarchism were revived - I think it would be very very good signs for the working class and revolutionaries. On the other hand, there are current tradditions in anarchism who are looking for some other group, often a self-selected group of "enlightened", to create conditions which force people into conflict with the state - and I don't think this is useful for emacipatiory goals at all. It's the "invisible pilot" traddition and in my view is just as elitiest as some small sect of 70s Maoists. (hmm, how much of the forum did I just offend with this?:lol:)

IWW?Sorry, Industrial Workers of the World (mainly North America though) - it was a syndicalist organization in the early 20th century and one of the high-points of US revolutionary organization and politics.

Dodo

5th April 2014, 13:53

Very well said Jimmie.

@Impossible

That's just a tautology. Afaik, Marxism claims much more, that conditions by which the actions of humanity is confined to act in a certaing way are so tight that it the history as it happen couldn't have happened any other way, and that the history is likewise going to continue to develop inside those "laws" that confine it. At least that's the impression I got, maybe I'm wrong?I'd like to say something about this though. If we read Marx without being aware of his dialectical method, this might seem to be the case. No dialectician would speak of "laws" rigidly established that would determine everything.
I have not read Das Kapital, but from some of the respected scholars who have made a full reading of Marx's works while also being aware of the philosophical traditions, they all seem to make a similar conclusion: That Marx read history backwards, so for the specific cases he looked for, what happened became laws. Marx mentioned himself that he did not create a "theory of history". He created abstractions to understand things better but not created an analytical, mathematic "formulations" on how they must interact.
Things are always dealt with in how they "appear", their tendencies, potentials and preconditions. Something never becomes a static thing which you can put into a mathematical formulation as in "bourgeouisie science".

reb

5th April 2014, 23:02

Normally I like your posts but this one, right here, is bullshit. Anarchism was born in multiple ways, you can't generalize it like that. There are petite-bourgeois anarchist movements, but there are also workers' anarchist movements, and a whole lot of anarchist philosophies and ideas as well as anarchists themselves who fall outside of that spectrum entirely,

It's not bullshit. Anarchism as a tendency evolved out of the petty bourgeois. I've never come across a workers anarchist movement that didn't denounce marxism as a state socialism, remained silent on Bakunin's "general staff" whilst denouncing Leninism's vanguard party or made any real attempt to explain away Bakunin's understanding of an innate human nature.

reb

5th April 2014, 23:07

@Louis as I can't quote your post

Yes, anarchism has it's roots as a petty-bourgeois reaction to capitalism. Modern anarchism, whilst remaining petty-bourgeois from the perspective of non-involvement in the proletarian class as a class, is still just a reaction to capitalism from this outside class. The difference is that we have the historical experience of marxism since the 1848 to now to which they are also reacting against.

bropasaran

5th April 2014, 23:33

Yes, there are any number of factors, objective and subjective, that go into the world. This is why Marxism can only be "science" in a very general sense of "knowledge-based" theory, not in a modern scientific sense of being able to isolate out the variables and experament. This is why Marx, in his writings, attempts to GENERALIZE, to ABSTRACT things in order to see what are the common threads and tendencies. This is why Marxists speak in terms of "potential" and "tendency". The only Marxists who spoke of history in very certain and ridged terms were people in the USSR or other regimes trying to blame "objective history" for why they had to do this or that.
I was under the impression that Marxism is saying things like wind-mills give us feudalism and steam-mills give us capitalism, being that Marx did say such things, but ok.

Marx and the Marxist tradditions that followed that I find valuable do not take a stageist view or and inevitable view of history. There are always many different possible outcomes, but this is within a range of what is possible given objective conditions.
Left unexplained this common-sense notion can also be used to then make the assertion that objcetive conditions are so narrow that what happened was basically inevitable in practice, and that what can happen can only happen is likewise narrow bounds so what is going is to happen will happen because it is in practice basically inevitable.

Are you saying anarchists don't develop their ideas or change their understanding of things based on new developments? I find that really hard to believe.
I'm saying that Anarchism didn't have those two faults you mentioned. Firstly, ideas of anarchism are anarchist from the beggining, anarchism doesn't 'develop' it's libertarianism and labor theory of possession later from some earlier form of anarchism that has some defective forms of those two ideas- anarchism, from the beggining, as set by Proudhon, has those two basis of itself clearly and rationally articulated as valid and sound. And the second thing that I'm saying is that anarchist didn't shy away from saying what they want- abolition of capitalists, politicians and technocrats (in general- all rulers and exploitatiors), from fear of being repressed.

The self-emancipation of the working class, is the core of Marxism.
Then it would seem that Marxism isn't based on Marx, being that he, till the end of his life, espoused "emancipation" through political representatives.

Anarchism has all the baggage of Marxism short of the Regimes that followed the Russian Revolution's implosion but still called themselves "marxist".
When I talk about anarchism, what I'm talking about is what I have under my nickname- the social/ political/ economic movement in the tradition of Proudhon and Bakunin- Proudhon setting clear foundations in labor theory and libertarianism, Bakunin (along with others, but he being representative) developing it by most importantly making the revolutionary strategy a central attribute. Zero baggage.

If one would to consider Marx as a possible basis, he would have major problems. Considering libertarianism, there's the problem of Marx' consistent advocacy of political representation, and his view that it is a necessity for any group of workers to have a technocrat that would command them. Considering labor theory, along with much vagueness, confusion and contradictions, there's the problem of Marx' fetishising of wage-recievers and it is a major problem because firstly- that not only rejects but automatically makes enemies out of all workers who own means of production but don't oppress or exploit anyone, and because secondly- it identifies as a unitary class the chimeric group of wage-workers with are in fact class divided group consisting of laborers on one side and managers on the other. In considering Marx, one finds that his views about economy are not only confused but that they also enable his disastrous views about political and workplace organization- which are anti-libertarian and anti-emancipatory, and that's not baggage, that's a burden which drags one in the oppossite direction of that to which libertarian socialism points to- the self-emancipation of the working people.

Thirsty Crow

6th April 2014, 22:50

Let's for a second not treat Marxism as pious Christians treat Christianity, and ask a just a little different question:
Just because there exist a story, an ideology claiming that something is necessary, does it actually follow that it really is (was) necessary?

Mighty big words. I won't ask you to back that stuff about Christianity as analogy up, if it relates to whatever I wrote. I know this would amount to nothing.

And of course that the answer to your question is a resounding "no". However, the relevance of you posing this question as a rhetorical question, that I can't see. Apart from the naivete of trying to disconnect changes in the productive apparatus - as a concept, itself including labor power (e.g. knowledge, which is also a phenomenon formed through a wider set of social relations) - from political and social changes. But now you may want to engage in accusations of determinism and so on. I couldn't care less, honestly, for two reasons: 1) a part of the Marxist tradition simply did not and does not do any such thing, and 2) personally, I don't think I do it. As a matter of fact, I don't even think this deserves a fancy "-ism". It's mere sloppy, lazy thinking indulging in formulas.

Note that I'm not saying that if something is possible it is also practically plausible (to happen / to have happened). What I am saying is that something being possible does disprove any theory which says that what it being talked about is impossible [either logically or practically] (to happen / to have happened).

Capitalism exist and capitalism as "anarcho"-capitalists define it also exists as a part of it, "anarchism" as "anarcho"-capitalist define it possible, further more it has existed, most recent example being Somalia. Can you point out to existence of people with 3 legs and 5 heads, or any facts suggesting the possibility of their existence? If not, this is just a false analogy.

To summarize the argument prior to my post you've responded to with this, you asked why is it that it is impossible to have a feudal society where there is no agriculture. Now, this obviously refers to nomadic forms of social life, be they herding or hunter gatherer. The practice and required technology for agriculture were simply not there in these cases. So, by the very way we use the word "feudal" (a manor lord extracting surplus in natural form from serfs tilling the fields) rules out any pre-agricultural society immediately. But then you proceeded to confuse non-agricultural societies with a, possible or not, completely stateless capitalist society. Do anarcho-caps propose the destruction of the practice of agriculture? I don't think so.

Other aspects of why this fantasy of neo-feudalism is a mere fantasy were covered by Luis, and just to note that capital as it exists today, with definite individual interests formed in this way, is the real barrier to a practical political development towards this way. On the other hand, if one would postulate imminent ecological catastrophe crippling production and exchange apparatuses, now then you could meaningfully speculate on a real possibility of a kind of a class society born on such ruins resembling historical feudal societies closely. However, we both now that is not what anarcho-caps do.

As for Somalia, I don't know much about the situation there. It seems as if life is based on nightmarish sectarian and/or tribal violence, with concomitant break up of central political authority into regional and local political entities. Though, it would be pretty ironic if that were taken as a historical vindication of that silly ideology we're talking about (plus I really doubt that actual social relations, including political ones, bear such a resemblance to a proposed capitalist utopia). And a much bigger problem here is the fact that such a state of affairs has come out of very specific social conditions which cannot be generalized in imagination, and indeed that the resultant situation is due to social break up more or less - something which is strictly not what is proposed by this ideology.

As for my own silly story, consider this. Science and especially bio-technology is progressing, right? So, it is justifiable to conclude that there is a real possibility that once in the future technicians and scientists will come up with a way to modify the gene set of a...well, person, in order that they may have one rudimentary leg extra and 4 little rudimentary heads extra.
And then I'd say, why it is clear that all people of this Earth would find it in their interest first to mass produce such laborers and then to found a new kind of society based on them being slave laborers.

Is that good enough a basis for you? Cause sure as hell, it covers all the anarcho-capitalist bases.

