inevitable downfall of capitalism

[redcannon]

up until recently, i used the dialectics approach to proving the inevitable downfall of capitalism. then i started to actually look into dialectics, and i don't really think its that great of an argument anymore (considering it justifies the rise of fascism in europe)

is there another argument that proves the inevitable downfall of capitalism?

(note: this topic may have been touched on before, but i couldn't find anything by using the search feature)

[apathy maybe]

Amazingly enough, quite a number of "Marxists" ("" because quite a lot of other "Marxists" say that they aren't...) say that dialectics is a load of crap. Expect to see Rosa in here soon to explain why.

If you browse over some of the stuff redstar2000 wrote (available at http://rs2k.revleft.com ) you can find a lot of other attacks on the dialectical idea. Basically, you don't need dialectics to have historical materialism. You can have historical materialism (and I'm talking about Marx's version here) and still interpret and study the world, even if you ignore the dialectical mysticism.

As to something not Marxist at all, I'm not actually sure if there is a fully fledged historical theory that does what the Marxist version does. That said, you should use whatever tools you have available to study history, and not just a hammer (because sometimes you need a saw).

[BobKKKindle$]

Dialectics is not an explanation for why capitalism will inevitably fail as such, it is simply a philisophical framework through which Marx concieved human history. His economic ideas can still stand completely independent of the concept of the dialectic, so don't worry!

The central contradiction of Capitalism - the element of the system which makes revolution inevitable and becomes more apparent as the system develops - is the tendency of the rate of profit to fall over time which in turn is the result of increases in the organic composition of Capital (the ratio of constant to variable capital). This arises from competition between firms and in the long term impedes the ability of Capitalism to sustain itself and will result in a series of ever greater crises. Marx also suggested that there were certain 'countervailing trends' which would slow (but not completely stop) this tendency. For example, one of my 'favourites' is the permanant arms economy which diverts profit from the sale of commodities to the manufacture of arms, thereby preventing firms from re-investing their profits ad expanding constant capital - http://www.swp.org.uk/swp_archive.php?article_id=5004 (don't be scared away by the website)

An alternative contradiction is the environmental destruction that Capitlaism creates which the system cannot deal with effectively because it is based on profit and competition - however, I personally have misgivings about this idea - see my thread in S&E.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Much as I hate to disagree with BK, in his more mature work Marx moved away from this sub-Aristotlelian theory -- and no wonder. It is based on a series of crass logical errors committed by Hegel (and earlier traditional philosophers).

Indeed, far from believing in the inevitable downfall of capitalism, Marx added this to the Communist Manifesto:


"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." [Marx and Engels (1848), pp.35-36. Bold emphasis added.]

So even before he began to ditch Hegel, he never argued for the inevitable end of Capitalism (i.e., the inevitable creation of socialism).

More details in the links appended to my signature.

The reasons for saying Marx abandoned Hegel (in Kapital) can be found at my site, in Essay Nine Part One, Note 16.

Or, follow this link:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2...1.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_01.htm#coquetted)

And scroll down to Note 16.

[BobKKKindle$]

Indeed, far from believing in the inevitable downfall of capitalism, Marx added this to the Communist Manifesto...

Yet in the same document, Rosa, Marx also wrote:


"The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable" Emphasis mine

I have always interpreted Marx's comment about the 'contending ruin of both classes' as references to specific struggles and not the totality of all struggles in a given mode of production - struggles that are unable to succeed primarily because the correct objective (or possible subjective) conditions do not exist, i.e. the mode of production in question has not undergone sufficient development.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for that reminder BK, but two things can be equally inevitable and still both be of zero inevitability (or 95% evitable, or 94%..., etc.).

So, in view of the passage I quoted, it looks like he did not think this inevitable.

Indeed, that is why one of our slogans is "Socialism or barbarism".

That would make no sense if we thought socialism inevitable.

[syndicat]

b.k.:

The central contradiction of Capitalism - the element of the system which makes revolution inevitable and becomes more apparent as the system develops - is the tendency of the rate of profit to fall over time which in turn is the result of increases in the organic composition of Capital (the ratio of constant to variable capital).

Too bad, then, that the "tendency of the rate of profit to fall" has been disproven. in 1961 a Japanese political economist, Nobuo Okisho, published a theorem that disproved Marx's conjecture (which Marx had derived from the labor theory of value). what Okisho's argument shows is that, if the wage rate does not fall, no cost-reducing technical change could lower the rate of profit. This includes capital-using, labor-saving changes that increase the "organic composition of capital". Instead, Okisho's argument shows that such changes would raise the rate of profit or leave it unchanged.

To explain his proof, you'd need to understand a "Sraffa model." Pierro Sraffa was a neo-Ricardian political economist who defended the labor theory of value by solving the "transformation problem." This is the problem that Marx mentions in Vol 3 of Capital which arises when you lift the simplifying assumptions he set down in Vol 1 of Capital. In Vol 1 of Capital Marx's discussion of the labor theory of value is within a model he calls "simple commodity production." This is not a capitalist economy but an economy of self-employed artisans and farmers. Once you introduce capital and employment of wage labor by capitalists, there is no longer a linear relationship between embodied labor time ratios and prices. That's because the "organic composition of capital" -- the ratio of contant to variable capital -- will vary between different industries. This enables different industries to capture portions of the total surplus that are not in proportion to their share of the total economy. What, then, is the relationship between embodied labor time and prices? This is the "transofmation problem" -- the problem of "transforming" labor time "value" into price. Sraffa was able to solve this problem by looking at the economy as a whole. But Okisho proved that within Sraffa's solution, there is no "tendency of the profit rate to fall."

Sraffa models are discussed by Robin Hahnel in "ABCs of Political Economy", chapter 5, and the Okisho proof is discussed on page 124.

This is just another reason why we shouldn't look to "inevitable crisis" or "collapse due to internal contradictions" as the basis of the replacement of capitalism by a labor-run political economy. Rather, the dynamic of working class self-activity, the level of struggle, solidarity and class conscious is more important, because a labor-managed political economy can only come about through the self-conscious activity of the working class itself.

[The Author]

Originally posted by [email protected] May 28, 2007, 03:23 am
up until recently, i used the dialectics approach to proving the inevitable downfall of capitalism. then i started to actually look into dialectics, and i don't really think its that great of an argument anymore (considering it justifies the rise of fascism in europe)

Using the dialectics approach, there's the great contradiction between the productive forces (means of production and distribution) which have a social character, and the relations of production (property is divided into the private hands of a few bourgeois capitalists, and a vast army of proletarians and the strata of petit-bourgeois) which does not have a social character. Inevitably, there are crises in overproduction and the collapse of markets.

What you have to factor in, is that there is also the question of imperialism and its wars. When imperialist monopoly-capitalists run out of markets and resources, they resort to war to conquer other territories and seize their markets and resources, renewing capitalism's breath just a little longer. We've seen downfalls in capitalism, but the "big, inevitable downfall" hasn't happened yet due to the warlike nature of imperialism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CriticiseSomethingsSometimes:


Using the dialectics approach, there's the great contradiction between the productive forces (means of production and distribution) which have a social character, and the relations of production (property is divided into the private hands of a few bourgeois capitalists, and a vast army of proletarians and the strata of petit-bourgeois) which does not have a social character. Inevitably, there are crises in overproduction and the collapse of markets.

Bold emphasis added.

How is this a 'contradiction'?

[Idola Mentis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 04:57 pm
Too bad, then, that the "tendency of the rate of profit to fall" has been disproven. in 1961 a Japanese political economist, Nobuo Okisho, published a theorem that disproved Marx's conjecture (which Marx had derived from the labor theory of value). what Okisho's argument shows is that, if the wage rate does not fall, no cost-reducing technical change could lower the rate of profit. This includes capital-using, labor-saving changes that increase the "organic composition of capital". Instead, Okisho's argument shows that such changes would raise the rate of profit or leave it unchanged.
Just nagging on a part of all that I think I can understand - why, in Marx' theory won't the wage rate fall?

Supposing (because I don't have time to go for the references) that Marx assumed unrestrained capitalism in a homogenous space, wouldn't he have projected a universally falling wage rate, to the inevitable point of slavery? We can observe today that capitalism does this if left unchecked. In conditions of pure capitalism, slave owners/employers are not even obliged to provide the minimum needed to support the life of their "employees", but can literally work them to death. Check the methods of the sugar industry for one example. What complicates the picture would then be the heterogenous economical space, or somewhat separate economical spaces created by local worker's resistance and the capitalist concessions - such as set minimum wages?

[Labor Shall Rule]

It should be noted that Marx discovered a tendency, not some holistic law. It is the tendency of the rate of profits to decrease; which has actually been proven through statistical evidence.


Pierre Jalee, How Capitalism Works:
The rate of profit in 1930 = 100 pl / 200c + 50v = 40%
The rate of profit in 1970 = 300 pl / 850c + 150v = 30%

The rate of surplus value remaining constant, the markedly greater increase in fixed capital over variable capital caused a considerable fall in the rate of profit over a period of time. The uninterrupted progress of science and technology leads to the general phenomena of an increasing organic composition of capital throughout the economy. The tendency shows itself clearly, without any guises whatsoever, displaying that the average rate of profit to fall is the fundamental to capitalist production.

Whatever causes the rate of proft to increase and thus an easing of social tensions is something artifically imposed; it is by the state that this influence is relaxed. It is realized that if the economy was left 'unregulated', that it would collapse out of it's contradictions; class warfare would swallow it whole. I think we have noticed with the unrelentless pursue of raw materials and low-cost regions in undeveloped countries, along with fascism and social democracy, the ruling class has struggled to maintain the vestiges of their profits through this ongoing period of stabilization that has cost the blood of thousands of workers. Capitalism recieved a temporary boon from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of neo-mercantilism in places like Latin America, and the economic aspirations of the Stalinist bureaucracies in countries like China. New markets opened up, cheap labor was available for the taking, profits have never been higher. But the same tendencies are still present. Sooner or later there will be nowhere left to turn. Sooner or later the Chinese workers will no longer put up with being the wage-slaves for the "sweatshop of the world", so cheaper labor will have to be found in North Korea and Africa. But sooner or later North Korea and Africa will collapse, and cheaper labor will have to be found somewhere else. And so on and so forth. At some point you run up against a brick wall, where profitiablity really embarks upon an inevitable decline, and the only choice is to resort to fascism and global conquest to maintain whatever vestiges of the system possible. Therefore, I don't think that this theory is 'incorrect'. The world wars, and the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, has proved Marx correct.

