Marxism and economic reductionism

[EndaKenny]

What is everyone's opinion on the view that Marxism is flawed because it is economic reductionism? Can we really deduce history and the foundations of human society all down to economics? And if in the future the economy/monetary systems are done away with, who is to say that other factors such as cultural differences or natural leadership (and thus hierarchy and ambitions for power) wont cause tensions/disputes/conflict in a communist society?

[Rafiq]

What is everyone's opinion on the view that Marxism is flawed because it is economic reductionism? Can we really deduce history and the foundations of human society all down to economics? And if in the future the economy/monetary systems are done away with, who is to say that other factors such as cultural differences or natural leadership (and thus hierarchy and ambitions for power) wont cause tensions/disputes/conflict in a communist society?

To categorize "economics" as a separate category within the domain of history is ALREADY to make this point! But "economics" as a field, that is, a sphere of activity that appears to have a distance from us that concerns our survival, is not only unique to capitalism but neoliberalism. The idea of economic reductionism is a false argument: the point is that history is the reproduction and production of human lives, and the various relationships people have to this process are what define society in every which way. That is the point. The "economic" cannot ever be done away with, because our survival will always be a necessity so long as we exist, and as long as we do we will always have a means to it. The argument is a false one because it defines economics in terms of "money", as though historical materialism is simply a cynical postmodern insistence that everything is reducible to the drive for wealth! It's nonsense. Domains you don't want to concern "economics" with, like everything in your life which distinguishes you from an animal, your means of feeding, clothing yourself and finding shelter: these are simply deemed "natural" and a given. This is what Marxists describe as reification, it is the means by which our relative social being becomes separate from our conception of it.

"Culture" is nothing more than the reproductive excess expression of our relationships to production. Let me ask you something: where do cultures come from? Why do some melt into air upon exposure to a new totality, and some 'appear' to persist? Capitalism has already done away with cultural difference, today the only differences are POLITICALLY based, or cosmetic. Where do we see a "clash of cultures" in history which is self sufficient into itself? Nowhere. No conflict was ever on grounds of cultural difference, because all cases where we think this is true is an inability to grasp that there are deep social processes in antagonism. The problem of "culture" in central Asia, for example was a problem with the backwardness of their social being. The problems of "culture" today is likewise the same: globalization vs. National identity and so on. Because cultures don't have an inherent capability of reproducing themselves without the social basis to which this is not only possible, but necessary. This may be expressed in terms of "culture", but to identify culture as something separate to productive relations in this shitty analytical sense doesn't allow us to ask where it comes from. Culture, after all, is the expression of a way of life.

Do you honestly think that present class divisions are owed to "natural" leadership skills and so forth? Even if some are "naturally" better inclined to be in a position of leadership, what exactly they are leading and how is relative. Any moron can be a leader, but it takes vast historical, social complexity to think of a leader in the way we do today. Qualities that are "natural" cannot, and never have any political significance, they are marginal and over-powered by our social reality. Power can be expressed in various different ways, and can mean many different things, but it is not owed to "nature". This alone doesn't form the basis for actual conflict on a social level, but it could lead to competition among individuals. What examples do you have to demonstrate this? In cases where fighting for a leader in society, where people take sides and it divides everyone to civil conflict, what cases of this don't represent profoundly social divisions? I ask you a simple question: why do people "want" to dominate others? It's a negative drive: it's the drive to NOT be dominated. Furthermore "power" in this abstract sense means nothing, and critically it tells us nothing about anything. What's different about wanting to be King, and wanting to be a capitalist? Everything. Yet what threads in common we''re supposed to think these are the same different expressions of eternal qualities of man, even though a king as being representative of the highest expression of power denotes an entirely different understanding of it, and a different relationship to it (power). Tensions and disputes, small conflicts will ALWAYS exist, but for them to culminate in wars, in mass conflict that have implications politically requires profoundly systemic processes to have created them.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

While I would say I'm generally very sympathetic to Rafiq's post above, I would say that the reduction of culture to an "excess" which emerges from production does tend to reinscribe bourgeois conceptions of "economics" as a separate sphere of activity. I would contest that the two aren't nearly so distinct, and are mutually constitutive. Ideology has material force, etc.