As for your claim about "capitalism" the way anarcho-caps define actually "being a part of capitalism", that's incorrect. These folks are very explicit in their use of other terms for contemporary society, claiming that capitalism is strictly to be used as a term in relation to their fantasy land. It's incoherent to claim that capitalism-without-a-state exists as part of capitalism with its modern interstate system. The lack of the state is precisely the crucial criterion for anarcho-caps.

All of this serves to once again highlight the distinction between logical and real possibility. If you're that annoyed by categorical claims of impossbility, In can also speak of some developments being so much unlikely that no one should pay attention to them. The same with arguments in favor of such a capitalist society; logically, they may be coherent. But where it counts, they're a story and nothing more.

Can you give some arguments that Marxist theory is anything more then this? I don't how it's any more convincing then the pure Hegelian idealistic materialism. You're kidding, right?
First, Hegelian idealistic materialism. No self-respecting Hegelian after the man himself would have anything to do with materialism (the whole of Hegel's philosophy being based on a sustained criticism of materialism via what he regarded as insufficient, and inconsistent, idealism of the old metaphysics).
Secondly, you'd have to narrow the scope down a bit and come down from your lofty realm of grand battling "-isms" to earth where concrete analyses and propositions live. In other words, how can I possibly answer this generalization in a satisfactory way without taking a month off for research into all sorts of fields where Marxists have forwarded their arguments? This also relates to your accusations and the burden of proof. For instance, if you do hold that the entirety of the Marxist tradition is akin to such Hegelianism, you're the one who needs to back it up. And up until now, you're being convincingly refuted on some points without your reply.

But to indulge you, grounds in reality you say? Take the recognizably Marxist stance that the proletariat is the only potentially revolutionary class in modern capitalist society.
Basis in fact? Class interest (bearing in mind that first one needs to find the specific notion of social class useful in examining what goes on in life), with the prolongation of capital relations being immediately and tangibly favorable to the capitalist class (not only do capitalists tend to have luxurious leisure and a lack of existential insecurity - though this I believe hovers above their heads as a potential, more or less real, due to competition -, but they can also offer their offspring a wealth to inherit, and social prestige and status, alongside psychological effects and results can figure here as well), with the so called petite bourgeoisie falling more or less under the same category (in order to avoid falling into the ranks of the proletariat broadly and maybe unemployed specifically, a small capitalist is compelled to strive for successful competition with larger capitals, and ultimately to the expansion of business). In short, it is extremely unlikely that a large number of individuals constituting these social classes at one point in time could adopt the revolutionary position.

All of this doesn't hold for the working class, which doesn't mean that social revolution is inevitable. This social class is merely in a position for that to become actually possible.

Oh yeah, and this:

I was under the impression that Marxism is saying things like wind-mills give us feudalism and steam-mills give us capitalism, being that Marx did say such things, but ok.

Just a couple of remarks.
Luis has elaborated on such problems very well, so that your impressions could have been rectified were you to engage the arguments. You did not, which leads me to conclude that these so called impressions are not impressions at all, but prejudice based on a will not to understand (or in other words, ideological bias).

This leads to the second point. Of course that a laconic statement about windmills will then be taken out of context completely (such ways of expressing yourself generally tend to offer themselves easily to this kind of an approach; not that it is possible for a person writing about stuff to avoid that every time), and lucky you, the field for all kinds of interpretation is open. Unfortunately, this doesn't advance anyone's knowledge of anything, not even a bit, but sure as hell it is handy in ideological dick waving contests and accusations of that bad authoritarianism.

Thirsty Crow

6th April 2014, 23:04

Okay, let's go through this as well:

If one would to consider Marx as a possible basis, he would have major problems. Considering libertarianism, there's the problem of Marx' consistent advocacy of political representation, and his view that it is a necessity for any group of workers to have a technocrat that would command them.

This is a load of bull actually, about political representation. The biggest problem here is the way the argument works - allege something, and something consistent at that, but then fail to provide any evidence, or in this case, actual citation spanning at least two or three sources. You even fail to mention the sources without any citation. odd that such consistency could yield such fruits, that you're either unwilling to do the legwork.

You'd only need to crack open The Civil War in France to see that this consistent advocacy of political representation (if you don't collapse the distinction between representation and delegation) was definitely not that consistent really. At this point, I'd advise you to take Stalinist myths with a grain of salt. Well, not a grain, a truckload to be more precise.

Considering labor theory, along with much vagueness, confusion and contradictions, there's the problem of Marx' fetishising of wage-recievers and it is a major problem because firstly- that not only rejects but automatically makes enemies out of all workers who own means of production but don't oppress or exploit anyone, and because secondly- it identifies as a unitary class the chimeric group of wage-workers with are in fact class divided group consisting of laborers on one side and managers on the other. In considering Marx, one finds that his views about economy are not only confused but that they also enable his disastrous views about political and workplace organization- which are anti-libertarian and anti-emancipatory, and that's not baggage, that's a burden which drags one in the oppossite direction of that to which libertarian socialism points to- the self-emancipation of the working people.
Eh where to start with this one.

It seems that you're unable to decide whether to talk of the theory of value (it seems you're doing this at the beginning) or of the actual class analysis performed.

But the largest problem is that you're basically full of shit. Why such harsh words? Because mighty pronouncements of vagueness, contradictions, and confusion never amount to anything, at least not in your case. To be clear, back your story up. Which contradictions? Which vagueness? Which confusion? Where?

Apart from that, I don't see any point in going further.

Five Year Plan

6th April 2014, 23:51

The petty bourgeoisie is the class of owners of means of productions that cannot, due to their petty nature, function as capital. They consequently derive a livelihood from their means of production, but they cannot derive capital accumulation from them. The fact that they employ few, or even many, wage-workers, or none at all, is irrelevant (beyond the obvious correlation between the paucity of their means of production and the paucity of circulating money they may have to pay wage-workers), as well as the fact that they labour alongside their employees or not.

The fact that a person owns the means of production and uses it to appropriate the full value he produces means precisely that his means of production are functioning as capital and as a basis for accumulation, though (because he is petty), he has not yet accumulated enough to free himself from the labor process so that he can live off the exploited surplus labor of others. As Impossible correctly notes, the petty bourgeoisie encompasses "artisans" as well as small business owners who work alongside and perform many of the same tasks as their employees.

bropasaran

7th April 2014, 05:39

Apart from the naivete of trying to disconnect changes in the productive apparatus - as a concept, itself including labor power (e.g. knowledge, which is also a phenomenon formed through a wider set of social relations) - from political and social changes. But now you may want to engage in accusations of determinism and so on. I couldn't care less, honestly, for two reasons: 1) a part of the Marxist tradition simply did not and does not do any such thing, and 2) personally, I don't think I do it.If there is no determinism there, then what does actually Marxism say about the progression of historical stages and why does it matter?

So, by the very way we use the word "feudal" (a manor lord extracting surplus in natural form from serfs tilling the fields) rules out any pre-agricultural society immediately.Sure, do away with the question by encorporating the desired answer in the definition of the term that is being asked about is one solution. Then you have to argument why is that the definition one should accept, except for the reason to in advance agree with you.

But then you proceeded to confuse non-agricultural societies with a, possible or not, completely stateless capitalist society. Do anarcho-caps propose the destruction of the practice of agriculture? I don't think so. Which is irrelevant because there is nothing impossible in e.g. the entire world has the "an"-cap system, and that none of landowners (in effect feudal lords) of Europe practice agriculture on their land, but all import it from other places- that would be a situation where Europe would be a feudal society without agriculture. Both the system and this developlment in this system and highly unlikely to happen and if I were a betting man I would bet on neither ever happening, but they are not impossible.

And a much bigger problem here is the fact that such a state of affairs has come out of very specific social conditions which cannot be generalized in imaginationWhich is absolutely irrelevant and maybe indicates thinking from the inside of Marxist dogma. Firstly note that saying that the situation in Somalia came out of specific social conditions is a tautology, because it couldn't come out on none of unspecific ones, so I will rephrase it as another tautology- that the situation in Somomalia came out not out of the specific social conditions in general, but out of the specific social conditions that it came out of. I use this restatment to point out the tautological nature of it, and that therefore no generalisation of those conditions can be sensical, that is- that it doesn't mean that the situation was a necessary consequence of those specific social conditions, nor that such a situation can't come out of some other specific social conditions- to suggest either would be a fallacy.

As for your claim about "capitalism" the way anarcho-caps define actually "being a part of capitalism", that's incorrect. These folks are very explicit in their use of other terms for contemporary society, claiming that capitalism is strictly to be used as a term in relation to their fantasy land. It's incoherent to claim that capitalism-without-a-state exists as part of capitalism with its modern interstate system. The lack of the state is precisely the crucial criterion for anarcho-caps. It's not incorrect being that a part of enterprises in the current system do function as if on a free market, without any subsidies etc. on some local markets, e.g. some mom and pop shops and some small businessmen, enterpreneurs. "Libertarians" actually do take such examples that exist in the current system as representative of the capitalism as they see it- capitalist firm that are on the market and that don't have any state-sponsored privileges (like subsidies) over their competitors.

And finaly, I will note that you ignored the second fact that I pointed out, that "in a pre-agriculture society there is no impossibility of someone being a feudalist, exacting tribute from some hunter-gatherers that live on the land he rules and 'defends', they being his literally his serfs."

First, Hegelian idealistic materialism.Sorry, a mistake in typing, meant do say historical idealism, on which Marx, using it as a pattern, built his historical materialism.

In other words, how can I possibly answer this generalization in a satisfactory way without taking a month off for research into all sorts of fields where Marxists have forwarded their arguments? As I understand it, both Hegel and Marx have determinist view of history, they see history as teleological, as going towards a goal.