[The Author]

Originally posted by Rosa the "Wise"+--> (Rosa the "Wise")How is this a 'contradiction'?[/b]


Originally posted by [email protected]
Using the dialectics approach, there's the great contradiction between the productive forces (means of production and distribution) which have a social character, and the relations of production (property is divided into the private hands of a few bourgeois capitalists, and a vast army of proletarians and the strata of petit-bourgeois) which does not have a social character. Inevitably, there are crises in overproduction and the collapse of markets.


Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Contradiction: 3 b : a situation in which inherent factors, actions, or propositions are inconsistent or contrary to one another

[Lamanov]

Dialectical logic states nothing of that sort. Why? Because it can't. It is only a logical concept which recquires facts, reality, empyrical date, real relations - allready understood in their connection. It's not even a "procedure", because, you can't get any results from it. Marx used it as an abstract metaphore - taken from Hegel, without Hegel's mysticism or any "philosophical meat" of course. Situationists, 'Marxists-Humanists' (more-less), some "Ultra-Left" groups (which arose out of a critique of Orthodox Marxism) used it, but only in that fashion, as such.

When you "apply" dialectical logic to allready existing relations which we are aware of nontheless, and for which we know what is to be done with them, you only get a nice "philosophical" explanation painted with this interesting metaphore: we can allways expose "contraditions" (conflicts, alienation, to be more precise) of the existing system, but until we do something about it, it will stay. When we finally do something, we can only do it in a way that "transcends" and "annihilates" existing relations (since inherent social contradictions are based in social relations, of course - on alienated labor, the basis of capitalism).

But we allready knew this, without "dialectics", didn't we? I mean, if we didn't know about alienated labor and alienation as an existing "contradiction" between us and the world that we produce, dialectical logic could not have figured that out for us. But now that we know about it, we don't need "dialectics" to "tell us" what happens, but we only use it to [metaphorically] explain what we allready know.

Dialectics can't tell us what we do with "contraditions": we tell it ourselves when we figure it out. We use "dialectics", like Marx, to express ourselves in abstracto.

Now, "Dialectical Materialism" is junk - a pile of bullshit. It's a determinist ideology created during the 2nd International Orthodox Marxism, later taken over by Lenin and Co, created on the basis of some Engles' criptures with determinist pretext (Dialectics of Nature, Anti Duhring, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific).

As far as decadence and colapse of capitalism are concerned, you can check out this text written by Aufheben group. I think they have pretty much burried that outdated, missused and unfortunate concept: Aufheben, Decadence: theory of decline or decline of theory? (http://www.geocities.com/aufheben2/auf_2_dec.html).

To sum it up: "Dialectical materialism" is bullshit, "Inevitable collapse of capitalism" is bullshit.


Originally posted by CriticizeEverythingAlways+--> (CriticizeEverythingAlways)
Originally posted by Rosa the "Wise"+--> (Rosa the "Wise")How is this a 'contradiction'?[/b]
[email protected]
Using the dialectics approach, there's the great contradiction between the productive forces (means of production and distribution) which have a social character, and the relations of production (property is divided into the private hands of a few bourgeois capitalists, and a vast army of proletarians and the strata of petit-bourgeois) which does not have a social character. Inevitably, there are crises in overproduction and the collapse of markets.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Contradiction: 3 b : a situation in which inherent factors, actions, or propositions are inconsistent or contrary to one another[/b]

And when did this "contradition" actually "cause" its own Aufhebung? How was it "trascended"?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CSS:


Contradiction: 3 b : a situation in which inherent factors, actions, or propositions are inconsistent or contrary to one another

We have been through this several times.

Dictionaries are repositories of current use; they are not prescriptive.

Here is how I put things in an earlier thread:


To be sure, one online dictionary says the following sort of thing:

"contradiction, n 1: opposition between two conflicting forces or ideas..."

However, it is worth recalling that dictionaries are repositories of usage, and are neither normative nor prescriptive. Indeed, they 'define' many things dialecticians would disagree with. For example:


"God: A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.

The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.

A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.

An image of a supernatural being; an idol.

One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god...."

And:


"negation n 1: a negative statement; a statement that is a refusal or denial of some other statement 2: the speech act of negating 3: (logic) a proposition that is true if and only if another proposition is false."

No mention here of "sublation" or the NON, but does that force dialecticians into accepting this 'definition'? Of course not; they pick and choose when it suits them.

[NON = Negation of the Negation.]

In that case, dictionaries record ideology as much as they record use or meaning. Here, the writers of this dictionary have recorded the animistic use of this word as employed by dialecticians.

As the above shows, since no literal sense can be made of the equation of forces and contradictions, dialecticians should not believe all they read in dictionaries.

So, the dictionary you quote merely records the determination of certain Marxists to use this word in this odd way.

It in no way explains how this is a contradiction.

And since the dialectical use of this word is based on a series of errors Hegel made over the 'law of identity', even his use of this word is unsustainable.

Moreover, since materialist dialecticians got this word from him, their use if it is without foundation, too.

[The Author]

And when did this "contradition" actually "cause" its own Aufhebung? How was it "trascended"?

So quick were you to pounce on dialectics and bold every other word in your paragraphs to be fancy you missed what I said next.


What you have to factor in, is that there is also the question of imperialism and its wars. When imperialist monopoly-capitalists run out of markets and resources, they resort to war to conquer other territories and seize their markets and resources, renewing capitalism's breath just a little longer. We've seen downfalls in capitalism, but the "big, inevitable downfall" hasn't happened yet due to the warlike nature of imperialism.


It in no way explains how this is a contradiction.

Translation: the concept of dialectics completely escapes you when the object of the contradiction is there, clear as day. Like how it escapes some of the other "Marxists" when they write their tomes of bullshit "debunking" dialectics. It's analagous to the "flat-world" theorists who write tomes when the fact that the Earth is round is in front of them, plain as day.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 07:20 pm
What you have to factor in, is that there is also the question of imperialism and its wars. When imperialist monopoly-capitalists run out of markets and resources, they resort to war to conquer other territories and seize their markets and resources, renewing capitalism's breath just a little longer. We've seen downfalls in capitalism, but the "big, inevitable downfall" hasn't happened yet due to the warlike nature of imperialism.

A little longer?


Translation: the concept of dialectics completely escapes you when the object of the contradiction is there, clear as day. Like how it escapes some of the other "Marxists" when they write their tomes of bullshit "debunking" dialectics. It's analagous to the "flat-world" theorists who write tomes when the fact that the Earth is round is in front of them, plain as day.

We didn't ask what is the contradition, but what is the contradiction? Not the "what" but the "how".

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CSS:


Translation: the concept of dialectics completely escapes you when the object of the contradiction is there, clear as day. Like how it escapes some of the other "Marxists" when they write their tomes of bullshit "debunking" dialectics. It's analagous to the "flat-world" theorists who write tomes when the fact that the Earth is round is in front of them, plain as day.

You have clearly never read Hegel critically, for if you had, you would see what a pig in a poke you mystics have bought into.

The 'concept' of dialectics not only escapes me, it escapes you too (and everyone else who has written about it -- they have yet to explain to to anyone in comprehensible terms), for it is based on a series of laughable mistakes Hegel made.

Which helps explain why your brand of mystical Marxism has been such a long term failure.

Now the class war is as plain as day, but you lot have imported a term from mystical theology (which is no more plain to see than is 'god'), which screws the whole theory up.

As for 'debunking' dialectics and as far as evidential and argumentative support are concerned: flat earth theory (poor though it is) is vastly superior to the sub-Aristotelian myth you lot have swallowed. At least the earth looks flat.

Your 'theory' just looks confused.

[Hit The North]

Rosa


You have clearly never read Hegel critically, for if you had, you would see what a pig in a poke you mystics have bought into.

How come you're the only one who drags that hoary old bourgeois philosopher, Hegel, into the discussion?

That's over, man. It's finished. Move on.

[Hit The North]

What's contradictory in modern society?

The class struggle is contradictory.

The interests of the bourgeoisie cannot be realized without a corresponding diminution of the interests of the proletariat.

Or are we going to argue that reformism is a permanent solution to working class problems?

[Hit The North]

Rosa


So, the dictionary you quote merely records the determination of certain Marxists to use this word in this odd way.


So what's your authority and why should we buy into your definition any more than some random nutter on the bus?

[Hit The North]

Rosa:



Now the class war is as plain as day, but you lot have imported a term from mystical theology (which is no more plain to see than is 'god'), which screws the whole theory up.

If it's as plain as day why aren't the majority of workers storming the ramparts of capitalism?

[BobKKKindle$]

If Marx's ideas about the tendency were flawed, how then do we account and provide an analytical framework for the multiple countervailing trends that have emerged over the course of Capitalism's development? In particular, how do we provide an explanation for the long boom that followed the second world war within the Marxist economic model - existing analysis suggests that high rates of military expenditure limited the ability of firms to re-invest their profits (thereby expanding constant capital) hence slowing the tendency to fall and allowing for sustained economic growth and low levels of unemployment for a long period of time. If we reject the concept of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall over time, I do not see how we can put forward an analysis of this historical phenomenon.

As Red-Dali pointed out, if we take the existence of the countervailing trends that Marx and other Marxists have suggested as empirical evidence that the theory is correct, then the case for the tendency becomes significantly stronger.


If it's as plain as day why aren't the majority of workers storming the ramparts of capitalism?

Class struggle does not occur simply in the form of violent revolutionary confrontation, but also as Industrial action, wage negotiations, and things that we may consider quite trivial, such as worker taking breaks in the work place without permission. Class struggle is plan as day insofar as that it is a constant feature of Capitalism and easy to observe.

[RebelDog]

Syndicat

This is just another reason why we shouldn't look to "inevitable crisis" or "collapse due to internal contradictions" as the basis of the replacement of capitalism by a labor-run political economy. Rather, the dynamic of working class self-activity, the level of struggle, solidarity and class conscious is more important, because a labor-managed political economy can only come about through the self-conscious activity of the working class itself.

If the trend toward greater and greater investment by capitalism in constant capital continues, and there is no reason to believe it will not, necessary human labour will decrease, and with it profit. Also without a job a worker cannot consume. With fewer and fewer people producing what society needs, who buys these products?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


If it's as plain as day why aren't the majority of workers storming the ramparts of capitalism?

You need new glasses; this says the class war is plain as day, not the solution.

Why do I have to answer all your difficult questions for you?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


So what's your authority and why should we buy into your definition any more than some random nutter on the bus?