[Fakeblock]

The separation of the economy as a separate sphere is indeed more theoretical-conceptual than it is real, but it isn't entirely erroneous. For example in the capitalist economy, while all social practices to a large extent function to constitute and reproduce the relations of production and the productive forces, it is only in the production and circulation of capital that this dual function is realised. It is this level of the mode of production that we can designate as the economic base. Now, it is evident that the boundaries and content of this sphere is not fixed, that it varies between modes of production. Such is the case with every level (Marx lists three: the economic base, the politico-legal superstructures and the forms of social consciousness, i.e. ideology). It's not that this separation of the levels of the mode of production is fictitious, but that its magnitude depends on the mode in question.

It is true, though, that we can never speak of the absolute autonomy of a level. They overlap and, in some cases, are situated within the exact same space.

[RedMaterialist]

What is everyone's opinion on the view that Marxism is flawed because it is economic reductionism? Can we really deduce history and the foundations of human society all down to economics? And if in the future the economy/monetary systems are done away with, who is to say that other factors such as cultural differences or natural leadership (and thus hierarchy and ambitions for power) wont cause tensions/disputes/conflict in a communist society?

I think even bourgeois economists claim that "foundations of human society" are based on economics. They are constantly telling us that freedom, justice, democracy, etc depend on the capitalist free market. Milton Freidman's book specifically claimed that capitalism made freedom possible. (He left the book at the university of Chicago when he went to advise Pinochet.) And, in a sense, they are right: bourgeois markets make freedom and democracy possible for the bourgeois.

Hierarchy and ambitions for power are specific attributes of class antagonism. Pre-historic tribal hierarchies were temporary institutions used in war, not for the enforcement of class division.

It's still true as marx said in the poverty of philisophy, the water mill gives you feudalism, the steam engine gives you industrial capitalism. I think the computer gives you finance capitalism. The internet is leading us to socialism.

[Rafiq]

The separation of the economy as a separate sphere is indeed more theoretical-conceptual than it is real, but it isn't entirely erroneous. For example in the capitalist economy, while all social practices to a large extent function to constitute and reproduce the relations of production and the productive forces, it is only in the production and circulation of capital that this dual function is realised. It is this level of the mode of production that we can designate as the economic base. Now, it is evident that the boundaries and content of this sphere is not fixed, that it varies between modes of production. Such is the case with every level (Marx lists three: the economic base, the politico-legal superstructures and the forms of social consciousness, i.e. ideology). It's not that this separation of the levels of the mode of production is fictitious, but that its magnitude depends on the mode in question.

It is true, though, that we can never speak of the absolute autonomy of a level. They overlap and, in some cases, are situated within the exact same space.

Yes, but it also must be understood that the "economy" in the neoliberal sense is a very narrow sphere which doesn't include the entirety of productive relations but the intricacies of finance, I.e. "money systems" as the OP described them.

[Rafiq]

It's still true as marx said in the poverty of philisophy, the water mill gives you feudalism, the steam engine gives you industrial capitalism. I think the computer gives you finance capitalism. The internet is leading us to socialism.

The conclusions drawn from this are beyond wrong, however, and even worse they paint a picture of history amounting to a process of mere technological progress, without regarding the fact that the predispositions for technological change are present in a social order that does not will their implied effects. The real problem, however, is that it assumes the genuine material foundations for socialism will be wrought out from capitalism. The only material foundations which make capitalism it's own gravedigger is the politically conscious proletarian class, not technological innovation, which can always conform to the whims of capital. One could also argue that the material foundations for socialism are to be found in the increased socialization of labor, making widespread planning and coordinating a very real possibility - but only after the expression of great political prowess and revolution.

All technological innovations in the history of capitalism, from the steam engine to electricity, could have "led us to socialism". The point is that if the opportunity is not seized, this potential disintegrates. If we look at the internet today, and the assaults on net neutrality, one finds the idea that it will make us more predisposed to socialism a joke. Within the crevices of innovation before it's total subordination to capital a vision for the future can eh wrought out no doubt, but without political sophistication this can never be realized.

[ckaihatsu]

Qualities that are "natural" cannot, and never have any political significance, they are marginal and over-powered by our social reality.


Worldview Diagram

http://s6.postimg.org/qjdaikuwh/120824_Worldview_Diagram.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/axvyymiy5/full/)





The internet is leading us to socialism.