For Hegel, that goal is freedom and after a static pre-history, the journey of history starts from the slave society as the opposite of freedom (actually from what Marx and Engels called the "Asiatic" societies, and what we call slave societies being the second stage), and progression happens with maturation of human spirit (existing as cultures of civilizations/ societies), and that progression expresses itself through dialectics (wars, revolutions) of more illiberal regimes as thesis with more liberal regimes as antithesis, the result of conflict being a synthesis which neither jumps straight to liberty, nor is in the middle of the two but is closer to liberty thus not making the clashes of successive theses with their antitheses not cyclical, but spiral, in a progression towards the goal of history which is freedom, untill that freedom is achieved when the regime that is most completely liberal (by having the completely mature spirit- one of absolute knowing) topples the one that came before it that was closest to liberty.

Marx has an idea of same framework, it's just not idealist but materialist. The goal is a classless society, and after a static pre-history, the flow of history begins with slavery as the first class society, and progression happens with development of productive forces (productive technology), and that progression expresses itself in situations where there happens a condtradition between the relations of production and the productive forces in that the first cannot sustain the development of the second and then happens the revolution, that is- change in the mode of production, not by straighforward abolishing classes nor cyclicaly, but in spiral progression of class societies towards the goal of history that is classlessness. There is difference in regards to achieving the goal of history, where Marx sees that the knowledge of these laws of history means that the human race can now act on that knowledge and "lessen the birth-pangs" of new societies, and so the classless society (which will have completely developed productive forces- ones that will do away with the need for toil) will come not by an abrupt revolution, but by development, a gradual revolution (the "withering away of the state"), and maybe even the society closest to the classless one can, too, be ushered gradually (in some countries at least).

That's at least as I understood it, maybe I'm wrong, but if I am not, when looking at them, the first I notice is that the Hegelian version is prima facie more appealing; and when examining further both theories and looking for arguments for them, I cannot but come to the conclusion that both are just batshit crazy gibberish on the level of some religious ramblings of cult founders.

This is a load of bull actually, about political representation.
In the Principles of Communism and the Communist Manifesto a view is espoused that the course of revolution is through democratic constitution, which allows election into government a party representing the proletariat (or the proletariat and small peasants), and then that government enacts reform measures and conducts a a gradual revolution by gradual expropriation of capitalists. Read the two works, it is crystally clear that they advocate electioneering and gradual revolution by the state.

Then comes the answer that Marx changed his view after the Paris Commune and became a libertarian after that. Nothing more then a myth- he upheld the mentioned views until the end of his life, namely, in 1880. - nine years after the Commune and three years before his death he wrote his last work- a program where he repreats that "emancipation" of the proletariat will come through the ballot, read The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier.

So, yes, he consistently advocated political representation- he thought that workers can "emancipate" themselves by delegating their power and sovereignty to someone who will then rule over them- he consistantly upheld that those political representatives could "emancipate" the workers.

It would therefore seem that it is not my views of Marxism that come from stalinist myths, but that your views of it come from left-communist myths (and obviously they are myths), and it would seem that it is not I but you, my friend, who are full of shit.

Thirsty Crow

7th April 2014, 19:18

If there is no determinism there, then what does actually Marxism say about the progression of historical stages and why does it matter?
First of all, to try and rectify one common mistake, what is being touted here as "determinism" would be more aptly called either "monodeterminism" or technological determinism, I suppose.

Broadly speaking (out of sheer necessity due to the fact that this is a discussion board and not a format allowing for 20+ pg essays), it is class struggle as the overarching concept designating different kind of actual phenomena which serves as the postulated most important criterion. This is centered on the specifics of the mode of exploitation and class relations - so, for instance, as Luis correctly points out, the expansion of the productive apparatus (strictly not taken in the narrow and limited sense of tools of production) in feudal societies, among other things, engenders its crisis, and historically this crisis wasn't resolved through further expansion of this productive apparatus, but either through the revolutionary overthrow of the old ruling classes or through the gradual incorporation of these into the new system of the social relations of production. Of course, the possibility for the "mutual ruin of the contending classes" is clearly recognized - and this I'd argue hovers around the heads of both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie nowadays.

It is quite easy to make another move, and that's to declare past and recorded historical development as necessary (in the sense of couldn't-have-been-anything-but-what-happened), and that's due to the sheer ridiculousness of playing the game of uncovering possibilities for alternative histories which is the only other way there is here. That's best left to the novelists of alternative history bent, and not for folks studying history. Though, it's far from necessary that this move should be made; one can simply say, here's what my study demonstrates as how stuff happened, and that's it.

There is no fantastic Marxist dogma acting against being reasonable in such a way, nothing inherent to the monolith of Marxism (as you present it as a monolith; to reiterate, do doubt Stalinist myths) that makes this somehow "unmarxist".

Now, how about you? Would you provide what you think is the useful anarchist view on precisely the same topic?

Sure, do away with the question by encorporating the desired answer in the definition of the term that is being asked about is one solution. Then you have to argument why is that the definition one should accept, except for the reason to in advance agree with you.
I'm not making a new definition; I'm merely using the word as it is widely used and understood, denoting a definite way that people organized their social life historically. Before you jump me with the idea that then I'd need to accept the usual way terms like communism are used, the difference here is that all vestiges of ideological bias and manipulation have been long gone in the case of "feudalism" (at least concerning our purposes here).

On the contrary, if you wished to discard this way of word use, it should be you providing a hell of a good reason for people to accept this innovation.

Which is irrelevant because there is nothing impossible in e.g. the entire world has the "an"-cap system, and that none of landowners (in effect feudal lords) of Europe practice agriculture on their land, but all import it from other places- that would be a situation where Europe would be a feudal society without agriculture. Both the system and this developlment in this system and highly unlikely to happen and if I were a betting man I would bet on neither ever happening, but they are not impossible.I'm not getting what you mean by all of this. Do you think that it is possible for someone to be a landowner and not have anything produce for their private appropriation?

Yeah, we have that now as well, it's called them damn landowners collecting rent from their ownership of living space, i.e. condos and hoses. I'm sure that you could find some of these who also invest in food import. So, following your logic, this group of people in the contemporary capitalist world might be reasonably called feudal lords. Well, I should have put it like this: "reasonably".

And about the anarcho-cap fantasy. What you're suggesting is that it's possible to transform all of the tillable fields of Europe into...well, what? A giant ultra-metropolis, I presume. With feudal lords being housing rentiers. Okay, logically that's not impossible of course. However, the real possibility (what you call "practically plausible") is so ridiculously low that I think indulging this as really possible is unwarranted.

So, what would make these capitalists de facto feudal lords? The personal disposal of the armed forces? However, there's a problem here and its name is the mighty contract - something completely alien to historical feudal relations. In theory, as far as I know, anarcho-caps postulate that of course workers would be free to move as they please and change workplaces, if the conditions of the contract are fulfilled of course. That means, for you specifically, that any notion of neo-feudalism is really strained.

What would need to happen in order that these capitalists actually morph into a kind of a feudal lords? That the contracts are de facto null, especially in the dimension of agreed to time of work, and permitting of
the capitalist feudal lord of binding the worker to both the enterprise and the housing that is being rented (supposing that it is the same capitalist providing both housing and work).

And it is precisely here where this fantasy crashes against the reality of capital and its dynamic. Namely, capital not only could function with nothing else than extreme problems with a) accumulation, expansion which is needed for b) profitability were this situation to obtain, but it would also find itself in the position to need to shed this bonded labor because of its need for flexibility due to the inherent cycles in accumulation (and pray do tell how could it occur that workers be bound in this way when we at the same time represent a vital source for profit as consumers?; in other words, when bonded labor supposedly doesn't get paid at all, out of the window goes a good portion of the consumer force - btw. how about that neologism, eh?)

Which is absolutely irrelevant and maybe indicates thinking from the inside of Marxist dogma. Firstly note that saying that the situation in Somalia came out of specific social conditions is a tautology, because it couldn't come out on none of unspecific ones, so I will rephrase it as another tautology- that the situation in Somomalia came out not out of the specific social conditions in general, but out of the specific social conditions that it came out of. I use this restatment to point out the tautological nature of it, and that therefore no generalisation of those conditions can be sensical, that is- that it doesn't mean that the situation was a necessary consequence of those specific social conditions, nor that such a situation can't come out of some other specific social conditions- to suggest either would be a fallacy.
This sure might be interpreted as a tautology, but the argument itself when worded more carefully escapes this pit.

What I was driving at is the fact that the conditions upon which arose the state of affairs in Somalia today is specific - completely the opposite - in relation to the postulated conditions, vague and silly but still, which could lead to the fulfillment of the anarcho-cap vision. This effectively means that anyone pointing out Somalia in a positive light here would be shooting themselves in the foot at the same time.

Another way that the situation is specific relates to the differences in capitalist zoning, whereas Somalia sure as hell represents a part of the globe and a laboring population which capital doesn't even want to integrate to a significant extent, and cannot profitably do so. Contrast this with Europe and North America. The social conditions are really, really different, and it is this which functions as a backdrop for 1) sectarian and tribal violence and war and (connected with it) 2) the development of the informal and semi-informal sector in the zones of the South. This of course is a potential breeding ground for all sorts of personal relations of domination.