I do not think you are random at all.


How come you're the only one who drags that hoary old bourgeois philosopher, Hegel, into the discussion?

Because you have not read him. :)

[Cult of Reason]

inevitable downfall of capitalism

Does it matter? To me, whether Capitalism collapses in on itself is immaterial as far as we are concerned, as Communism is clearly superior. Why does it matter whether this prediction is correct?

[apathy maybe]

If the downfall of capitalism is inevitable (and communism thus also inevitable), then why should we work towards either goal? Why not just sit back and relax.

Of course, I have no doubt that capitalism will eventually end. Whether its end results in communism, some variation on a previous economic system or something completely different and un thought of as yet, is a matter of waiting.

To say merely that capitalism is inevitably going to collapse, and that (even) either communism will occur or the the common ruin of the two classes is silly. It is fortune telling based on historical events that are not relevant. Yes you could use past events to predict the future in similar situations (thus, we can predict that Vietnam will become increasingly more capitalistic, following the line of China), but we cannot say with any real confidence that simply because feudalism tends to be followed by capitalism, that capitalism will result in communism. There is no evidence of this.

We should of course continue to fight for the destruction of capitalism and the creation of a more equal society.

I'm now going to "appeal to authority" and also hopefully contribute more to the discussion, by quoting Murry Bookchin from his paper, Listen Marxist (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST_ARCHIVES/bookchin/listenm.html).

The idea that a man whose greatest theoretical contributions were made between 1840 and 1880 could "foresee" the entire dialectic of capitalism is, on the face of it, utterly preposterous. If we can still learn much from Marx's insights, we can learn even more from the unavoidable errors of a man who was limited by an era of material scarcity and a technology that barely involved the use of electric power. We can learn how different our own era is from that of all past history, how qualitatively new are the potentialities that confront us, how unique are the issues, analyses and praxis that stand before us if we are to make a revolution and not another historical abortion.


The most serious of these limitations emerges from Marx's attempt to explain the transition from capitalism to socialism, from a class society to a classless society. It is vitally important to emphasize that this explanation was reasoned out almost entirely by analogy with the transition of feudalism to capitalism--that is, from one class society to another class society, from one system of property to another. (Italics removed by C&P, too lazy to add them back.)

Anyway, enjoy. (Or not. I don't care.)

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 07:57 am
Too bad, then, that the "tendency of the rate of profit to fall" has been disproven. in 1961 a Japanese political economist, Nobuo Okisho, published a theorem that disproved Marx's conjecture (which Marx had derived from the labor theory of value).
Okisho's "proof" has been disproven actually: Okiso's Theorem: An Obituary (http://libcom.org/library/okisho-theorem-obituary-marxist-humanism).


To explain his proof, you'd need to understand a "Sraffa model." Pierro Sraffa was a neo-Ricardian political economist who defended the labor theory of value by solving the "transformation problem." He actually didn't do this.

What he actually did was demonstrate Neoclassical economics to be based on circular reasoning.

There is a corollary on the derivation of something that loosely resembles a solution to the transformation problem...but that is true if your mathematically incompetent and without reading comprehension.

It was not the main point of his work, and it was not even part of his work.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 07:23 am
and i don't really think its that great of an argument anymore (considering it justifies the rise of fascism in europe)
Does it? Exactly how?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 28, 2007 11:40 am
Indeed, far from believing in the inevitable downfall of capitalism, Marx added this to the Communist Manifesto:


"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." [Marx and Engels (1848), pp.35-36. Bold emphasis added.]
From that quote, it seems that Marx believed that capitalism would indeed inevitably collapse. What he leaves open is whether this would bring a socialist revolution or the common ruin of the contending classes.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


From that quote, it seems that Marx believed that capitalism would indeed inevitably collapse. What he leaves open is whether this would bring a socialist revolution or the common ruin of the contending classes

Marx held out these two options for sure, hence I added to my first comment the following:


So even before he began to ditch Hegel, he never argued for the inevitable end of Capitalism (i.e., the inevitable creation of socialism).

So, I qualified it along the lines you suggest, but unfortunately not as clearly as you managed!

Of course, Marx could be wrong....

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Citizen [email protected] 28, 2007 11:31 pm
What's contradictory in modern society?

The class struggle is contradictory.

The interests of the bourgeoisie cannot be realized without a corresponding diminution of the interests of the proletariat.
That's not contradiction, though. That's conflict. The contradiction is that the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency. The bourgeoisie needs the proletariat, and the proletariat needs to destroy the bourgeoisie (to avoid "the common ruin of the contending classes").


Or are we going to argue that reformism is a permanent solution to working class problems?

Probably. But those things aren't automatical, linear, metaphysical. They are... let's not say what they are, OK? ;)

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 29, 2007 07:47 pm
Of course, Marx could be wrong....
Marx could be wrong.

But capitalism cannot be eternal. Bobkindles best explained why.

Luís Henrique

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 05:48 pm
It should be noted that Marx discovered a tendency, not some holistic law. It is the tendency of the rate of profits to decrease; which has actually been proven through statistical evidence.


Pierre Jalee, How Capitalism Works:
The rate of profit in 1930 = 100 pl / 200c + 50v = 40%
The rate of profit in 1970 = 300 pl / 850c + 150v = 30%

The rate of surplus value remaining constant, the markedly greater increase in fixed capital over variable capital caused a considerable fall in the rate of profit over a period of time. The uninterrupted progress of science and technology leads to the general phenomena of an increasing organic composition of capital throughout the economy. The tendency shows itself clearly, without any guises whatsoever, displaying that the average rate of profit to fall is the fundamental to capitalist production.

Whatever causes the rate of proft to increase and thus an easing of social tensions is something artifically imposed; it is by the state that this influence is relaxed. It is realized that if the economy was left 'unregulated', that it would collapse out of it's contradictions; class warfare would swallow it whole. I think we have noticed with the unrelentless pursue of raw materials and low-cost regions in undeveloped countries, along with fascism and social democracy, the ruling class has struggled to maintain the vestiges of their profits through this ongoing period of stabilization that has cost the blood of thousands of workers. Capitalism recieved a temporary boon from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of neo-mercantilism in places like Latin America, and the economic aspirations of the Stalinist bureaucracies in countries like China. New markets opened up, cheap labor was available for the taking, profits have never been higher. But the same tendencies are still present. Sooner or later there will be nowhere left to turn. Sooner or later the Chinese workers will no longer put up with being the wage-slaves for the "sweatshop of the world", so cheaper labor will have to be found in North Korea and Africa. But sooner or later North Korea and Africa will collapse, and cheaper labor will have to be found somewhere else. And so on and so forth. At some point you run up against a brick wall, where profitiablity really embarks upon an inevitable decline, and the only choice is to resort to fascism and global conquest to maintain whatever vestiges of the system possible. Therefore, I don't think that this theory is 'incorrect'. The world wars, and the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, has proved Marx correct.
I would like some replies by the Marx critics on my post.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


But capitalism cannot be eternal.

But, why not, if it is exported to other planets, and to others, and then...?

Of course, you could say that the universe will someday come to an end, but that is a theory, which too might be wrong.


The contradiction is that the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency.

Why is this 'contradictory'?

[syndicat]

me: "To explain his proof, you'd need to understand a "Sraffa model." Pierro Sraffa was a neo-Ricardian political economist who defended the labor theory of value by solving the "transformation problem.""

I should have said: Some neo-marxists have suggested that Sraffa models provide a solution to the "transformation problem."


He actually didn't do this.

What he actually did was demonstrate Neoclassical economics to be based on circular reasoning.

There is a corollary on the derivation of something that loosely resembles a solution to the transformation problem...but that is true if your mathematically incompetent and without reading comprehension.

It was not the main point of his work, and it was not even part of his work.

Since Sraffa wasn't a Marxist, I'm sure it wasn't "the main point of his work". Nor have the Sraffa models I've looked at myself had anything to do with it.

On the other hand, I don't think the tendency for the rate of profit to fall has ever been proven either. And focusing on this tends to lead to the wrong sort of political emphasis, that the liberatory transformation of society is generated by internal problems of capitalism itself, and the material deprivation they generate, rather than by the self-activity of the working class. This is too mechanical a concept of a liberatory social transformation.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 06:16 pm
me: "To explain his proof, you'd need to understand a "Sraffa model." Pierro Sraffa was a neo-Ricardian political economist who defended the labor theory of value by solving the "transformation problem.""
He didn't even do this! Sraffa merely criticized the Neoclassical school of economics as being founded on circular logic...and Sraffa was right.

He didn't "defend the labor theory of value" one iota...actually his followers have attacked the labor theory of value! See Ian Steedman's Marx After Sraffa.


I should have said: Some neo-marxists have suggested that Sraffa models provide a solution to the "transformation problem." No, the models that are being suggested (e.g. Shaikh's paper on the Empirical Strength of the LTV (http://homepage.newschool.edu/~AShaikh/labthvalue.pdf)) make quite a few huge departures from the Sraffian model.


Since Sraffa wasn't a Marxist, I'm sure it wasn't "the main point of his work". Nor have the Sraffa models I've looked at myself had anything to do with it. So first you say that Sraffa was a Neo-Ricardian that solved the greatest problem posed to Marxist economics, and now magically he is no longer a marxist.

I wouldn't advise reading Sraffa's only book either unless you have taken a linear algebra course.


On the other hand, I don't think the tendency for the rate of profit to fall has ever been proven either. Actually it has, look at table 15.3 of the linked pdf file, the rate of profits show an empirical tendency to decrease over time.

If you want a mathematical proof, it wouldn't be too hard to derive one from the paper's work.


And focusing on this tends to lead to the wrong sort of political emphasis, that the liberatory transformation of society is generated by internal problems of capitalism itself, and the material deprivation they generate, rather than by the self-activity of the working class. This is too mechanical a concept of a liberatory social transformation. Yes, because when capitalism falls, socialism is guaranteed, right?

Wrong. Humanity will have to fight for it still, they will have to fight for socialism or else degenerate into barbarism.

That's basic Marxist theory, of course...which ties into Marxist economics, logically enough.

[syndicat]

QUOTE (syndicat @ May 29, 2007 06:16 pm)
me: "To explain his proof, you'd need to understand a "Sraffa model." Pierro Sraffa was a neo-Ricardian political economist who defended the labor theory of value by solving the "transformation problem.""

Why are you quoting me again? I already said i didn't formulate what i meant to say properly. Are you just trying to be an asshole?



