Latest issue of Science & Society - April, 2006

[JimFar]

The latest issue (April 2006) of the Marxist quarterly, Science & Society features papers from a symposium that was held back in 2003 on the twenty-fifth anniversary of G.A. Cohen's book, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. These papers by David Laibman, Paul Nolan, Renzo Llorente, Alex Callinocos, and Alan Carling explore varous aspects of the interpretation of historical materialism that was put forth in Cohen's book and what relevance it may have for contemporary Marxists. Some of the writers like Carling and Nolan take up the issue of explanatory mechanisms in the materialist theory of history, and they make the case that Darwinian biology provides historical materialists with an appropriate model as to how such mechanisms ought to be understood.
Carling, in particular, with his Thesis of Competitive Primacy, has long been known as an advocate of a selectionist interpretation of historical materialism, that models itself explicitly after Darwinian biology. Carling recognizes that there is a certain kinship between his Darwinian historical materialism and the memetics of Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennett, but sees their work as limited by their failure to take on Marxist insights.

Alex Callinicos' paper "G.A. Cohen and the Critique of Political Economy," praises Cohen's KMTH but takes issue with Cohen's rejection of the labor theory of value. In Callinocos' opinion, this rejection has prevented Cohen from engaging recent work in Marxistpolitical economy that builds directly on the labor theory of value, and so has undercut the promise that his 1978 book had opened up for Marxists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for that Jim!

I used to subscribe to this journal, but lost the will to continue for reasons that now escape me.

I will renew it forthwith!

[JimFar]

A somewhat earlier piece by Alan Carling concerning his views on Darwinism and
historical materialism can be found here (http://web.archive.org/web/20040615230744/http://www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/marxism/carling.htm).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for that once again, Jim.

I am the moment trying to obtain that special issue on DM from the 1990's.

Is it posted anywhere?

[JimFar]

As far as I know, the Fall 1998 issue of Science & Society is not available for any sort of a free download. Checking out the here (http://www.guilford.com/cgi-bin/cartscript.cgi?page=periodicals/jnss.htm&cart_id), it seems to be possible to do searches for individual articles which can be purchased and downloaded.

Having said that, I did find one article, "Systematic Dialectic," by Christopher Arthur that can be downloaded here (http://www.gre.ac.uk/~fa03/cpe/files/arthur-systematic-dialectic.rtf).

I once summarized some of the articles along the the following lines:
-------------------------
The Fall 1998 issue of SCIENCE & SOCIETY is a special issue devoted to "dialectics: The New Frontier." It features noted Marxist scholars, Bertell Ollman and Tony Smith, as the guest editors and includes articles by such noted Marxists as Frederic Jameson, Richard Levins, Nancy Hartsock, Istevan Meszaros and Joel Kovel amongst others. This issue attempts to cover many of the important questions concerning dialectics why Marxism needs dialectics in the first place, whether Marx's dialectic constitutes a reflection of what the world really is (ontological dialectics)or is it a method for investigating the world (epistemological
dialectics)or both. Does the dialectic apply just to history and society or does it apply to nature in general (dialectics of nature)? Is dialectical analysis applicable just to organic interactions within capitalism or is it generally applicable to historical change? Was dialectics for Marx primarily a method of exposition (especially for Capital) or was it also a method of inquiry as well? Also, which
dialectical categories: contradictions, internal relations, the negation of the negation etc. were of central importance for Marx?

One interesting article is the one by Richard Levins, "Dialectics and Systems Theory." Levins attempts to answer the question of whether or not the development of a rigorous, quantitative mathematical systems theory makes dialectics obsolete. That is a question that Barkley Rosser and others have dealt with before. As Levins notes, his friend the evolutionary biologist, John Maynard Smith, had argued that systems theory has made dialectics obsolete because it offers a set of concepts like "feedback" in place of Engels' notion of the "interchange between cause and effect"; the "threshold effect" in place of the mysterious "transformation of quantity into quality" and that the notion of the "negation of the negation" is one that he never could make sense of.

Levin, however, disagreed with Maynard Smith and he contended that dialectics should not be subsumed into systems theory while at the same time acknowledging that in his opinion contemporary systems theory does constitute an important example of modern science becoming more dialectical albeit in an incomplete, halting and inconsistent manner. As he pointed out systems theory is a "moment" in the investigation of complex systems which facilitates the formulation of problems and the interpretation of solutions so that mathematical models can be constructed that will make the obscure obvious. At the same time, Levins stresseed that systems theory is still a product of the reductionist tradition in modern science which emerged out of that tradition's struggle to come to terms with complexity, non-linearity and change through the use of sophisticated mathematical models.