It's not incorrect being that a part of enterprises in the current system do function as if on a free market, without any subsidies etc. on some local markets, e.g. some mom and pop shops and some small businessmen, enterpreneurs. "Libertarians" actually do take such examples that exist in the current system as representative of the capitalism as they see it- capitalist firm that are on the market and that don't have any state-sponsored privileges (like subsidies) over their competitors.
This would mean something if it was only subsidies as a target of the mighty anarcho-cap critique.
They're most certainly not. Taxes here function, as far as I know (and just a hint, every time I say "as far as I know" I'm actually inviting you to refute me by providing some sources), as an important practice (necessary for other aspects of the state, of course, which is a mortal enemy for anarcho-caps). You're effectively mistaking anarcho-capitalism with some I believe minarchist capitalist ideologies and a garden variety American Libertarianism as found in the Libertarian Party. But you need to make up your mind and not shift focus as a stick to beat me with in discussion as that's some rather dishonest debating tactics.

So, when the entirety of the state as a web of practices is taken into account, as anarcho-capitalists actually do (in their own ridiculous way of course), it is simply incorrect and misleading to conclude what you did conclude. I'm not saying that anarcho-caps don't make the same mistake; in fact, I would expect them to out of desire to claim some sort of grounding in real social life, but that doesn't make it any less of a mistake.

And finaly, I will note that you ignored the second fact that I pointed out, that "in a pre-agriculture society there is no impossibility of someone being a feudalist, exacting tribute from some hunter-gatherers that live on the land he rules and 'defends', they being his literally his serfs."
Okay, I'm going to write something you should feel perfectly free to call nitpicking.

But the second fact is no fact at all unless you would qualify it as a "logical fact" or a fact of logic (and even then there would be room for misunderstanding). But okay, this again boils down to the notion of logical possibility (your term - possibility).

Here the historical situation needs to be examined (it seems to me that Luis has already done so but you haven't replied). This situation is that of tribes bearing tools that can be both used for hunt and rudimentary warfare. This is a problem for you precisely because it is entirely unclear how could powerful individuals struggle successfully for such a social position when the entire tribe is de facto bearing arms (or to be more precise, I think it was the males). How could such a situation bring about, in the absence of agriculture and the production of a surplus, and ensuing rises in population which in turn lead to hostile contacts with other tribes, a different kind of situation - that of hunter-gatherer lords commanding labor and a distinct armed force used to discipline this dispossessed labor?

My point is that I see no purpose whatsoever to this idle speculation on what's basically alternative histories. You're simply making a claim; without any support in examining histories of social relations, and then you pose as if this is a good, mighty even, stick to beat Marxists with.

That's not a valid argument I'm afraid. If you wish to purse this line of debate further, do delve into works about hunter-gatherer society and provide a plausible argument centering on states of affairs that could have lead to what you propose as possible.

For instance, I believe it is in 16th century that the Samurai took great pains to actually reduce firearms production to a minimum which is something that a techno-determinist Marxism simply cannot explain - good luck that Marxism needn't be any such thing; that's some fertile historical ground for making a case for alternative history in a rational way.

Sorry, a mistake in typing, meant do say historical idealism, on which Marx, using it as a pattern, built his historical materialism.

That's the same thing really as that rotten Hegelianism is at the same time a variant of idealism when dealing with history.

As I understand it, both Hegel and Marx have determinist view of history, they see history as teleological, as going towards a goal.
You understand it wrong. Really, what do you expect me to say when you pose the problem in this way?

I do understand that it is possible to construe Marx as a teleological thinker with some grounds in interpretations of specific passages; but the problem here is that it seems there are two Marxs then at least. Ditto for political representation.

Then it should be up to you to do two things really:

1) actually debate Marxists who put forward a specific perspective

and you can also

2) question the meaning in these views, if they diverge from what you expect, I've no doubt under the influence of Stalinist dogma, being called Marxist

Step number two takes us out of the arena of political-theoretical debate and off we go into semantic arguments.

Marx has an idea of same framework, it's just not idealist but materialist. The goal is a classless society, and after a static pre-history, the flow of history begins with slavery as the first class society, and progression happens with development of productive forces (productive technology), and that progression expresses itself in situations where there happens a condtradition between the relations of production and the productive forces in that the first cannot sustain the development of the second and then happens the revolution, that is- change in the mode of production, not by straighforward abolishing classes nor cyclicaly, but in spiral progression of class societies towards the goal of history that is classlessness.
First of all, you're mixing apples and oranges.
Clearly, for Hegel the secular human history is actually an arcane history of the self-development of the Spirit. Therefore, real human development is but a vessel for the Absolute, and not even that actually but okay; he observes human history exclusively by non-human, a-historical criteria (that is the way the Absolute works; it is that which is unconditioned)

On the other hand, there is predominantly no such moves in Marx, no a-historical criterion transposed as the Telos of all that stuff. First of all, clearly he allows for the possibility of the mutual ruin of social classes - and my Marxism in this day and age would be an incomprehensible rump were it not to take this very seriously in relation to the looming ecological disaster. So much for that being a Telos (a Telos cannot be anything but actually realized; in everyday communication, telos without the capital "t" simply and usefully refers to a reason or a purpose of an action).

And I believe you're making a mistake in not taking into account that political statements and theory are really intertwined in Marx. This is evident in what you write about a "static pre-history". On the face if it, if Marx really took hunter gatherer societies as static, it would remain to him an inexplicable miracle that class society could develop in the first place.

The origin of your mistake is probably his talk of class society as a pre-history; and that is if anything a tongue-in-cheek political taunt, de facto equating what bourgeois commentators consider as a glorious way of life as no more than analogous to primitive societies (as pre-history is intimately tied with hunter gatherer and generally pre-agricultural societies in bourgeois historiography) in relation to the potential for communism.

The point to Marx is that it is humans that act in a purposive way; we set tasks before ourselves, we carry them out. That's history.

In the Principles of Communism and the Communist Manifesto a view is espoused that the course of revolution is through democratic constitution, which allows election into government a party representing the proletariat (or the proletariat and small peasants), and then that government enacts reform measures and conducts a a gradual revolution by gradual expropriation of capitalists. Read the two works, it is crystally clear that they advocate electioneering and gradual revolution by the state.
Offer some supporting citation.

Sorry but what can I say here, again. It's odd that you'd say that about the Manifesto which was criticized by Engels himself as representing a perspective still hinting at bourgeois Jacobin-like conspiratorial smashing of the existing government. I think you're dead wrong here.

But all the more important, and yeah feel free to disregard offered sources to the contrary. As you wish.

Then comes the answer that Marx changed his view after the Paris Commune and became a libertarian after that. Nothing more then a myth- he upheld the mentioned views until the end of his life, namely, in 1880. - nine years after the Commune and three years before his death he wrote his last work- a program where he repreats that "emancipation" of the proletariat will come through the ballot, read The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier.

So, yes, he consistently advocated political representation- he thought that workers can "emancipate" themselves by delegating their power and sovereignty to someone who will then rule over them- he consistantly upheld that those political representatives could "emancipate" the workers.
As I repeatedly say, provide citation and your own argument based on it. I'm not going to indulge you in this.

But another point, I never did claim Marx became a libertarian. That would be foolish, now, wouldn't it? So who you're arguing against here? Because, sure as hell it isn't me.

To reiterate, I deny that it is correct that he's been consistent in the advocacy of political representation and even this is quite important historically given the fact that the proletariat up til that point really hadn't have experience in creating organs of potential class rule corresponding to the abolition of capital. So, you may want to explain just why should anyone flat out disregard The Civil War in France and focus on this myth of such consistency.

It would therefore seem that it is not my views of Marxism that come from stalinist myths, but that your views of it come from left-communist myths (and obviously they are myths), and it would seem that it is not I but you, my friend, who are full of shit.Mighty words indeed, and at that coming from someone unable to either focus on concrete topics and arguments at hand (instead favoring - and I can't believe I'm writing this - grand narratives of the battle of monolithic -isms) or to provide a shred of evidence in the form of citation.

Maybe you ought to try harder.

Dodo

7th April 2014, 21:04

For the record, Marxist historiography is very large. Marx was a men of 19th century, his words carry with it a "modernization" approach from a euro-centric perspective. But his framework can be interpreted in multiple ways, from ultra-deterministic to largely random.
There are Marxist economic historians who claim capitalism is completely random and a product of specific conditions in UK which then spread to rest of the world due to pressures it created.

The problem is, most "party" Marxists, like the ones on this forum are obsessed with a certain terminology and way of thinking.

bropasaran

13th April 2014, 20:23

Now, how about you? Would you provide what you think is the useful anarchist view on precisely the same topic?
I don't think that there can be any useful views of that topic.

Before you jump me with the idea that then I'd need to accept the usual way terms like communism are used, the difference here is that all vestiges of ideological bias and manipulation have been long gone in the case of "feudalism"
It's not long gone, it's present here in your bias in doing away with the question by using a certain definition.

Yeah, we have that now as well, it's called them damn landowners collecting rent from their ownership of living space, i.e. condos and hoses. I'm sure that you could find some of these who also invest in food import. So, following your logic, this group of people in the contemporary capitalist world might be reasonably called feudal lords. Well, I should have put it like this: "reasonably".
If they were to own a territory of land and there were no state above meaning they're the top authority on that territory making laws and similar, they would literally be feudal lords.

So, what would make these capitalists de facto feudal lords? The personal disposal of the armed forces? However, there's a problem here and its name is the mighty contract - something completely alien to historical feudal relations. In theory, as far as I know, anarcho-caps postulate that of course workers would be free to move as they please and change workplaces, if the conditions of the contract are fulfilled of course. That means, for you specifically, that any notion of neo-feudalism is really strained.
Nothing impossible about "an"-caps seeing serf pledge as a valid contracts, just like some do with the selling oneself into slavery.