He didn't even do this! Sraffa merely criticized the Neoclassical school of economics as being founded on circular logic...and Sraffa was right.

Yes, and I'd agree with that. But so what? I already pointed out that it was a Marxist who was familiar with Sraffa who told me that he thought that Sraffa's approach provided a solution to the transformation problem.


He didn't "defend the labor theory of value" one iota...actually his followers have attacked the labor theory of value! See Ian Steedman's Marx After Sraffa.
Yes, I can believe that. The political economist from whom i learned about Sraffa models is an opponent of the labor theory of value. (A different person from the Marxist who thought that Sraffa's method was useful for defending the labor theory of value.) Since I don't agree with the labor theory of value, that's fine with me.


me: "I should have said: Some neo-marxists have suggested that Sraffa models provide a solution to the "transformation problem." "


No, the models that are being suggested (e.g. Shaikh's paper on the Empirical Strength of the LTV) make quite a few huge departures from the Sraffian model.

Based on the sample of two political economists I mentioned above, things seem to me more complex, but you may be right.

me: "Since Sraffa wasn't a Marxist, I'm sure it wasn't "the main point of his work". Nor have the Sraffa models I've looked at myself had anything to do with it."


So first you say that Sraffa was a Neo-Ricardian that solved the greatest problem posed to Marxist economics, and now magically he is no longer a marxist.
I already said i misspoke. I don't see your point...unless you're just trying to be an asshole.

[RebelDog]

syndicat

Since I don't agree with the labor theory of value, that's fine with me.

Syndicat, what is your problem with LTV? I'm interested.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 30, 2007 01:15 am
But, why not, if it is exported to other planets, and to others, and then...?
Because of thermodinamics. In the end, entropy wins.


Of course, you could say that the universe will someday come to an end, but that is a theory, which too might be wrong.

Well, it seems to be the soundest theory. But perhaps the opposite theory, that the universe is going to last (and be able to host life, and intelligent life) forever is true? Are there any facts supporting it?



The contradiction is that the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency.

Why is this 'contradictory'?

Because the bourgeoisie, to exist, needs to allow the existence of those who need to destroy it. And this is a situation that cannot last forever.

Luís Henrique

[syndicat]

Dissenter:
Syndicat, what is your problem with LTV? I'm interested.

The Labor Theory of Value (LTV) is supposed to be a theory of price formation. LTV focuses on one particular structure as the basis of prices, the structural inequality between owners and workers, due to the fact that the capitalists own the means of production and workers do not. But within capitalism, there are other structural inequalities that affect prices.

For example, white supremacy and patriarchy generate division internal to the working class, which reduces the cohesion and solidarity of the working class, making it harder to mount strikes and build unions, and this reduces the bargaining power of workers, thus lowering the wage rate (the price of labor power).

The relative monopoly on means of production by the capitalists is a structural inequality in their relationship with workers. But capitalists make use of other structural inequalities to profit from the purchase of all inputs, not just labor. For example, Wal-mart and three other retail giants (including K-mart and Penney's) have 60% of the market for garments in the USA. They are able to use this massive market power to issue a "take it or leave it" price to garment contractors. This explains things like the fact that in California garment workers make on average less than the legal wage. That's because the market power of Wal-mart etc. force the garment contractors to engage in illegal practices like cheating workers out of pay.

Similarly, the core industrialized economies of world capialism -- the heavily developed countries in Europe, North America, Japan -- can use their concentration of capital as an advantage in their trade and lending relationships to the peripheral or "third world" countries. The effect of this power imbalance is to enable the capitalists in the core countries to capture most of the gains from investment in the "third world" countries.

If you have a mass of impoverished farmers or other producers of basic commodities in the "third world" facing giant trading combines like Cargill, this enables the big combines to suck down the lion's share of the profit generated in production in the "third world". When capital is concentrated in the core countries and scarce in the "third world", then the lenders in the core countries can exact huge profits via high interest rates, and we have things like the "third world" debt crisis.

The effect of this is to under-develop "third world" countries by slowing their rate of economic growth. It's true of course that state institutions are needed to enforce these unequal economic relationships, but that is true internal to core capitalist countries as well. The state is always needed to sustain capitalism as a system.

But even if we put aside the effects on prices of structural inequalities other than the labor/capital relationship, there is still the "transformation problem." To understand this, we need to look at Marx's method in Capital.

Marx starts out in Vol. 1 of Capital introducing the LTV in the context of a model that Marx calls "simple commodity production". This is an economy of self-employed artisans and farmers, without wage-labor. Marx can show fairly easily that prices will correspond to the time it takes to produce commodities in such an economy, because if an artisan has to work N hours to make commodity X but N+M hours to make commodity Y, and X and Y exchange at the same price, the artisan will not make Y but X since he can get the same revenue in fewer hours. So commodities will not be produced if their prices don't correspond to labor hours.

But the situation changes in captalism, where the capitalists are paying for labor-power by hiring wage-workers. In this case they will be relentlessly searching for ways to enhance productivity -- revenue per worker hour. This leads to investment in labor-saving techniques. As the ratio of constant capital to wages increases, this is an increase in the "organic compostion of capital" (the mix of C and V) in a given industry. This then leads to the possibility that industries will vary in the "organic composition of capital." And in fact we find that the proportion of labor costs as a total of costs does vary greatly between industries. Industries like petroleum, public utilities, and industrial agriculture have a relatively high "organic composition of capital" compared to industries like retail trade, motor freight, and garment manufacture, which have a lower "organic composition of capital."

But as Marx acknowledges in Vol. 3 of Capital, if the industries in a capitalist economy vary in their "organic composition of capital", prices of commodities will not correspond to "embodied labor time ratios". But Marx also acknowledges that competition in a capitalist economy will tend to equalize the profit rate.

There seem to be two ways around this problem. One way, which Marx suggests, is that there is a capital flow from industries with low "organic composition of capital" to industries with high organic composition, possibly through the financial sector in some way, to equalize the profit rate. The problem with this supposition is that there is no empirical evidence to support this.

The other solution is to suppose that relative prices of commodities are formed through a mark-up by capitalists over costs of production, and this accounts for the tendency to an equal profit rate. But if so, then LTV is simply not needed as a way to understand prices.

Another problem with LTV is the way the value of V (the wage rate) is determined. LTV says that V is supposed to be equal to the labor time to produce the commodities that workers consume. but what determines the level of consumption? sometimes Marxists have suggested this will be driven down to "subsistence." This is sometimes called the "iron law of wages." For example, in his famous series of articles on the housing question, Engels argues that any effort to increase housing affordability will simply lead to a lower wage rate, and that there is thus no solution to the persistent working class housing crisis within capitalism. Engels' argument assumes the "iron law of wages."

in reality the wage rate is determined by, among other things, the class struggle. The massive upheavals in the industrialized countries between World War I and World War II led to huge concessions by the capitalist elite, in the form of widespread labor contracts, growing real wages, subsidies that enabled a significant part of the working class to become homeowners, the creation of the national health and other welfare programs in Europe and the "private welfare states" negotiated by the more powerful unions in the USA. Various expansions of the "social wage" --worker comp, health care systems, subsidized public transit, etc.

the Anwar Shaikh piece cited by ComradeRed points out that there was a decline in the profit rate between 1947 and 1972. Given the increasing levels of consumption by the working class in that era, why can't this account for the decline in the profit rate without invoking the LTV?

[ComradeRed]

With your whole social inequality spiel, you appear to be mixing up superstructure and base.


But even if we put aside the effects on prices of structural inequalities other than the labor/capital relationship, there is still the "transformation problem." Contrary to the wishes of the bourgeois economists, there is no "transformation problem".

There are, it seems, "two Marxes" when reading Das Kapital...particularly when comparing volume 1 to volume 3. Price suddenly becomes something else entirely. Rather than price being the expression of value through the money commodity, it is now a quantity that is the result of some "transformation" of value.

If you take volume 3 over volume 1, there is a transformation problem; but there is no reason to prefer 3 to 1. Volume 1 is pretty much self contained...it seems to deal with most important issues quite well.

The Marx of volume 1 also appears to be empirically supported quite well, as Shaikh has so kindly demonstrated. The Marx of volume 3 has some mathematical difficulties, which would hint that the notes Engels frantically "glued" together was not quite correct.


Marx starts out in Vol. 1 of Capital introducing the LTV in the context of a model that Marx calls "simple commodity production". This is an economy of self-employed artisans and farmers, without wage-labor. Marx can show fairly easily that prices will correspond to the time it takes to produce commodities in such an economy, because if an artisan has to work N hours to make commodity X but N+M hours to make commodity Y, and X and Y exchange at the same price, the artisan will not make Y but X since he can get the same revenue in fewer hours. So commodities will not be produced if their prices don't correspond to labor hours. Could you be so kind as to provide a chapter or a quote or a reference from volume 1?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


Because of thermodinamics. In the end, entropy wins.

Well, again, this is based on a theory, and since most scientific theories have been discarded, it too could be in error.


Well, it seems to be the soundest theory. But perhaps the opposite theory, that the universe is going to last (and be able to host life, and intelligent life) forever is true? Are there any facts supporting it?

As many as, or perhaps more than do not.


Because the bourgeoisie, to exist, needs to allow the existence of those who need to destroy it. And this is a situation that cannot last forever.

Once more, why is that a 'contradiction'?

[Lark]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 07:23 am
up until recently, i used the dialectics approach to proving the inevitable downfall of capitalism. then i started to actually look into dialectics, and i don't really think its that great of an argument anymore (considering it justifies the rise of fascism in europe)

is there another argument that proves the inevitable downfall of capitalism?

(note: this topic may have been touched on before, but i couldn't find anything by using the search feature)
I dont think there is such a thing.

The capitalist economy has internal contradictions which threaten its very survival, diminishing rate of returns on investment, diminishing rate of profits, bottle necks in the economy, boom and bust in the business cycle, monopoly replacing competition altogether or the simple logic, which escaped even Marx, that you cant have infinite growth within finite resources (sustainability ecological argument), a lot of these contradictions were already apparent to the classical economists like Ricardo, Smith and Mill, that's why poets called economics "the dismal science" because it seemed to be saying that we were all doomed, everything was like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic (I love that metaphor).

Marx's economic points were pretty much saying that economics had stopped being a science and started being an ideology to serve the ruling interest groups, sort of like Chomsky says about the media in Manufacturing Conscent.