Richard Levins in beginning his article with an account of his exchanges with John Maynard Smith over whether or not mathematical systems theory can replace dialectics raises in my mind some interesting questions. First, it is worth noting that Maynard Smith, himself, was best known for his work in the application of game theory to elucidating Darwinian theory. John Maynard Smith has along with other evolutionists like William Hamilton, George Williams, and Richard Dawkins elaborated an interpretation of Darwinism that takes a "gene's eye" view of evolution - that in other words treats not organisms but individual genes within the
gene pool of a given population as the units of selection. This conception arose out of Hamilton's work in developing Darwinian explanations of altruism. Hamilton concluded that altruism could not be explained if we took individual organisms as the basic units of selection since altruistic behavior almost by definition impairs the reproductive fitness of the individual organism by acting in the interests of other organisms at the expense of its own interests. Hamilton argued that such behavior becomes explicable once we realize that it is individual genes that are the units of selection. Thus, if an organism sacrifices itself to protect the lives of its siblings or offspring it is in fact ensuring that its own genes survive into future generations through its siblings or offspring so natural section will favor such behavior.

Hamilton and fellow theorists like George Williams argued that it is possible to understand evolution at the gene level if we postulate that genes are acting like rational self-interested actors or what Dawkins call "selfish genes." Maynard Smith has taken this a few steps further by using game theory to show what kinds of strategies that genes (conceived of as being rational and self-interested) will adopt to ensure their survival either in competition or in cooperation with other genes. Thus, he has given to evolutionary biology such concepts as that of the evolutionary stable strategy which in his view offers us an important way for understanding evolution.

I have heard that Maynard Smith is either a Marxist or (depending on the source an ex-Marxist). What is striking to me is how his arguments against dialectics parallel the ones that some Analytical Marxists have advanced. What is even more interesting is the fact that one school of Analytical Marxism - the Rational Choice Marxism of John Roemer and Jon Elster draws heavily upon game theory (the favorite tool of Maynard Smith in his own work) in its reconstruction of Marxian theory. Therefore, while Maynard Smith himself, may have looked to systems theory as an adequate replacement for dialectics, some Analytical Marxists like Roemer and Elster look to rational choice theory including especially game theory for replacing dialectics. Indeed, there is I think much to be said for this position. Much of the Marxian analysis of the contradictions of capitalism can IMO be expressed in the language of game theory. The Prisoners' Dilemma Game provides us an excellent model for illustrating how individual rationality can under certain conditions lead to collective irrationality and that is quite relevant in illustrating the irrationalities of capitalism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Once again, thanks for that Jim -- I knew about that special issue, it was an earlier one I was referring to, one in which Graham Priest took part (unless I have got my facts wrong).

And you are right about Maynard Smith -- he used to be a Marxist, but he seems to have sold out by capitulating to the game theory nuts (a theory beloved of, funded by, the CIA to help with its cold war strategy -- as I am sure you know).

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote:


And you are right about Maynard Smith -- he used to be a Marxist, but he seems to have sold out by capitulating to the game theory nuts (a theory beloved of, funded by, the CIA to help with its cold war strategy -- as I am sure you know).

Well, starting from John von Neumann, himself, who was very much an anticommunist cold warrior (did you know that such Hungarians as von Neumann, the physicists, Edward Teller and Leo Szilard, and the Marxist philosopher, Georg Lukacs, all grew up in the same neighborhood in Budapest, and attended the same high school?), and extending through people like Anatol Rappoport, Herman Kahn etc., etc., game theory, from early on was used to develop military strategies during the cold war. Henry Kissinger, popularized the application of game theory to nuclear arms strategy in his book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. Both Kahn and Kissinger, had drawn upon the work of the game theorist, Theodor Schelling, who won the Noble Prize in Economics for that work, along with an Israeli game theorist, Robert J. Aumann, just last year.

It's interesting that Stanley Kubrick in his famous film "Dr. Strangelove," is said to have based the Dr. Strangelove character on a composite of several people
including Kissinger, Kahn, Dr. Edward Teller, and one or two other folk. Kissinger's infamous "mad man" theory was inspired by Schelling's work (Daniel Ellsberg commented briefly on this in passing here (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/history/hindsight/features/torn/episode3.htm).

BTW it should be noted that the Soviets also made use of game theory, too, during the cold war. BTW, I have some place a Soviet era pamphlet, I think from the "Little Lenin" series, or something like that, which provides a quick introduction to game theory.

BTW what is your opinion of the efforts of people like John Roemer or Jon Elster in using game theory and rational choice theory to elucidate certain aspects of Marxism?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jim, thanks for that, yet again.

Interesting coincidences, like the one that has Wittgenstein and Hitler attending the same school in Austria (Kimberly Cornish; 'The Jew of Linz').

I think game theory, as a formal system, is unobjectionable, but applied to social systems, on the assumption that human being are 'rational atoms', is a serious error; so I do not go along with Elster and Roemer.

[JimFar]

A slight correction. The name of the game theorist and winner of the pseudo-Nobel Prize in economics is Thomas Schelling, not Theodor.