So, when the entirety of the state as a web of practices is taken into account, as anarcho-capitalists actually do (in their own ridiculous way of course), it is simply incorrect and misleading to conclude what you did conclude. I'm not saying that anarcho-caps don't make the same mistake; in fact, I would expect them to out of desire to claim some sort of grounding in real social life, but that doesn't make it any less of a mistake.
There is no mistake, just like when some marxists make the fallacy that markets are capitalist because capitalism historically functions by markets, it's just not true, likewise here

This situation is that of tribes bearing tools that can be both used for hunt and rudimentary warfare. This is a problem for you precisely because it is entirely unclear how could powerful individuals struggle successfully for such a social position when the entire tribe is de facto bearing arms (or to be more precise, I think it was the males). How could such a situation bring about, in the absence of agriculture and the production of a surplus, and ensuing rises in population which in turn lead to hostile contacts with other tribes, a different kind of situation - that of hunter-gatherer lords commanding labor and a distinct armed force used to discipline this dispossessed labor?
If we discard the foolish assumption here that a government cannot exist if the population is armed, it is clear there is nothing impossible in the mentioned situation.

My point is that I see no purpose whatsoever to this idle speculation on what's basically alternative histories. You're simply making a claim; without any support in examining histories of social relations, and then you pose as if this is a good, mighty even, stick to beat Marxists with.
Which is just an idle comment comming from a perspective that implicitly assumes that what happened couldn't have happened other then how it happened.

I do understand that it is possible to construe Marx as a teleological thinker with some grounds in interpretations of specific passages; but the problem here is that it seems there are two Marxs then at least.
One Marx being the one who writes what he thinks, talking about history progressing with the "inexorability of a law of Nature", the other one being a Marx writing about the inexorable laws of history but actually intending that to be read by his true disciples metaphorically as actually meaning the opposite of what the words say.

Ditto for political representation.
Yep, one Marx who advocates electioneering till the end of his life, the other one being the one who passed on his anti-electioneering views to his true secret disciples.

Clearly, for Hegel the secular human history is actually an arcane history of the self-development of the Spirit.
Calling Hegel's view 'arcane' doesn't make it anything worse then Marx' view. One, there is nothing really 'arcane' about Spirit that Hegel talks about, it's just the predominant consciousness of a society.

On the other hand, there is predominantly no such moves in Marx, no a-historical criterion transposed as the Telos of all that stuff. First of all, clearly he allows for the possibility of the mutual ruin of social classes
Firstly, could you give references for that? Secondly, accepting that he does do that, that's perfectly compatible with the teleological view of history.

Offer some supporting citation.
They're basically pamphlets, not huge books. It takes literally 5 minutes to get through them and it's impossible to miss stuff like, from the Principles:

"the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually"
"What will be the course of this revolution? Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution"
"Gradual expropriation"

Or from the Manifesto:

"the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State"

As I repeatedly say, provide citation and your own argument based on it.
"universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation"
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm

So, you may want to explain just why should anyone flat out disregard The Civil War in France and focus on this myth of such consistency.
Because one is aware of the fact that he continued to advocate electioneering for years after that work and never gave up on it.

For the record, Marxist historiography is very large. Marx was a men of 19th century, his words carry with it a "modernization" approach from a euro-centric perspective. But his framework can be interpreted in multiple ways, from ultra-deterministic to largely random.
There are Marxist economic historians who claim capitalism is completely random and a product of specific conditions in UK which then spread to rest of the world due to pressures it created.
What's then the point of accepting Marx exactly?

bropasaran

13th April 2014, 23:09

What's then the point of accepting Marx exactly?
Seriously- can someone simply, in their own words, enumerate (and be ready to likewise explain) reasons for accepting Marx and Marxism?

Jimmie Higgins

14th April 2014, 09:12

Seriously- can someone simply, in their own words, enumerate (and be ready to likewise explain) reasons for accepting Marx and Marxism?Umm... folks have tried. Just because you do not accept what people say doesn't mean that they haven't explained this. In general I think Marxism on the whole is more accurate and more practically useful for understanding capitalism and the way it, and all class society, can be overthrown. On the whole, while I agree with and support anarchist ideals or ends, I think with some very important exceptions anarchism has tended to have a less clear strategy and understanding of how to get from here to there.

But, why Marxism? Ok, well I think in order to increase the potential to influence change in society, understanding the basis framework and drives and possibilities and impossibilities is essential. Capitalism is very dynamic and pleanty of revolutionaries (including Marxists and anarchists) have been thrown by changes in the system that seemed contrary to expectations. Utopians, pre-figurists, idealsists, etc begin with "what kind of world do I want" whereas Marxism (but not alone) begins with an attempt to understand the present in order to build towards an alternative society. Liberals and conservatives don't try and understand capitalism, they just apologize for it; idealists don't try and understand capitalism, they just list the bits they don't like and propose a society without those bits that would emerge from the right ideas, will-power, an act of god or nature. Proudhon also attempts to do this, but I think Marx's contributions have held up and he primarilly seems, in his polemics against proudhon, to be trying to flip what he sees as Proudhon's idealism in terms of seeing a sort of a priori or sometimes abstract view of history.

So as an attempt to synthesise an materially-based analysis of society and oppositional movements in it with a yearning for a non-exploitative/non-oppressive future, Marxism in general is stronger IMO than the sum of the parts. It's an attempt to understand how to get to the society dreamed of by rebels and utopians (something that then and now is not automatic... hence dead-end induviudalistic or spiritual or moralistic attempts at changing the world, etc). But also an attempt to understand society from the "outside" which makes the social analysis stronger than those of most social scientists who take society as a given and can not see "beyond" what exists in terms of social relations.

This doesn't mean Marx or Marxists haven't been wrong or haven't had theorhetical mistakes or disagreements, but on the whole I think the body of Marxism is more accurate in understanding capitalism and the importance of workers in capitalism and it's possible overthrow than pro-capitalist or other revolutionary understandings. Debates or alternative understandings of Marxism's theories (or the existance of outdated or incorrect theories within marxism, or bad application of good theories) do not undermine the overall picture any more than Social-Darwinism negates the validity of Evolution. So, for example, I don't agree with the stalinist and 2nd internationalist interpretations of Marxist theories (which are basically how you have presented Marx's ideas) but that doesn't invalidate the whole school of thought which is quite diverse.

Dodo

14th April 2014, 10:50

Seriously- can someone simply, in their own words, enumerate (and be ready to likewise explain) reasons for accepting Marx and Marxism?

Marxism gives you a framework-epistomological basis for looking at society. Marxism is not a static obsession with static beliefs that should change soiety. For instance, as an anarchist you are arguing for the same thing with same concepts. That is not the case for a Marxist(lol, unfortunately in practical terms it is). The debate you had in this thread with many is a good example. Marxism has a strong touch to abstractness which lacked here.
THe only thing that remains static in Marxism is the metaphysical acceptance of materialist conceptions which sometimes becomes a problem and even leads to dogma.

However, when it comes down to it, it is a dialectical critical framework of existing and changing world to create the new one. And that is why we stick to Marxism. Because the dialectical relations are a necessity to build the future. It is through contradictions, we look to the future.
A lot of Marxists and generally by default anarchists deal with the world based on static criticisms.

The moment I establish a communist rhetoric, how we will take over and what society I will build, I establish something that applies to moment. If you get stuck with that you become a dogmatist and get out of Marxist territory. When you are a Marxist, your critical position moves along with history but that is not the case with many Marxists here and in the world unfortunately.

Let me ask you this. What is Marxism to you?

bropasaran

14th April 2014, 14:36

Umm... folks have tried. Just because you do not accept what people say doesn't mean that they haven't explained this. In general I think Marxism on the whole is more accurate and more practically useful for understanding capitalism and the way it, and all class society, can be overthrown.
Can you say anything concrete, anything that is not void of any real content?

But, why Marxism? Ok, well I think in order to increase the potential to influence change in society, understanding the basis framework and drives and possibilities and impossibilities is essential.In what way?

Capitalism is very dynamic and pleanty of revolutionaries (including Marxists and anarchists) have been thrown by changes in the system that seemed contrary to expectations. Utopians, pre-figurists, idealsists, etc begin with "what kind of world do I want" whereas Marxism (but not alone) begins with an attempt to understand the present in order to build towards an alternative society. Liberals and conservatives don't try and understand capitalism, they just apologize for it; idealists don't try and understand capitalism, they just list the bits they don't like and propose a society without those bits that would emerge from the right ideas, will-power, an act of god or nature. See what's wrong with capitalism, raise consiciousness ('will-power') among people about it, and organize to change it. What exactly is your objection to that? The only objection I know of are Marxist dogmatic lines about how bad peasants are, and how you need an industrial society as a precondition to abolition of capitalism.

Proudhon also attempts to do this, but I think Marx's contributions have held up What concrete contributions, and held up in what manner?

So as an attempt to synthesise an materially-based analysis of society and oppositional movements in it with a yearning for a non-exploitative/non-oppressive future, Marxism in general is stronger IMO than the sum of the parts. It's an attempt to understand how to get to the society dreamed of by rebels and utopiansHow? Can you articulate concretely how? Have you ever agitated? Talked about this with anyone? Like, on a workplace or anywhere someone asks you to explain what Marxism says- how to get to that society- what would you say to him?