Besides criticising the bias in economics Marx was ambivalent about what would happen should capitalism encounter crisis and collapse in his day, on the one hand he said that the political parties and insurgents were all crystal ball gazing or utopian and on the other he spent his last years debating the Russian Mir and reading anthropological studies of what he'd at one time called primitive communism and thought inferior to capitalism in increasing yields from production.

All of which left the door open for Lenin, whose economic ideas had more to do with Prussian war economy, central planning with appealled to his administrator heart, than anything in Marx's writings per se.

Engels was different again, I've got a collected works which is out of print now which has Engels criticising the increases in bureaucracy and apparatniks of his day, he attacks salaried officials in France and the growth of government in the US, an introduction to the latest penquin edition of the Communist Manifesto suggests that Engels was pretty close to Owen's ideas for socialist industrial townships. History could have been so different and I think its a shame.

Marx and Engels could have possibly imagined that the class compromises that have been made would have been made or that Keynesianism would demonstrate how surpluses and gluts in the economy could be worked out by either welfare or military spending.

[syndicat]

me: "Marx starts out in Vol. 1 of Capital introducing the LTV in the context of a model that Marx calls "simple commodity production". This is an economy of self-employed artisans and farmers, without wage-labor. Marx can show fairly easily that prices will correspond to the time it takes to produce commodities in such an economy, because if an artisan has to work N hours to make commodity X but N+M hours to make commodity Y, and X and Y exchange at the same price, the artisan will not make Y but X since he can get the same revenue in fewer hours. So commodities will not be produced if their prices don't correspond to labor hours."


Could you be so kind as to provide a chapter or a quote or a reference from volume 1?

Consider the discussion of the weaver who brings his products to market, gets money, and then buys a variety of articles of consumption, in Chap III sect 2. Clearly he is talking about simple commodity production, not an economy where the wage-labor/capital relation has been introduced into the equation.

This is where Marx introduces the formula that is characteristic of simple commodity production:

C -- M -- C'

C here are the commodities produced by the self-employed artisan, M the money received for sale, and C' the commodities the artisan then buys. on p. 149, for example, he refers to this as "the simple circulation of commodites".

This is different than the formula for capitalist production:

M -- C -- M'

Strictly speaking, this should be:

M -- C -- C' -- M'

where M is the money-capital advanced by the capitalist, C is the commodities acquired by the capitalist for the process of production (C=c + v), C' is the total commodities produced, and M' is the money revenue from sale.

[syndicat]

Comrade Red:
With your whole social inequality spiel, you appear to be mixing up superstructure and base.

This comment begs the question. What is "base" and what is "superstructure" and why accept this distinction?

The pattern of power relations governing social production presumably makes up the "material base". This includes the way human reproduction is organized. As Marx points out, it is not only commodities that are produced in social production, but also the human characteristics of the people involved are shaped by it, in ways that tends to explain why the system continues to be sustained. This follows from Marx's idea that humans are "creatures of practice." The labor theory of value tends to lead people to overlook this.

The family system is part of the system of human social reproduction and tends to generate the gendered division of labor, which advantages males and disadvantages females. This is part of the "material base" of society. Human reproduction is just as necessary to human survival as social production.

The patterns of advantage and disadvantage by race, color, nationality is also a power relationship within social production. Capitalism tends to sustain both the gender and race structures because they are advantageous to its continued survival and to lessening the bargaining power of the working class, but these systems are not simply creatures of the class system or the labor/capital relationship. To say that they are is reductionist.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 30, 2007 06:02 pm
Once more, why is that a 'contradiction'?
It "isn't" a contradiction. "Contradiction" is the name we give to those situations, in which something, in order to ensure its existence, has to foster forces that will result in its destruction.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


It "isn't" a contradiction. "Contradiction" is the name we give to those situations, in which something, in order to ensure its existence, has to foster forces that will result in its destruction.

Why give them this name then? Why not: 'tautology'? Or 'contrary'? Or 'sub-contrary'? Or even 'coffee grinder'?

If you are just going to make stuff up, why not do it in style?

[Of course, we all know why these are called 'contradictions'; it is because of the loose use of this word, borrowed from Hegel -- who hit on this word because he misunderstood the logic of identity.]

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by syndicat+May 30, 2007 11:22 am--> (syndicat @ May 30, 2007 11:22 am)Consider the discussion of the weaver who brings his products to market, gets money, and then buys a variety of articles of consumption, in Chap III sect 2. Clearly he is talking about simple commodity production, not an economy where the wage-labor/capital relation has been introduced into the equation.

This is where Marx introduces the formula that is characteristic of simple commodity production:

C -- M -- C'

C here are the commodities produced by the self-employed artisan, M the money received for sale, and C' the commodities the artisan then buys. on p. 149, for example, he refers to this as "the simple circulation of commodites".[/b]
The term "simple commodity production" was coined by Engels in his afterwards to volume 3 of Das Kapital.

There was actually an entire spiel about it on Marx Myths (http://marxmyths.org/chris-arthur/article2.htm) which does more justice to the term than I would like to do here, e.g. "The only occurrence of the term ‘simple commodity production’ in the whole three volumes of Capital occurs in Volume III, but this is in a passage given to us subsequent to Engels’s editorial work, as he himself warns us in a note."

Don't mean to be rude, but may I suggest a more careful study of the first volume.


This comment begs the question. What is "base" and what is "superstructure" and why accept this distinction? What is "base" and "superstructure"? Well, Marx sums it up quite well:
Marx
In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter Into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. --emphasis added

Preface to A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm) by Karl Marx (1859).

Why should we accept this model? Well, it appears to accurately describe social phenomena.

The family system is part of the system of human social reproduction and tends to generate the gendered division of labor, which advantages males and disadvantages females. This is part of the "material base" of society. Human reproduction is just as necessary to human survival as social production. But the base is defined as "the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter Into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production" (or more specifically the totality of those relations).

You seem to be expanding the concept to include more than it's defined to include.

The base isn't "what's necessary to human survival as social production", it's something else entirely.

Perhaps you might like to ponder "What if we redefine the base..." but it's sophistry. The given quote is what Marx meant by the term, according to Marx himself.

So, I think I'll go with Marx on Marxist terminology ;)

[syndicat]

Perhaps you might like to ponder "What if we redefine the base..." but it's sophistry. The given quote is what Marx meant by the term, according to Marx himself.

no. i don't personally use the "base"/"superstructure" metaphor. one can be a fundamentalist about marxism, if one likes, but i don't see any reason to go along with that outlook. it doesn't seem to me to provide an adquate account of social reality.

as to whether Marx ever used the phrase "simple commodity production" i couldn't care less. i think that Marx was making a distinction between the situation where self-employed commodity producers are exchanging commodities they produce versus the way this works under capitalism, in the passage i referred to, and in the different formulas I referred to. The distinction itself is clear enough, and useful, irrespective of what its textual basis in Marx is. I think the labor theory of value is plausible in the "simple commodity production" model for the reason I gave. For actually existing capitalism I think it has the defects I described.

there are useful ideas in Marx but i see no reason to treat his writings as Holy Writ.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 01:00 pm
there are useful ideas in Marx but i see no reason to treat his writings as Holy Writ.
No one here is treating it as "holy writ", I'm only trying to point out that what you are saying Marx says wasn't actually said by Marx.

It's just academic honesty ;)

[syndicat]

No one here is treating it as "holy writ", I'm only trying to point out that what you are saying Marx says wasn't actually said by Marx.

It's just academic honesty

You can call it that. But that sort of pre-occupation tends to get people bogged down, thinking that what Marx said is important just because he said it, in my observation. It encourages dogmatism or academicism.

i was more interested in the idea than a particular form of words.

My point was there is a distinction that can be made between an abstract model that some marxists call "simple commodity production" and actual capitalism. And the passage i cited seems to imply such a distinction, so it is understandable that Marxists have thought this way.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 30, 2007 08:33 pm
Why give them this name then? Why not: 'tautology'? Or 'contrary'? Or 'sub-contrary'? Or even 'coffee grinder'?

If you are just going to make stuff up, why not do it in style?
Because we use these words to signify other, different concepts.

Call it "Marie Louise", if you wish. But realise those things exist.


[Of course, we all know why these are called 'contradictions'; it is because of the loose use of this word, borrowed from Hegel -- who hit on this word because he misunderstood the logic of identity.]

Probably. Words are not linked to their meanings by any logical necessity, they are purely conventional. So the history of a word has very little bearing on its meaning.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


Because we use these words to signify other, different concepts.

You miss the point; unless you can say why this word fits, we could just as well use these other words (after all we use 'contradiction' in ordinary language to mean 'to gainsay', and in logic to mean the pair-wise concatenation of a proposition with its negation).

So your reply is not to the point since we already use 'contradiction'' elsewhere too.

So, once more, why are these things 'contradictions'?


But realise those things exist

I agree, but using this word drags in a whole load of Hegelian baggage (see below).


Words are not linked to their meanings by any logical necessity, they are purely conventional. So the history of a word has very little bearing on its meaning.

But this word does, since it was historically and conventionally derived from the crass errors Hegel committed.

And it is used by dialecticians to show that change is inherent in nature and society, and it is change of a certain kind -- that which is produced by 'internal contradictions' (and this is directly from Hegel), and that which creates its own opposite, as it is in dialectical tension with that opposite.

But, that account of change is fraught with problems:

In fact, as is easy to confirm, dialecticians have been hopelessly unclear as to whether things change because of (1) their internal contradictions (and/or opposites), or (2) whether they change into these opposites, or, indeed, (3) whether they create such opposites when they change.

Of course, if the third option were the case, the alleged opposites could not cause change, since they would be produced by it, not the other way round. And they could scarcely be 'internal opposites' if they were produced by change.

If the second alternative were correct, then we would see things like males naturally turning into females, the capitalist class into the working class, electrons into protons, left hands into right hands, and vice versa, and a host of other oddities.

And as far as the first option is concerned, it is worth making the following points:

[A] If objects/processes change because of already existing internal opposites, and they change into these opposites, too, then they cannot in fact change, since those opposites must already exist.

So, if object/process A is already composed of a dialectical union of A and not-A, and it 'changes' into not-A, where is the change? All that seems to happen is that A disappears. [And do not ask where it disappears to!] A does not change into not-A, it is just replaced by it.

At the very least, this account of change leaves it entirely mysterious how not-A itself came about. It seems to have popped into existence from nowhere.

[It cannot have come from A, since A can only change because of the operation of not-A, which does not exist yet! And pushing the process into the past will merely reduplicate the above problems.]