The conclusions drawn from this are beyond wrong, however, and even worse they paint a picture of history amounting to a process of mere technological progress, without regarding the fact that the predispositions for technological change are present in a social order that does not will their implied effects. The real problem, however, is that it assumes the genuine material foundations for socialism will be wrought out from capitalism. The only material foundations which make capitalism it's own gravedigger is the politically conscious proletarian class, not technological innovation, which can always conform to the whims of capital. One could also argue that the material foundations for socialism are to be found in the increased socialization of labor, making widespread planning and coordinating a very real possibility - but only after the expression of great political prowess and revolution.

All technological innovations in the history of capitalism, from the steam engine to electricity, could have "led us to socialism". The point is that if the opportunity is not seized, this potential disintegrates. If we look at the internet today, and the assaults on net neutrality, one finds the idea that it will make us more predisposed to socialism a joke. Within the crevices of innovation before it's total subordination to capital a vision for the future can eh wrought out no doubt, but without political sophistication this can never be realized.


G.U.T.S.U.C., Individualism - Tribalism

http://s6.postimg.org/izeyfeh9t/150403_2_Individualism_Tribalism_aoi_36_tiff_x.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/680s8w7hp/full/)


[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

http://s6.postimg.org/nmlxvtqlt/1_History_Macro_Micro_Precision.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/zbpxjshkd/full/)

[RedMaterialist]

. The real problem, however, is that it assumes the genuine material foundations for socialism will be wrought out from capitalism.

Isn't that exactly what Marx argued? Capitalists bring people together to work as wage-laborers, as "freely" associated workers.


The only material foundations which make capitalism it's own gravedigger is the politically conscious proletarian class, not technological innovation, which can always conform to the whims of capital.

The forces of production (social and technological) sooner or later expand beyond the mode of production (Capital.) Even the whims of capital have limits.


One could also argue that the material foundations for socialism are to be found in the increased socialization of labor, making widespread planning and coordinating a very real possibility -

Not only a possibility but a reality in the modern, global corporate behemoth.


If we look at the internet today, and the assaults on net neutrality, one finds the idea that it will make us more predisposed to socialism a joke.

It's not a question of being "predisposed." The internet is connecting humanity on a global scale, just as railroads and the telegraph once did. The question is how to use the internet to educate people on a mass scale, how to politicize them.

A social and political revolution may be "sophisticated" or it may crude. It depends on the social development of the individual society.

Twenty yrs ago if you were a general reader and wanted to know about socialism you could read about Stalin, 1984, the Evil Empire, the National socialist hitler, etc. Now, If you google "socialism" you're more likely to get a wiki entry on marx or even the Marxist.org site. Does this mean a socialist revolution tomorrow? Probably not. But as Lenin said, decades go by and nothing happens, etc., and then society will exult and shout, "well grubbed, ole mole!"

[Rafiq]

One could have made this exact argument, as I previously mentioned, about electricity and locomotion. The forces of production do not and can not expand beyond the mode of production in capitalism because capitalism itself survives by constantly revolutionizing the means of production, from the steam engine to electric power. During the 20's the Bolsheviks were very enthusiastic about electricity, they thought it would revolutionize society (and it did, but in an ironic way). Capitalism is the historically unique mode of production for Marx because in its very edifice it contains the retrospective foundations for understanding the social transformation in all previous societies. The proletariat and the bourgeoisie are the two classes that the culmination of all human civilization is embodied in.

[RedMaterialist]

The forces of production do not and can not expand beyond the mode of production in capitalism because capitalism itself survives by constantly revolutionizing the means of production, from the steam engine to electric power. n.

Where did marx, Engels, Lenin, or Trotsky say that the forces of production/mode of production law did not apply to capitalism?

[
QUOTE]A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means[of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented./QUOTE]

How is that not a statement that capitalism cannot sustain the expansion of productive forces except through more extensive and destructive crises?

The bourgeois economists now admit (at least Ben bernanke) that the 2008 crisis would have been worse than 1929 except for the bailout. One total collapse and another near collapse of capitalism in 80 yrs, and capitalism only about 250 yrs old.

[Rafiq]

That is very well, but that capitalism cannot control it's consequences does not suggest that these contradictions culminate into socialism, or represent an inherent systemic predisposition to a new society. Capitalism destroys itself, but this destruction lacks any conscious intent: it is barbarism that results organically from the inherent contradictions of capitalist production, not socialism.