So, for example, I don't agree with the stalinist and 2nd internationalist interpretations of Marxist theories (which are basically how you have presented Marx's ideas2nd international Marxism is what Marx said, both bolshevism and left-communism are deviations from what he advocated. Bolsheviks rejected Marx' reformism, left-communism rejected both Marx' reformism and his elitism. I don't get the point in saying that Marx advocated something when he didn't. Take for example me, I'm not deluding myself that Proudhon advocated stuff that he didn't advocate, and I'm clear about rejecting his dual-power gradualism and substituting it with revolutionary view represented by Bakunin. If one is e.g. a libertarian Marxist, one shouldn't delude oneself about Marx, thinking that libertarian Marxism is what Marx actualy advocated, he should be clear about the fact that he rejects Marx' views about elections, using the state, political representation and gradual nature of the revolution, and accepts some other parts of his views.

Let me ask you this. What is Marxism to you?
As I've said, I'm opened for explanations of Marxism that Marxists will give. It just seems that no one can give concrete formulations of what Marxism is and why should anyone accept it.

Dodo

14th April 2014, 15:21

The way I see it, everything you are looking for in understanding Marxism is wrong. There is something very concrete I am saying here and you are trying to reduce it to Bakunin-Marx debates on very concrete stuff that does not mean anything in the 21st century.
Or at least, if I am to go by your explanations of Marxism, I can say you are quiet wrong.

1)Marxism is a materialist conception of the world. Abstractions are created based on these materialist relations. You can create your own abstractions, the point is, abstractions meanings depends on the context. Labor relations, technology, classes, productive forces, capital accumulation, relations to nature, mental conceptions, reproduction of life are all abstractions. Materialist frameworked abstractions.

2) The most important bit is dialectics. I.e, seeing the world through contradictions and how that changes things on the long run. It is by its nature a historicist view of the world, meaning, things are not created but are there all the time changing forms with changing relations. Essentially, today is an extension of past and future's potentials and limitations exist in what we have today.

These are the main materials.
A lot of people combined this view under "historical materialism" which had been intepreted in different ways by many Marxists. The debates you are having here are ridiculously outdated as those people should just be minor reference points rather than people to draw direct ideas from....including Marx himself. Being a Marxist is not embracing of Marx's investigations. So I find your insistance of Marxism being statist as not only-outdated but also a big misinterpretation of Marx.

2nd international Marxism is what Marx said, both bolshevism and left-communism are deviations from what he advocated. Bolsheviks rejected Marx' reformism, left-communism rejected both Marx' reformism and his elitism. I don't get the point in saying that Marx advocated something when he didn't. Take for example me, I'm not deluding myself that Proudhon advocated stuff that he didn't advocate, and I'm clear about rejecting his dual-power gradualism and substituting it with revolutionary view represented by Bakunin. If one is e.g. a libertarian Marxist, one shouldn't delude oneself about Marx, thinking that libertarian Marxism is what Marx actualy advocated, he should be clear about the fact that he rejects Marx' views about elections, using the state, political representation and gradual nature of the revolution, and accepts some other parts of his views.

A fierce debate on this for instance is unnecessary.

-------

And as for how it relates to you as an anarchist: Anarchists do not have an epistomological framework that is solely for anarchism. An anarchist outcome can easily be an outcome of a Marxist interpretation of existing world. But other outcomes are not fitting with static, set-in-stone abstractions of anarchism.
Essentially, anarchism does not have a metaphysical framework and relies on Marxist philosophy.

In short, anarchism is an concretized abstraction, an established ideology.
Marxism is a framework that produces a constant critique of existing world through its contradictions to find future.
Essentially what a Marxist would do is this :
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/t1.0-9/p403x403/1975094_317244451756031_1584447945_n.jpg

Rather than debating how bolsheviks were evil oppressors, Marx was statist, hierarchy has to be removed for all of us to be equal blablabla. These are established things. Nothing is established in Marxism.

See my signature for instance. For Marx, communism itself when it is being taught statically as an ideology is a dogma of sorts, just the way anarchism is. Anarchism and communist ideology can exchange between each other, but Marxism stands above these.

bropasaran

14th April 2014, 18:19

1)Marxism is a materialist conception of the world. Abstractions are created based on these materialist relations. You can create your own abstractions, the point is, abstractions meanings depends on the context. Labor relations, technology, classes, productive forces, capital accumulation, relations to nature, mental conceptions, reproduction of life are all abstractions. Materialist frameworked abstractions.
This is vague, and I don't see how it matters, exuse the pun :grin:

2) The most important bit is dialectics. I.e, seeing the world through contradictions and how that changes things on the long run. It is by its nature a historicist view of the world, meaning, things are not created but are there all the time changing forms with changing relations. Essentially, today is an extension of past and future's potentials and limitations exist in what we have today.
That's even more vague and I'm wondering even more why is this important.

And as for how it relates to you as an anarchist: Anarchists do not have an epistomological framework that is solely for anarchism.
Fayerabend's epistemological anarchism? :lol: But seriously, why would anarchism need an epistemological framework except the one peple normally accept based on common sense.

Essentially what a Marxist would do is this :
I like the title that suggests a systematization of clearly articulated arguments, would you suggest reading it, it seems like something that is worth checking out?

Kill all the fetuses!

14th April 2014, 18:46

impossible, I will tell you the following as a Anarchist of some sorts. Let me add as an Anarchist that accepts Marxism. I will be rather brief, because everything has been said on this thread and I fail to understand why that isn't convincing for you. I will also grant you all the bad bits about Marx that you mentioned, which I fail to see the relevance of.

Marxism, as far as I understand, in political discourse usually mean either one of two things: Marxist revolutionary politics or methodology of historical materialism. For me Marxism is the latter, at least that's what I accept as Marxism.

I find it immensely useful. It's not a tool for agitation, nor some revolutionary strategy, it is merely an intellectual tool for understanding the world. So when you look at the world and observe various different institutions, historical materialism helps you to understand how they came about and how their emergence ought to be analysed. It doesn't necessarily tell you the whole story, but it's a methodology of how you can observe and understand (historic) tendencies.

And then comes a dialectics part, which again helps to understand why things are as they are. For instance, before being exposed to revolutionary politics I used to wonder why Sweden is more socially democratic than many other countries. I couldn't come to a clear answer or even have a methodology of approaching it. Dialectical and historical materialism allowed me to see that it was a product of conflicting forces that are set against one another due to economic structure in society, due to class struggle to be more specific. This is just one and simple example of how I found that useful.

That doesn't mean that you need to identify as a Marxist to grasp these things, but to an extent that one does grasp them, I believe that s/he is using historical and dialectical materialism without realizing it.

But I have way to go with my reading, but that's my take as to why Marxism and Anarchism, not one or the other.

Dodo

14th April 2014, 21:11

This is vague, and I don't see how it matters, exuse the pun :grin:

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/000/681/what-you-did-there-i-see-it.thumbnail.jpg

It matters a lot because essentially, as a Marxist when you sit down to think about the world you look for reproduction of material life, how ideas as material forces come to be, how things exist in relations and how they are realize in their social contexts.
In a way, you look for the abstractions, that will be contradicting in the dialectical outlook.

That's even more vague and I'm wondering even more why is this important.
Let me put it this way. Socialism is a non-Marxist term if it is used without a dialectical dynamic.
A Marxist is not by default, a socialist. Nor socialism is an established abstraction with concrete laws on how it works. A Marxist is a socialist because in the dynamics, tendencies, potentials and limitations of -existing- relations, he sees the potential for what can be produced with the material we have.
That is pretty important. A Marxist without a dialectical understanding who jumps into being a socialist-communist is like a dogmatic-zealot.
Socialism only gains its meaning for a Marxist in dialectical epistomology, through the dynamics of contradictions.

Fayerabend's epistemological anarchism? :lol: But seriously, why would anarchism need an epistemological framework except the one peple normally accept based on common sense.

Anarchism does not need an epistomology. But in the end they are on different paths. Anarchism is an established doctrine. Marxism is a tool for change. Marxism does not have a standard framework. It is, if we have to put it into one sentence, finding the future in today, through a criticism of existing world. It is a negative approach, not a positive-analytical one.

I like the title that suggests a systematization of clearly articulated arguments, would you suggest reading it, it seems like something that is worth checking out?
Didn't read it myself but I am familiar with the arguments. That and Harvey was just in my uni today giving a presentation of the book :D
I definetly suggest reading it. Anyone who calls himself a Marxist should familiarize himself with Harvey. No other dude has read Marx so in-depth, analyzed the hell out of his method and applied it to existing conditions.
His "Limits to Capital" is pretty much an update of Marxian analysis to today's conditions with new dialectical abstractions.
This book is a better way to look at the potential changes in the future through today's solid contradictions.

d3crypt

14th April 2014, 23:27

Why not Marxist influenced anarchism? Thats what i consider myself.

Thirsty Crow

15th April 2014, 11:08

impossible, I see no further purpose in carrying forward this little discussion as you seem to be either unable or unwilling to actually debate the points I raise.

Cases in point:

I don't think that there can be any useful views of that topic.This is disingenuous at best.

What you're saying here is that there is no use of a historical mode of thought, and of an inquiry into the historical patterns of social change. But it was the alleged technological determinism of the Marxist account that you found defective; but here you completely abandon that position without even bothering to comment on what I wrote specifically and shift the goalpost to argue that there can't be useful views on that problem.

Well, I'm not going to proceed with this shift of focus as it's part and parcel of your dishonest debating tactics. I also take it that it has been demonstrated that Marxism isn't inherently technologically determinist.

It's not long gone, it's present here in your bias in doing away with the question by using a certain definition.
To repeat, this is not "a certain" definition; it's a consensus that forms the appropriate use of the word, stretching from liberal to Marxist historiography.

And you missed the point about the ideological bias I mentioned. The point is that feudal social formation is long gone and precisely because of this, because the capitalist social formation has been established and long running so to speak, that people who would fiercely battle over contemporary issues can find consensus through historical inquiry on matters of feudal relations in its most simple dimension - that of bounded, unfree labor.