[B] Exactly how an (internal) opposite is capable of making anything change is somewhat unclear, too. Given the above, not-A does not actually alter A, it merely replaces it!

The same can be said for the connection between capitalism and communism, and the connection between the forces and relations of production (neither of the latter two changes into the other):

Let us assume that communism does not actually exist in the here and now. But if capitalism is to change into it, communism must already exist in the here and now for capitalism to change into it, and for that change to be produced by it.

But, if that opposite (communism) already exists it cannot have come from capitalism (its opposite) since capitalism can only change because of its own opposite (namely – communism!) -- unless communism exists before it existed!

[The same comments apply to ‘potential communism’.]

So, this opposite must have popped into existence from nowhere, or it must always have been there.

So, capitalism cannot change into communism as we had been led to believe, since the latter must already exist to cause that very change.

But, then what created this already existent (even potential) communism?

That could only have been capitalism.

But capitalism can only change because of an already existent opposite, which means, once more that communism must exist before it exists!

You see the problems these 'concepts' create -- all derived from loopy Hegelian 'logic'.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 30, 2007 11:13 pm
You miss the point; unless you can say why this word fits, we could just as well use these other words (after all we use 'contradiction' in ordinary language to mean 'to gainsay', and in logic to mean the pair-wise concatenation of a proposition with its negation).

So your reply is not to the point since we already use 'contradiction'' elsewhere too.
And we use the word "left" to signify a spacial orientation towards the human body (my left arm), and, as well, to signify a political orientation towards equality. And the word, besides, has its origin in parlamentary strife, yet no one would miss the meaning of the expression "extra-parlamentary left".

Words are not bound to their meanings by anything else but convention.


So, once more, why are these things 'contradictions'?

This is the name we give to them. Historically, it comes from Hegel. So?


I agree, but using this word drags in a whole load of Hegelian baggage (see below).

No more than the word "left" brings a parlamentary baggage.


And it is used by dialecticians to show that change is inherent in nature and society, and it is change of a certain kind -- that which is produced by 'internal contradictions' (and this is directly from Hegel), and that which creates its own opposite, as it is in dialectical tension with that opposite.

I don't think this is an accurate description of what I mean when I use the word "contradiction".


dialecticians have been hopelessly unclear as to whether things change because of (1) their internal contradictions (and/or opposites),

This is confuse. Things change because of their internal contradictions, but contradictions are not opposites.


or (2) whether they change into these opposites,

Well, this is obviously false. Things do not change into their opposites. Under circumstances, that imply external constraints, things can assume the appearance of their "opposites", like, for instance, technology, which frees humans from the toil for subsistence, under capitalism appears as something that bounds people even more to the obligation to work.


or, indeed, (3) whether they create such opposites when they change.

This seems also false. Change usually creates new contradictions, but things do not create their opposites when they change.


And as far as the first option is concerned, it is worth making the following points:

[A] If objects/processes change because of already existing internal opposites, and they change into these opposites, too, then they cannot in fact change, since those opposites must already exist.


Things do not change because of internal opposites, but of internal contradictions, ie, situations in which their continued existence depends on processes that will eventually bring their destruction/transformation.


So, if object/process A is already composed of a dialectical union of A and not-A, and it 'changes' into not-A, where is the change? All that seems to happen is that A disappears. [And do not ask where it disappears to!] A does not change into not-A, it is just replaced by it.

At the very least, this account of change leaves it entirely mysterious how not-A itself came about. It seems to have popped into existence from nowhere.

[It cannot have come from A, since A can only change because of the operation of not-A, which does not exist yet! And pushing the process into the past will merely reduplicate the above problems.]

[B] Exactly how an (internal) opposite is capable of making anything change is somewhat unclear, too. Given the above, not-A does not actually alter A, it merely replaces it!

Indeed, all of this seems utterly absurd, and I don't believe in any of it. This is not what I call contradiction.


Let us assume that communism does not actually exist in the here and now. But if capitalism is to change into it, communism must already exist in the here and now for capitalism to change into it, and for that change to be produced by it.

No, that's wrong. There is no communism inside capitalism. There are tendencies within capitalism (the lowering of the profit rate, the increasing socialisation of production, the disappearance of patriarchal families) that are destructive to capitalism, and yet capitalism cannot exist without reinforcing such tendencies. Not one of these tendencies is, in any sence, communism.


But, if that opposite (communism) already exists it cannot have come from capitalism (its opposite) since capitalism can only change because of its own opposite (namely – communism!) -- unless communism exists before it existed!

[The same comments apply to ‘potential communism’.]

So, this opposite must have popped into existence from nowhere, or it must always have been there.

So, capitalism cannot change into communism as we had been led to believe, since the latter must already exist to cause that very change.

That could only have been capitalism.

But capitalism can only change because of an already existent opposite, which means, once more that communism must exist before it exists!

You see the problems these 'concepts' create -- all derived from loopy Hegelian 'logic'.

Yes, if you are confronting this kind of confuse reasoning, you are right. But this has nothing to do with the concept of contradiction as I understand it.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


And we use the word "left" to signify a spacial orientation towards the human body (my left arm), and, as well, to signify a political orientation towards equality. And the word, besides, has its origin in parlamentary strife, yet no one would miss the meaning of the expression "extra-parlamentary left".

Ah, you mean the word 'contradiction' is a dead metaphor?

But, as my last post showed, it isn't dead; the old Hegelian metaphysics is used to try to explain change (via the 'unity of opposites', and the 'negation of the negation').

In addition, it is used by theorists to account for things like the alleged contradictory nature of the former USSR (where this word is used as a logical contradiction, or supposed one), and to excuse and explain contradictory political strategies (such as the increased centralisation in the USSR and China and its alleged contradiction to the 'withering away of the state') and events in the natural world (such as the alleged contradictory nature of light, of life, and of motion). [Details in several Essays at my site.]

So, this word, which appears in Hegel as a sort of half logical contradiction, half ontological oppositional concept, reappears in dialectics in the same way.

But, the original motivation for the use of this word (in Hegel) depended only on the serious logical blunders Hegel made.

So, its use in dialectics in this way is entirely bogus.

In that case, it is nothing like 'left', which plays no such explanatory/logical/ontological role.


Words are not bound to their meanings by anything else but convention.

You said that before, and I agreed with you; but here the conventions are bogus too.


This is the name we give to them. Historically, it comes from Hegel. So?

See above.


No more than the word "left" brings a parliamentary baggage.

No so, as my last post showed, and as the above underlines.


I don't think this is an accurate description of what I mean when I use the word "contradiction".

That just means that 1) you have no clear sense of what it means when you use it, or 2) you have set up your own, one man convention, of no interest to the movement at large.


Things change because of their internal contradictions, but contradictions are not opposites.

Well, you still haven't said what they are (and for the dialecticans I quote at my site, they are opposites -- and I quote dozens of passages (from the classics and from modern DM-clones)).

And it does not explain where those internal contadictions come from -- I illustrtated the dificulties that will get you into in my last post.


Well, this is obviously false. Things do not change into their opposites. Under circumstances, that imply external constraints, things can assume the appearance of their "opposites", like, for instance, technology, which frees humans from the toil for subsistence, under capitalism appears as something that bounds people even more to the obligation to work.

You clearly have not read the DM-classics very well.

According to Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and a score of other theorists they do.

Do you want chapter and verse on this? [You can find the relevant quotations at my site -- or I can post them here, if you do not want to look.]


This seems also false. Change usually creates new contradictions, but things do not create their opposites when they change.

Not so, there are many places where the above luminaries say this.

Now, you might want to revise this theory to rule such things out, fine.

But, the theory you end up with will not be the theory that, say, Lenin and Engels accepted.

Or anyone else, as far as I can see.

We might want to call it 'Luis H Thought', but I suspet it might not catch on, since you have yet to explain where the classics are wrong.

And good luck, but be prepared for the sort of abuse I get, if you try to revise Marxism (shock, horror!).


Indeed, all of this seems utterly absurd, and I don't believe in any of it. This is not what I call contradiction.

This just means that you do not like the conclusions I have drawn from the classical theory --, since, as I supect, you have not really given this loopy theory of yours much thought.

And we are still waiting to hear what you think these mysterious 'contradictions' of yours really are.


There is no communism inside capitalism. There are tendencies within capitalism (the lowering of the profit rate, the increasing socialisation of production, the disappearance of patriarchal families) that are destructive to capitalism, and yet capitalism cannot exist without reinforcing such tendencies. Not one of these tendencies is, in any sence, communism.

Well, this was an attempt to spell out in more concrete terms the consequences of classical DM.

Now that we know you hold a one-man, idiosyncratic version of this 'theory' (the details of which we still await), then naturally this does not apply to your version.

As soon as you tell us what it is, I will blow several large holes in it.

Deal?

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 01, 2007 12:08 pm
That just means that 1) you have no clear sense of what it means when you use it, or 2) you have set up your own, one man convention, of no interest to the movement at large.
And isn't that what Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc, did?


Well, you still haven't said what they are (and for the dialecticans I quote at my site, they are opposites -- and I quote dozens of passages (from the classics and from modern DM-clones)).

Oh, I have. Reread my previous posts and you will see that.


And it does not explain where those internal contadictions come from -- I illustrtated the dificulties that will get you into in my last post.

In fact, it does not explain where those internal contradictions come from. But this question - where internal contradictions come from - is just a phylosophical question, not really interesting.


You clearly have not read the DM-classics very well.

According to Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and a score of other theorists they do.

I will concede you this point - I haven't read Hegel at all. The work by Engels on dialectics seems to me to be a bunch of mistakes about natural science, tied by a person who was not a natural scientist, something only excusable by the very limited knowledge about nature that characterised the XIX century. I have only read Plekhanov marginally, and would have a hard time even recalling what exactly does he write about. And though I did read a lot of Lenin (perhaps too much), I probably missed his phylosophical and methodological passages. I was interested in his political and economical analysis.

I did read that other mystical mystifier, Karl Marx, though. As far as method goes, I like the method he uses in The Capital, which doesn't seem to me that much mystical, and I don't remember him saying that things change into their opposites at all, or misquoting Heraclitus by cutting off half of his sentences (which is a trade mark of dialectic phylostrofical charlatanism).

So I would say that my "own, one man convention, of no interest to the movement at large" is derived from the reading of Marx, not of the phylosophers and theorists you give as benchmarks. And it concerns methodological issues, not phylosophical ones.


But, the theory you end up with will not be the theory that, say, Lenin and Engels accepted.

Wich seems to me a good thing; to you not?