[RedMaterialist]

That is very well, but that capitalism cannot control it's consequences does not suggest that these contradictions culminate into socialism, or represent an inherent systemic predisposition to a new society. Capitalism destroys itself, but this destruction lacks any conscious intent: it is barbarism that results organically from the inherent contradictions of capitalist production, not socialism.

Don't we still have the choice, barbarism or socialism?

[Rafiq]

Yes, but this requires conscious political will, it will not arise organically from the "forces of production". To be aware of limitations is already to be beyond them: that is why class struggle in capitalism, unlike in any previous epoch, is self-conscious and renders possible the abolition of classes.

[RedMaterialist]

Yes, but this requires conscious political will, it will not arise organically from the "forces of production". To be aware of limitations is already to be beyond them: that is why class struggle in capitalism, unlike in any previous epoch, is self-conscious and renders possible the abolition of classes.

And one of the ways a class conscious political will develops is by the social interaction of the members of the suppressed class. In my view this can be accomplished by the internet, which, as you note, is why the capitalist class wants to restrict and control it. But it is only through open and unrestricted internet traffic that a global capitalist economy is possible. Wall Street trades are made in billionths of a second; a factory in china knows in tenths of a second how many screw drivers a walmart in Idaho needs.

Fewer and fewer people are getting their news from capitalist dominated media. Everybody knows now that if you want to get information about the Baltimore protests you go to twitter or live stream, etc.

They used to say the revolution would be televised. Now it's going to be on twitter. I'm not saying the internet will trigger the next revolution, only that it is a force of production that capitalism, at least for now, cannot control.

[ckaihatsu]

And one of the ways a class conscious political will develops is by the social interaction of the members of the suppressed class. In my view this can be accomplished by the internet, which, as you note, is why the capitalist class wants to restrict and control it. But it is only through open and unrestricted internet traffic that a global capitalist economy is possible. Wall Street trades are made in billionths of a second; a factory in china knows in tenths of a second how many screw drivers a walmart in Idaho needs.

Fewer and fewer people are getting their news from capitalist dominated media. Everybody knows now that if you want to get information about the Baltimore protests you go to twitter or live stream, etc.

They used to say the revolution would be televised. Now it's going to be on twitter. I'm not saying the internet will trigger the next revolution, only that it is a force of production that capitalism, at least for now, cannot control.


---





They used to say the revolution would be televised.





[Gil Scott-Heron's] recording work received much critical acclaim, especially one of his best-known compositions "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". His poetic style has influenced every generation of hip hop.[9]




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Scott-Heron


Your misquoting ironically only serves to *reinforce* your point -- with past forms of one-to-many communications, like commercial television, there was no possible way for people's unedited voices and points of view to be broadcast to others directly, and a 'revolution' would never have been televised, as we continue to see today from the TV networks, attempting to 'spin' and 'damage control' actual events on-the-ground.

For example:

Carl Dix On the Uprising in Baltimore

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2828933&postcount=4

[Prof. Oblivion]

What is everyone's opinion on the view that Marxism is flawed because it is economic reductionism? Can we really deduce history and the foundations of human society all down to economics? And if in the future the economy/monetary systems are done away with, who is to say that other factors such as cultural differences or natural leadership (and thus hierarchy and ambitions for power) wont cause tensions/disputes/conflict in a communist society?

The notion of economics as a distinct field is a flawed presumption here. The history of humanity is the history of human social relations - of people living with one another. Economics, in the sense that Marx used it, is certainly one method of relating. In fact, his entire early work is devoted to this concept. The 1844 Manuscripts outline his argument about why economics as a set of human interactions and relations are the foundation for understanding society.

What's important to note is that he did not "reduce" the understanding of history to economics alone. He merely explained the primacy of economics in this endeavor. Social, cultural and political interactions are important as well, and in the total of human interactions all four of these interact with one another. It isn't possible to understand history without taking it in its entirety.

Marx certainly focused on economics primarily in most of his works because he was attempting to lay the groundwork for a broader theory of history, and took economics as his starting point, as economics is our material relations with one another and the world. He spent some time also explaining how social, cultural and political interactions flow through this economic system. But the interesting part of Marx is that he has plenty of writings where he approaches these same problems from other perspectives, some from a much broader perspective, some politically, some culturally.

Marxism isn't reductionist, it merely posits economics as a starting point. If you stop there you've misread Marx.