The point I'm making is that your disregard for historical inquiry enables you to conjure all kinds of defective and problematic ideas, here that of "neo-feudalism".

If they were to own a territory of land and there were no state above meaning they're the top authority on that territory making laws and similar, they would literally be feudal lords.
Feudal lords in the pre-absolutist period didn't "make laws".

Apart from that, labor would be necessarily free (since this is the point of the anarcho-cap vision of the abolition of state) here, so any talk of neo-feudalism is strained.

Nothing impossible about "an"-caps seeing serf pledge as a valid contracts, just like some do with the selling oneself into slavery.
No, this is wrong entirely.

Anarcho-capitalists advocate contract regulated free labor, and not anything like a serf pledge (which historically happened the moment a person was born; there was no ceremonial or formal establishment of the serf-lord relationship).

Apart from that, you managed to gloss over the most important point I made, that demonstrates how capital actually functions and that it is precisely this that a) makes your idea of a lifetime labor for one "lord" under anarcho-cap conditions a mere fantasy and b) how that makes the entirety of the anarcho-cap vision a farce.

I take it again that you concede the point but merely want to argue secondary issues of definition so as to defend your faulty argument.

And are you really making the argument that people are selling themselves into slavery voluntarily, by making contracts? But this is the point to anarcho-capitalist ideology, that contract validates the voluntary nature of the act.
That I'm afraid is, if you can't present evidence, is not only completely wrong in relation to both historical slavery and modern day slavery, but also a slap in the face of people who are so brutally exploited and dominated.

There is no mistake, just like when some marxists make the fallacy that markets are capitalist because capitalism historically functions by markets, it's just not true, likewise here So you think that refuting someone's argument consists in

a) claiming again that there's no mistake here without any argument to back it up, apart from a dishonest jab by means of

b) an analogy with the mistake you believe your opponent to be making, but unrelated to the issue at hand

Just to briefly comment, no the market is not inherently capitalist; however, the necessary (yes - necessary) precondition of the emancipation of labor is the abolition of market exchange

If we discard the foolish assumption here that a government cannot exist if the population is armed, it is clear there is nothing impossible in the mentioned situation.
And yet again.

Can you understand that you're not engaging in discussion here? You're proclaiming something to be foolish, and not only that, but again you're shifting the goalpost by introducing the notion of "government" whereas we've actually been talking about feudal lords and the basis for this particular form of domination in hunter gatherer societies. It's quite easy to toy with definitional arguments focused on the notion of "government" and apply the results to hunter gatherer societies; after all that's the reason you're again shifting the goalpost with the express purpose of dodging the arguments I make.

I demonstrated why this is far from foolish, but actually descriptive of the recorded historical dynamic.

Which is just an idle comment comming from a perspective that implicitly assumes that what happened couldn't have happened other then how it happened.
And now you're posing as a seer.
But the fact is you're attributing positions to me that I simply do not hold.

And that's it, I don't see the point in covering the rest of your babbling.

EDIT: Actually, I'm going to address the first quote in this post, and try to outline the usefulness of historical inquiry. With a little help from Michael Heinrich:

The fourth point is not so unknown: It is the ahistoricism of classical and also neoclassical economics. These economists don’t deny history, of course there is a history of kings and of battles but economic history is reduced to two conditions: either you have a market economy which according to them is natural for human beings, or you have a non-market economy which is not natural for human beings. Instead of this a-historic distinction Marx developed a concept of different modes of production and of historical change, which shows that there is a real history also of economic forms, that there is not only this division between “natural conditions” and “artificial conditions.” There is a history which is behind historical events of kings and battles, and which is much richer than what the classical economists or even some classical historians are discussing. For example, in the Grundrisse there are a lot of excursions. One excursion is about the conditions in ancient Greece and ancient Roman. In the 19th century a discussion started about whether the ancient Greek economy was a rather modern economy because they had commodities, they had money, they even had some forms of capital and credit. In a few pages Marx criticized this view: just to state that the ancient Greeks had money and capital is not enough, you only have to look at what kind of capital this was and you will see that capital at that time operated very differently compared with modern times, therefore capital in ancient Greece is very different from modern capital.

http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=10713

The "points" he's talking about are the breaking points between Marx and classical political economy. The bolded part is most relevant for the specific utility of this mode of thought as it represents not only a possibility of a research program which can produce verifiable these and insights, but also and crucially that it represents an opposition to ruling class ideology which at specific points relies on a ahistoricism which serves to legitimate the necessity of capital - in short, the idea that it is not possible to do away with it (and of course our resident Proudhonists would agree; that may very well be the basis for impossible's derision of historical and historicizing thought)

Jimmie Higgins

15th April 2014, 19:52

Can you say anything concrete, anything that is not void of any real content?yes, when you begin to ask specific questions. I wouldn't demand anything more of an anarchist who said: I'm an anarchist not a Marxist, because I think it places more of a consistent emphasis on x or z.

See what's wrong with capitalism, raise consiciousness ('will-power') among people about it, and organize to change it. What exactly is your objection to that? The only objection I know of are Marxist dogmatic lines about how bad peasants are, and how you need an industrial society as a precondition to abolition of capitalism.

Ok, here are some concrete reasons I'm a Marxist and why the above is not enough. First clarifications:
-peasants are not evil, this kind of judgement would be totally counter to Marxism as a method of understanding society. The "problem" with peasants is that because of they way they tend to produce, they can not really on their own create a different kind of society. They will either support a militia which promises land reforms (a lot of these militias in the post war era have called themselves Marxist ironically enough) or they will try and advance themselves through capitalist means and so on. But not in isolation, in connection with working class movements, peasants and agricultural people have a different plausible option of communes like in Spain. The Zapatistas, for example, are not wrong or evil from my perspective, but they also can't support themselves and fight at the same time, and the marginal nature of their agriculture to Mexican society means they don't have economic weight. So, it's not that they don't have egalitarian yearlings, it's just that on a practical level they are not powerful enough to actually achieve what they want as a rural struggle ALONE.

How? Can you articulate concretely how? Have you ever agitated? Talked about this with anyone? Like, on a workplace or anywhere someone asks you to explain what Marxism says- how to get to that society- what would you say to him?theory isn't agitation sort of material. But it is useful in agitation or just conversations with co-workers and activists, etc. usually, no one who is not already interested in understanding capitalism in total just asks, well tell me about the general tendencies and motions of capital.

But, for example, people say, no I don't support those other workers and their strike, because higher pay will make everything expensive, etc. understanding capitalism on a Marxist basis, helps me understand why that is not the case: in general it helps clarify the basic tendencies from all the other noise in society, capitalism sucks and people are aware of this on different, but often obscured or narrow ways. So just telling people that capitalism sucks and we should replace it, is IMO, a recipie that makes followers, not leaders, and in think, short of revolution, one of the useful roles of revolutionaries is to replace ourselves with larger numbers of better revolutionary workers. Try and leave any workers movement in a stronger, more independent place, that before.

2nd international Marxism is what Marx said, both bolshevism and left-communism are deviations from what he advocated. awesome. I'm not a dogmatist. Theory is only as good as it is useful. The INTERPRETATION of Marxism by the 2nd international is not useful. But to argue that this is why I shouldn't be a Marxist, is to argue a straw-Marxism since I do reject these interpretations of Marxism and some of the theories they developed. Marxism is not dogma and so it develops just as anarchism has... And some developments are clarifications or additions, some are deviations or dead ends.

And I don't believe that the 2nd internationalists had a correct interpretations of Marx and Engels. In fact to theoretically justify their growing connections with the state, they had to debate Against earlier interpretations of Marxism since the German economy was growing fast and giving some reforms to workers.

Bolsheviks rejected Marx' reformism, left-communism rejected both Marx' reformism and his elitism. i don't think Marx was a reformist and while he began by thinking revolution could be brought about through the general struggle for democracy, real world developments changed his views and began his whole search for understanding why the bourgeois couldn't act in a revolutionary way like in the past, etc. I don't know enough about him personally to know if he had elitist views... He kinda comes off as a dumb bro sometimes. But at any rate, I don't think the Marxist privileging of prols as the main agent in possible revolution is elitist, if that's what you're suggesting.

I don't get the point in saying that Marx advocated something when he didn't. Take for example me, I'm not deluding myself that Proudhon advocated stuff that he didn't advocate, and I'm clear about rejecting his dual-power gradualism and substituting it with revolutionary view represented by Bakunin. If one is e.g. a libertarian Marxist, one shouldn't delude oneself about Marx, thinking that libertarian Marxism is what Marx actualy advocated, he should be clear about the fact that he rejects Marx' views about elections, using the state, political representation and gradual nature of the revolution, and accepts some other parts of his views.because my Marxism doesn't end in the 1870s. Marxism (in terms of historical figures who were theorists) is not Marx, my Marxism is: Engels, kautsky, Lenin, Luxembourg, grammsci, Trotsky, clr James, and many many others including anarchists and people outside of the direct Marxist tradition who had complementary ideas that are useful and work in a Marxist framework.

As I've said, I'm opened for explanations of Marxism that Marxists will give. It just seems that no one can give concrete formulations of what Marxism is and why should anyone accept it.lol, you're not open at all!:lol:

You insist that it's a dogma, so people explain that it's a broad grouping... Then you criticize Marxism on the grounds that it's not dogmatically close enough to the 2nd international, etc.

bropasaran

15th April 2014, 23:36

This is disingenuous at best.

...but here you completely abandon that position without even bothering to comment on what I wrote specifically and shift the goalpost to argue that there can't be useful views on that problem.