We might want to call it 'Luis H Thought', but I suspet it might not catch on, since you have yet to explain where the classics are wrong.

Haven't you done that already? :D

Seriously, I don't think that I have to discuss "the classics" if by "the classics" you mean Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov and Lenin. I am not basing my reasoning in them that I know.


And good luck, but be prepared for the sort of abuse I get, if you try to revise Marxism (shock, horror!).

Oh, I am not interested in putting up a whole new methodological theory. I am happy to apply my limited methodological knowledge to the practical issues I must face.

If Marxism is a living school of thought, it comes that it necessarily "revises" itself constantly. But it does not do that by assuming that quoting Heraclitus by the half gives you any method to do that.

And if I was unable to take some degree of abuse, I wouldn't post here, where abuse abounds (including that dished by you, btw. Though, to be fair, this, up to now, has been a different discussion; the first one that I have with you in which you seem to be up to honestly explain yours views, without namecalling, ridiculing the interlocutors, and playing academic power games. Congratulations! :D)


This just means that you do not like the conclusions I have drawn from the classical theory --, since, as I supect, you have not really given this loopy theory of yours much thought.

Exactly what do you mean by "this loopy theory of yours"?


And we are still waiting to hear what you think these mysterious 'contradictions' of yours really are.

Here:

"Contradiction" is the name we give to those situations, in which something, in order to ensure its existence, has to foster forces that will result in its destruction.

Sorry that that isn't as mysterious as the subject doubtlessly deserves, but I think it quite explains what I call contradictions.


Well, this was an attempt to spell out in more concrete terms the consequences of classical DM.

Now that we know you hold a one-man, idiosyncratic version of this 'theory' (the details of which we still await), then naturally this does not apply to your version.

Good.


As soon as you tell us what it is, I will blow several large holes in it.

You can start, then. I have already told you what it is.


Deal?

Still too soon to make deals. Once I become a little more certain that you are up to real discussion, instead of just ridiculing others, perhaps. It will take some time, and some more effort from your part, though. I have learned not to trust you on that matter.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH, thanks for that; I will respond in due course.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


And isn't that what Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc, did?

Sure, and it's what I am doing -- except I can justify the moves I make.

This is how you, in contrast, cop out:


In fact, it does not explain where those internal contradictions come from. But this question - where internal contradictions come from - is just a phylosophical question, not really interesting.

I can understand you bottling it here, since you have no explanation where these mysterious beings emerged from, how they do what they do, or how they avoid the sort of problems I outlined earlier -- except you say you have a different understanding of these entities, which account you not unsurprisingly still keep under wraps.

Or do you?


Oh, I have. Reread my previous posts and you will see that.

OK, let's see what you have said:

There was this:


That's conflict. The contradiction is that the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency. The bourgeoisie needs the proletariat, and the proletariat needs to destroy the bourgeoisie (to avoid "the common ruin of the contending classes").

Which merely replaces the target word with another, but does not say why the two are synonymous.

Then this:


Because the bourgeoisie, to exist, needs to allow the existence of those who need to destroy it. And this is a situation that cannot last forever.

Which is more or less the same as the previous quote.

The we had this:


It "isn't" a contradiction. "Contradiction" is the name we give to those situations, in which something, in order to ensure its existence, has to foster forces that will result in its destruction.

Once more, nothing new here.

And then we arrived at the present stage.

Not much of a 'theory', then, is it?

So, no explanation of your use of this word (except you seem to think it synonymous with 'conflict' amd 'functional dependence'), or how it avoids the problems I listed earlier.

Now classical DM-theorists defined these terms exactly as I asserted earlier, thus (exact referneces can be found at my site, if you want them):



"The law of the interpenetration of opposites.... [M]utual penetration of polar opposites and transformation into each other when carried to extremes...." [Engels (1954), pp.17, 62.]

"Dialectics…prevails throughout nature…. [T]he motion through opposites which asserts itself everywhere in nature, and which by the continual conflict of the opposites…determines the life of nature." [Engels (1954), p.211.]


"[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:] [I]nternally contradictory tendencies…in [a thing]…as the sum and unity of opposites…. [This involves] not only the unity of opposites, but the transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other [into its opposite?]….

"In brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence of dialectics….

"The splitting of the whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts…is the essence (one of the 'essentials', one of the principal, if not the principal, characteristic features) of dialectics….

"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing….

"The unity…of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute…." [Lenin (1961), pp.221-22, 357-58.]

"Hegel brilliantly divined the dialectics of things (phenomena, the world, nature) in the dialectics of concepts…. This aphorism should be expressed more popularly, without the word dialectics: approximately as follows: In the alternation, reciprocal dependence of all notions, in the identity of their opposites, in the transitions of one notion into another, in the eternal change, movement of notions, Hegel brilliantly divined precisely this relation of things to nature…. [W]hat constitutes dialectics?…. [M]utual dependence of notions all without exception…. Every notion occurs in a certain relation, in a certain connection with all the others." [Lenin (1961), pp.196-97.]

"Development is the 'struggle' of opposites." (Lenin, Vol. XIII, p. 301.)


"And so every phenomenon, by the action of those same forces which condition its existence, sooner or later, but inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite…." [Plekhanov (1956), p.77.]


"Why is it that '...the human mind should take these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, transforming themselves into one another'? Because that is just how things are in objective reality. The fact is that the unity or identity of opposites in objective things is not dead or rigid, but is living, conditional, mobile, temporary and relative; in given conditions, every contradictory aspect transforms itself into its opposite....

"In speaking of the identity of opposites in given conditions, what we are referring to is real and concrete opposites and the real and concrete transformations of opposites into one another....

"All processes have a beginning and an end, all processes transform themselves into their opposites. The constancy of all processes is relative, but the mutability manifested in the transformation of one process into another is absolute." [Mao (1961b), pp.340-42.]

"The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics....

"As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development....

"The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end....[Ibid, pp.311-18.]


"Everything is opposite. Neither in heaven nor in earth, neither in the world of mind nor nature, is there anywhere an abstract 'either-or' as the understanding maintains. Whatever exists is concrete, with difference and opposition in itself. The finitude of things with then lie in the want of correspondence between their immediate being and what they essentially are. Thus, in inorganic nature, the acid is implicitly at the same time the base: in other words its only being consists in its relation to its other. Hence the acid persists quietly in the contrast: it is always in effort to realize what it potentially is. Contradiction is the very moving principle of the world." [Hegel (1975), p.174. Bold emphases added.]


“Dialectics comes from the Greek dialego, to discourse, to debate. In ancient times dialectics was the art of arriving at the truth by disclosing the contradictions in the argument of an opponent and overcoming these contradictions. There were philosophers in ancient times who believed that the disclosure of contradictions in thought and the clash of opposite opinions was the best method of arriving at the truth. This dialectical method of thought, later extended to the phenomena of nature, developed into the dialectical method of apprehending nature, which regards the phenomena of nature as being in constant movement and undergoing constant change, and the development of nature as the result of the development of the contradictions in nature, as the result of the interaction of opposed forces in nature….

Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena of nature, for they all have their negative and positive sides, a past and a future, something dying away and something developing; and that the struggle between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying away and that which is being born, between that which is disappearing and that which is developing, constitutes the internal content of the process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative changes.

The dialectical method therefore holds that the process of development from the lower to the higher takes place not as a harmonious unfolding of phenomena, but as a disclosure of the contradictions inherent in things and phenomena, as a "struggle" of opposite tendencies which operate on the basis of these contradictions…. [Stalin]
From here:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/...rks/1938/09.htm (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm)

Lesser Dialectical Hermeticists also say the same sort of thing (these are taken from nearly all wings of Marxism):


"The second dialectical law, that of the 'unity, interpenetration or identity of opposites'…asserts the essentially contradictory character of reality -– at the same time asserts that these 'opposites' which are everywhere to be found do not remain in stark, metaphysical opposition, but also exist in unity. This law was known to the early Greeks. It was classically expressed by Hegel over a hundred years ago….

"[F]rom the standpoint of the developing universe as a whole, what is vital is…motion and change which follows from the conflict of the opposite.” [Guest (1963), pp.31, 32.]


"The negative electrical pole…cannot exist without the simultaneous presence of the positive electrical pole…. This 'unity of opposites' is therefore found in the core of all material things and events." [Conze (1944), pp.35-36.]


“Second, and just as unconditionally valid, that all things are at the same time absolutely different and absolutely or unqualifiedly opposed. The law may also be referred to as the law of the polar unity of opposites. This law applies to every single thing, every phenomenon, and to the world as a whole. Viewing thought and its method alone, it can be put this way: The human mind is capable of infinite condensation of things into unities, even the sharpest contradictions and opposites, and, on the other hand, it is capable of infinite differentiation and analysis of things into opposites. The human mind can establish this unlimited unity and unlimited differentiation because this unlimited unity and differentiation is present in reality." [Thalheimer (1936), p.161.


"This dialectical activity is universal. There is no escaping from its unremitting and relentless embrace. 'Dialectics gives expression to a law which is felt in all grades of consciousness and in general experience. Everything that surrounds us may be viewed as an instance of dialectic. We are aware that everything finite, instead of being inflexible and ultimate, is rather changeable and transient; and this is exactly what we mean by the dialectic of the finite, by which the finite, as implicitly other than it is, is forced to surrender its own immediate or natural being, and to turn suddenly into its opposite.' (Encyclopedia, p.120)." [Novack (1971), 94-95; quoting Hegel (1975), p.118, although in a different translation from the one used here.]


"Contradiction is an essential feature of all being. It lies at the heart of matter itself. It is the source of all motion, change, life and development. The dialectical law which expresses this idea is the law of the unity and interpenetration of opposites….

"This universal phenomenon of the unity of opposites is, in reality the motor-force of all motion and development in nature…. Movement which itself involves a contradiction, is only possible as a result of the conflicting tendencies and inner tensions which lie at the heart of all forms of matter." [Woods and Grant (1995), pp.43-47, 65-68.]

Woods and Grant devote a whole section to this idea here:

http://www.marxist.com/science/dialectical...0of%20Opposites (http://www.marxist.com/science/dialecticalmaterialism.html#The%20Unity%20and%20In terpenetration%20of%20Opposites)


"This struggle is not external and accidental…. The struggle is internal and necessary, for it arises and follows from the nature of the process as a whole. The opposite tendencies are not independent the one of the other, but are inseparably connected as parts or aspects of a single whole. And they operate and come into conflict on the basis of the contradiction inherent in the process as a whole….
"Movement and change result from causes inherent in things and processes, from internal contradictions….

