Does Marxism apply to all lifeforms?

[Broviet Union]

Is Marxism likely to be applicable to hypothetical extraterrestrial societies? Could Marxism even be applied to unintelligent eusocial species such as ants?

[Rafiq]

Marxism concerns the nature of human social development and all things that entails.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Is Marxism likely to be applicable to hypothetical extraterrestrial societies? Could Marxism even be applied to unintelligent eusocial species such as ants?

"Marxism" in the sense of the schema that applies to human historical development? Eusocial species produce, but they don't change their means of production except through genetic drift etc.

It would probably depend on the extraterrestrial species.

[TC]

Marxism is not a theory of everything, it is a way of thinking about human social development and experience. It is not a *complete* account of even human social experience and human society, let alone an account of any possible life form's experience.

[motion denied]

Coming up next: The Communist Ants Manifesto.

[Broviet Union]

Is there reason to believe that Historical Materialism would not be relevant to any sentient, self aware species that modifies its environment through labor and technology?

[Devrim]

E.O. Wilson, the entomologist when asked about communism replied "Nice idea, wrong species".

[motion denied]

Is there reason to believe that Historical Materialism would not be relevant to any sentient, self aware species that modifies its environment through labor and technology?

yes, because the only animals who labour are the homo sapiens sapiens.

[Broviet Union]

yes, because the only animals who labour are the homo sapiens sapiens.

So neanderthals didn't labor? And an intelligent extraterrestrial species with an advanced civilization akin to ours would not engage in labor? That makes no sense.

[ckaihatsu]

Is there reason to believe that Historical Materialism would not be relevant to any sentient, self aware species that modifies its environment through labor and technology?




sentient, self aware species


Mirror test

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test


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http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/dennett/readings/Dennett%20-%20Kinds%20of%20Minds_files/084a.jpg

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/dennett/readings/Dennett%20-%20Kinds%20of%20Minds_files/086a.jpg

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/dennett/readings/Dennett%20-%20Kinds%20of%20Minds_files/089a.jpg

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/dennett/readings/Dennett%20-%20Kinds%20of%20Minds_files/100a.jpg


KINDS OF MINDS
Toward an Understanding of Consciousness
DANIEL C. DENNETT

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/dennett/readings/Dennett%20-%20KM4%20How%20Intentionality%20Came%20Into%20Focu s.htm

[motion denied]

So neanderthals didn't labor?

No.


Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labour-power to market for sale as a commodity, from that state in which human labour was still in its first instinctive stage. We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman’s will be steadily in consonance with his purpose. This means close attention. The less he is attracted by the nature of the work, and the mode in which it is carried on, and the less, therefore, he enjoys it as something which gives play to his bodily and mental powers, the more close his attention is forced to be.

Emphasis mine.


And an intelligent extraterrestrial species with an advanced civilization akin to ours would not engage in labor? That makes no sense.

That's a hypothetical scenario, so anything goes...

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

E.O. Wilson, the entomologist when asked about communism replied "Nice idea, wrong species".

And while Wilson certainly knew a lot about eusocial insects, his knowledge of communism was, ah, let's say questionable. Anyone who would suggest a link between eusocial or eusocial-like behaviour and communism doesn't understand at least one of these concepts (this is not a criticism of your ideas, by the way, it's just that a lot of posters I recall had a weird idea of communism-as-"collectivism" or rather communism-as-hive).

[Devrim]

And while Wilson certainly knew a lot about eusocial insects, his knowledge of communism was, ah, let's say questionable. Anyone who would suggest a link between eusocial or eusocial-like behaviour and communism doesn't understand at least one of these concepts (this is not a criticism of your ideas, by the way, it's just that a lot of posters I recall had a weird idea of communism-as-"collectivism" or rather communism-as-hive).

I think that Wilson is quite interesting in his field. I didn't mean to draw any political conclusions from this though. just put it up because it was a quotation from a well know person that was directly relevant to the topic.

Devrim