Well, I'm not going to proceed with this shift of focus as it's part and parcel of your dishonest debating tactics.
You are either confused or being intellectually dishonest to say the least, being that I didn't give that view out of the blue or as an answer to your view, I gave it because you asked me "Now, how about you?" and I gave you my opinion. Having that in mind, what you say here is all simply false.

To repeat, this is not "a certain" definition;It is not only a "certain" definition, it is an ideologically charged definition that "conveniently" a priori solves the dispute in your favor. The core of the question that I'm raising here is the cardinal features of an economic system, it's fundamental functionings that make it the system it is, are not intrinsically bound to a historic niche in which they existed but could and can exist outside it, to which your response is that they can't because you say that definitions of economic systems must be constrained by the historical context in which they existed in and that therefore their fundamental relations could not and cannot exist but inside those historical constraints in which they existed.

No, this is wrong entirely.

Anarcho-capitalists advocate contract regulated free labor, and not anything like a serf pledgeAnd you're doing the same thing here- "what you say about X is wrong because I say that X must be defined in such a way that does away with what you say about it". Which is again wrong in this case too- there is nothing incompatible between serf pledge and "an"-cap theory, if inside that theory self-ownership is seen as alienable, which sometimes, in the vein of Nozick's view, it is, and therefore one can inside "an"-cap theory see selling oneself into slavery or pledging oneself into serfdom as perfectly legitimate.

(which historically happened the moment a person was born; there was no ceremonial or formal establishment of the serf-lord relationship).You again seem to be assuming that the way that it happened historically is the only way is the only way that it could have or can possibly happen. That's simply not true, and also your factual assumption here isn't true either, being that a free man actually could become a serf by ceremonially giving a serf pledge (and many did, primarily because of debts) which was the same to the oath of fealty that a lord would give to another lord when becoming his vassal.

And are you really making the argument that people are selling themselves into slavery voluntarily, by making contracts?I'm not, but "an"-caps are, and according to their definition of voluntaryness, self-sale contracts that were historically made by people who were in debt and that could be made in their proposed "an"-cap society- are voluntary. They only differ in their view as to whether self-ownership is alienable or not, those considering it inalienable hold that a person in an "an"-cap society who would sell himself could simply leave the relationship and thus rescind the contract and if the previous owner of himself would try to take him back as his property he would be aggressing; those considering the title of ownership over oneself to be alienable hold that in a "an"-cap society a self-sale contracts would be completely legitimate contract like any other and that if a person who sold himself would try to leave that relationship and rescind the contract could he be legitimately stopped by his owner, as if committing a theft.

Just to briefly comment, no the market is not inherently capitalist; however, the necessary (yes - necessary) precondition of the emancipation of labor is the abolition of market exchangeAnd it's necessary why? Because Marx says so?

You're proclaiming something to be foolish, and not only that, but again you're shifting the goalpost by introducing the notion of "government" whereas we've actually been talking about feudal lords and the basis for this particular form of domination in hunter gatherer societies.Feudal lords are governmental figures, they conflate the rights of ownership and rulership in ther role, so there's not goalpost shifting here; and of course it is foolish to base an argument on the assumptions firstly- that the only basis of rulership is force and secondly- that such a force is impossible is the ruled are armed; both of which is not true.

Ok, here are some concrete reasons I'm a Marxist and why the above is not enough. First clarifications:
-peasants are not evil, this kind of judgement would be totally counter to Marxism as a method of understanding society. The "problem" with peasants is that because of they way they tend to produce, they can not really on their own create a different kind of society. They will either support a militia which promises land reforms (a lot of these militias in the post war era have called themselves Marxist ironically enough) or they will try and advance themselves through capitalist means and so on. But not in isolation, in connection with working class movements, peasants and agricultural people have a different plausible option of communes like in Spain. The Zapatistas, for example, are not wrong or evil from my perspective, but they also can't support themselves and fight at the same time, and the marginal nature of their agriculture to Mexican society means they don't have economic weight. So, it's not that they don't have egalitarian yearlings, it's just that on a practical level they are not powerful enough to actually achieve what they want as a rural struggle ALONE.
Could you give arguments for that? Because I personally see this Marxist perspective as false, and I think some Bookchin-like perspective is much more correct, that industrial workers have mostly tendencies to be regimented and servile whereas the peasants and artisans with their ideals of independence have more libertarian-revolutionary potential, being that such an opinion is in line with the fact that the only (libertarian) socialist revolutions in history were almost completely rural.

i don't think Marx was a reformist and while he began by thinking revolution could be brought about through the general struggle for democracy, real world developments changed his viewsHe actually didn't, he wrote a reformist program (for the French Workers Party) three years before his death (nine years after his supposed change of mind) where he wrote that the ballot is the means for emancipation of the proletariat. That kind of reliance of political representation goes to illustrate his elitism, but he also held that it's impossible for works to self-manage, he thought that in any labor that is done by a group of people there needs to be a manager commanding them.

Thirsty Crow

16th April 2014, 13:44

It is not only a "certain" definition, it is an ideologically charged definition that "conveniently" a priori solves the dispute in your favor. The core of the question that I'm raising here is the cardinal features of an economic system, it's fundamental functionings that make it the system it is, are not intrinsically bound to a historic niche in which they existed but could and can exist outside it, to which your response is that they can't because you say that definitions of economic systems must be constrained by the historical context in which they existed in and that therefore their fundamental relations could not and cannot exist but inside those historical constraints in which they existed.

This is a misrepresentation of my views.

I specifically argued in prior posts that feudal-like relations are not impossible to arise in particular ways in the future; can you acknowledge that simple fact?

What I did dispute is the possibility (your "plausibility") of the specific anarcho-capitalist vision and your claim that the former being plausible it would also be plausible to view the resulting social formation as a kind of a neo-feudalism. My second claim is based in the very first place on the same basis as the first claim - the understanding of capital and how anarcho-capitalist theory relates to what is the actual dynamic of capital (for instance, the theory doesn't advocate localized, small scale production and a severe crippling of the world market; but it is precisely these conditions, however created, and the resulting social relations that would make the term "neo-feudalism" meaningful).

Basically, dropping the first point of dispute at the moment, and assuming the real possibility of this kind of society, I maintain that without severe disruption of production and exchange chains it is capital and the way it works that really makes it implausible that real feudal relations are to develop this way.

Now, you simply disregarded my points and continued to argue like this: fail to address the argument, and then assume it is based on a rigid notion of necessity (actually, inevitability) which is all the more easy to shoot down in a simple way - simply restate the original claim, restate possibility.

And again I must ask what is the purpose of such arguments. It clearly shows that you do not want to argue specifics; then, is it not that you're really interested in portraying every person in debate who employs a Marxist perspective as hopelessly determinist? That's what's the real ideological bias here.

Which is again wrong in this case too- there is nothing incompatible between serf pledge and "an"-cap theory, if inside that theory self-ownership is seen as alienable, which sometimes, in the vein of Nozick's view, it is, and therefore one can inside "an"-cap theory see selling oneself into slavery or pledging oneself into serfdom as perfectly legitimate.Okay, now we're finally getting somewhere, and I stand corrected as I assumed the coherence of an-cap theory on the matter of the inalienability of self-ownership.

That's simply not true, and also your factual assumption here isn't true either, being that a free man actually could become a serf by ceremonially giving a serf pledge (and many did, primarily because of debts) which was the same to the oath of fealty that a lord would give to another lord when becoming his vassal.Thanks again for correcting me; though to be honest, I was mainly referring to people born in serf families but you're right here.

And it's necessary why? Because Marx says so?
No, of course not. What makes you say that?

Now about the hunter gatherer societies and the idea of plausible feudal relations arising in such conditions:

Feudal lords are governmental figures, they conflate the rights of ownership and rulership in ther role, so there's not goalpost shifting here; and of course it is foolish to base an argument on the assumptions firstly- that the only basis of rulership is force and secondly- that such a force is impossible is the ruled are armed; both of which is not true.The thing about such societies is that they are very specific in relation to other kinds of society; thus, the subsistence of the tribe basically depends on the whole tribe being de facto armed so that hunt may yield sufficient results (this in itself being tied to the population levels back then).

Now, if feudal relations were to arise, it is quite obvious that some conditions would need to be satisfied. But that's your problem; you seem to be perfectly content with proclaiming assumptions as false without ever going into the specifics. But to continue, it is vital for a feudal lord to have an armed force at his disposal while the masses of laborers (serfs) are at a minimum equipped with an inferior equipment - in the first place, not produced for warfare. Now if you want to tell me here that feudal lords don't need to rely on force, I will insist on a detailed account of just how feudal rule might sustain itself in a different way.

Therefore, you'd have to show how could it have happened in the first place that a part of the tribe was dispossessed of both the means of production (hunting tools) which are at the same time rudimentary weapons, because this is far from clear as tribes sustenance depended on directly social labor (meaning, given the environment and especially the double threat of other tribes and large predatory animals, it made sense that every able bodied member of the tribe participates in hunt) which incidentally meant that they were all armed as well.

There are many other conditions as well but I don't feel like going into that as well. What I will say is that I'm constantly inviting you do come down from the lofty realm of possibilities and discuss the specifics and show the possibilities in those same specifics, without even once assuming that what historically happened was inevitable. As I stated, I think this is completely unnecessary and bogus really as this represents only a retroactive confirmation, in stronger terms, of what had happened. But does history need our confirmation? No, it does not.

To return to what I wrote about the need for discussing specifics and locating real possibilities in these same specifics (and not merely postulating it; it would also be interesting to unearth your own assumptions in doing so), this is the only way that such talk of possibilities can ever make sense.