"Contradiction is a universal feature of all processes….

"The importance of the [developmental] conception of the negation of the negation does not lie in its supposedly expressing the necessary pattern of all development. All development takes place through the working out of contradictions -– that is a necessary universal law…." [Cornforth (1976), pp.14-15, 46-48, 53, 65-66, 72, 77, 82, 86, 90, 95, 117; quoting Hegel (1975), pp.172 and 160, respectively.]


"The contradiction, however, is the source of all movement and life; only in so far as it contains a contradiction can anything have movement, power, and effect." (Hegel). "In brief", states Lenin, "dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence of dialectics…"

"The world in which we live is a unity of contradictions or a unity of opposites: cold-heat, light-darkness, Capital-Labour, birth-death, riches-poverty, positive-negative, boom-slump, thinking-being, finite-infinite, repulsion-attraction, left-right, above- below, evolution-revolution, chance-necessity, sale-purchase, and so on.

"The fact that two poles of a contradictory antithesis can manage to coexist as a whole is regarded in popular wisdom as a paradox. The paradox is a recognition that two contradictory, or opposite, considerations may both be true. This is a reflection in thought of a unity of opposites in the material world.

"Motion, space and time are nothing else but the mode of existence of matter. Motion, as we have explained is a contradiction, - being in one place and another at the same time. It is a unity of opposites. "Movement means to be in this place and not to be in it; this is the continuity of space and time - and it is this which first makes motion possible." (Hegel)

"To understand something, its essence, it is necessary to seek out these internal contradictions. Under certain circumstances, the universal is the individual, and the individual is the universal. That things turn into their opposites, - cause can become effect and effect can become cause - is because they are merely links in the never-ending chain in the development of matter....

"Lenin explains this self-movement in a note when he says, "Dialectics is the teaching which shows how opposites can be and how they become identical - under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another - why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another." [Rob Sewell]

From here:

http://www.marxist.com/what-is-dialectical-materialism-4.htm

Now these quotes could be multiplied by several orders of magnitude (from the books and articles I have in my possession and/or from internet articles/sites), all of which show that my earlier characterisation of DM was accurate, and that you have a defective understanding of it – or you seek to revise it in this superficial manner.

Now, Genuine Hermeticists say more or less the same sort of thing (and have been for well over 2000 years):


The great Fourth Hermetic Principle-the Principle of Polarity-embodies the truth that all manifested things have "two sides"; "two aspects"; "two poles"; a "pair of opposites," with manifold degrees between the two extremes. The old paradoxes, which have ever perplexed the mind of men, are explained by an understanding of this Principle. Man has always recognized something akin to this Principle, and has endeavored to express it by such sayings, maxims and aphorisms as the following: "Everything is and isn't, at the same time"; "all truths are but half-truths"; "every truth is half-false"; "there are two sides to everything"; "there is a reverse side to every shield," etc., etc. The Hermetic Teachings are to the effect that the difference between things seemingly diametrically opposed to each is merely a matter of degree. It teaches that "the pairs of opposites may be reconciled," and that "thesis and antithesis are identical in nature, but different in degree''; and that the ''universal reconciliation of opposites" is effected by a recognition of this Principle of Polarity. The teachers claim that illustrations of this Principle may be had on every hand, and from an examination into the real nature of anything.

The Kybalion, from here:

http://www.gnostic.org/kybalionhtm/kybalion10.htm


"The Taoists saw all changes in nature as manifestations of the dynamic interplay between the polar opposites yin and yang, and thus they came to believe that any pair of opposites constitutes a polar relationship where each of the two poles is dynamically linked to the other. For the Western mind, this idea of the implicit unity of all opposites is extremely difficult to accept. It seems most paradoxical to us that experiences and values which we had always believed to be contrary should be, after all, aspects of the same thing. In the East, however, it has always been considered as essential for attaining enlightenment to go 'beyond earthly opposites,' and in China the polar relationship of all opposites lies at the very basis of Taoist thought. Thus Chuang Tzu says:

The 'this' is also 'that.' The 'that' is also 'this.'...
That the 'that' and the 'this' cease to be opposites
is the very essence of Tao.
Only this essence, an axis as it were,
is the centre of the circle
responding to the endless changes." [Fritjof Capra.]


"Buddhist enlightenment consists simply in knowing the secret of the unity of opposites -- the unity of the inner and outer worlds....

"The principle is that all dualities and opposites are not disjoined but polar; they do not encounter and confront one another from afar; they exfoliate from a common centre. Ordinary thinking conceals polarity and relativity because it employs terms, the terminals or ends, the poles, neglecting what lies between them. The difference of front and back, to be and not to be, hides their unity and mutuality." [Alan Watts.]

"The three major gods of Hinduism are Brahma (the creator; paradoxically of minor importance in actual practice -- possibly, since his work is completed), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer), each with a wife, to symbolize the androgyny of ultimate reality. By theologians and educated Hindus in general, these gods and their innumerable manifestations are viewed as pointing toward one transcendent reality beyond existence and non-existence, the impersonal world-spirit Brahman, the absolute unity of all opposites....

"Hindus envision the cosmic process as the growth of one mighty organism, the self-actualization of divinity which contains within itself all opposites."

Exact references to the above (and many more of the same sort of quotes), can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20...Oppose%20DM.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm)

Scroll down to section 8 'Totality' or use the quick link.

I will comment on the other things you said presently

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


I will concede you this point - I haven't read Hegel at all. The work by Engels on dialectics seems to me to be a bunch of mistakes about natural science, tied by a person who was not a natural scientist, something only excusable by the very limited knowledge about nature that characterised the XIX century. I have only read Plekhanov marginally, and would have a hard time even recalling what exactly does he write about. And though I did read a lot of Lenin (perhaps too much), I probably missed his phylosophical and methodological passages. I was interested in his political and economical analysis.

I did read that other mystical mystifier, Karl Marx, though. As far as method goes, I like the method he uses in The Capital, which doesn't seem to me that much mystical, and I don't remember him saying that things change into their opposites at all, or misquoting Heraclitus by cutting off half of his sentences (which is a trade mark of dialectic phylostrofical charlatanism).

So I would say that my "own, one man convention, of no interest to the movement at large" is derived from the reading of Marx, not of the phylosophers and theorists you give as benchmarks. And it concerns methodological issues, not phylosophical ones.

No one would deny you the right to make your own mind up on this and on other things (not that you need me to tell you that), but it seems to me that you have this one idea (which is just a convention, hence it cannot relate to 'objective reality' just to your way of describing it) which seems superficial in the extreme.

I agree with you about Marx, however, that is why I did not include him in that earlier list of Hermetic bumblers.


Oh, I am not interested in putting up a whole new methodological theory. I am happy to apply my limited methodological knowledge to the practical issues I must face.

If Marxism is a living school of thought, it comes that it necessarily "revises" itself constantly. But it does not do that by assuming that quoting Heraclitus by the half gives you any method to do that.

Your own one man class struggle, is that it?


Exactly what do you mean by "this loopy theory of yours"?

I wrote that when I imagined you accepted some form of the 'orthodox' theory.

I am happy to withdraw it, and apologise --, and replace it with 'threadbare theory'.


You can start, then. I have already told you what it is.

I am sorry to have to tell you that if I put a hole in it even the size of a pin prick, that hole will itself be far bigger than your 'theory' -- so small is it.

But here goes:


"Contradiction" is the name we give to those situations, in which something, in order to ensure its existence, has to foster forces that will result in its destruction.

So, these 'forces' are not contradictions after all, but the whole situation itself is.

In that case what active role do these useless 'contradictions' play?

And what guarantees that anything will emerge at the end?

Marxist Hermeticists appeal to the 'negation of the negation' in order to counter that objection. But what can you appeal to?

And are these 'forces' internal, or external?

And, how can you possibly distinguish these two without blowing apart your idea of a 'situation' (if. that is, you havve one)?

See, these initial objections are bigger than your 'theory'.


Once I become a little more certain that you are up to real discussion, instead of just ridiculing others, perhaps. It will take some time, and some more effort from your part, though. I have learned not to trust you on that matter.

But, why complain?

After all, isn't this a "situation" in which in order for your threadbare theory to "exist" it has to "foster forces that will result in its destruction"?

So, even if your theory were correct, you should welcome my lethal attacks upon it, for in killing your theory, I simply confirm it! :P

LH Thought:

RIP.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+June 03, 2007 10:34 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ June 03, 2007 10:34 am) So, no explanation of your use of this word (except you seem to think it synonymous with 'conflict' amd 'functional dependence'), or how it avoids the problems I listed earlier.If you had read my previous post with a little more attention, you would see that I by no means hold "contradiction" as a synonim for conflict. In fact, when I wrote:

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] as quoted by Rosa
That's conflict. The contradiction is that the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency. The bourgeoisie needs the proletariat, and the proletariat needs to destroy the bourgeoisie (to avoid "the common ruin of the contending classes").I was exactly telling Citizen Zero that class struggle is not a contradiction but conflict.
That becomes clearer if you don't cripple my text when you quote it:

Luís Henrique himself
That's not contradiction, though. That's conflict. The contradiction is that the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency. The bourgeoisie needs the proletariat, and the proletariat needs to destroy the bourgeoisie (to avoid "the common ruin of the contending classes").So you will still have to address what I am saying, instead of what you imagine that I am saying.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 03, 2007 11:06 am
No one would deny you the right to make your own mind up on this and on other things (not that you need me to tell you that), but it seems to me that you have this one idea (which is just a convention, hence it cannot relate to 'objective reality' just to your way of describing it) which seems superficial in the extreme.
Well, "superficiality" seems a price to pay if we were to avoid the mystical depths of metaphysical tought. But here you seem to introduce a double standard: if I indulge in "deep" pseudoscience, mysticism, hermetism, etc, you will try and destroy my delusions. If I don't, you complain that I am "superficial" - ie, that I don't let my doors open to your favourite kind of attack.


I agree with you about Marx, however, that is why I did not include him in that earlier list of Hermetic bumblers.

So let's try to take Marx as a benchmark, instead of our previous team (Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov and Lenin - not to talk about Stalin, Politzer, and other people in whose favour not even their intellectual honesty can be argued). It is true that Marx didn't like to talk too much about method. But it is also true that his works as a whole (The Capital, Manifesto, Class Struggle in France, The 18th Brummaire, and so on) seem methodological sound, and also it looks possible that we deduce at least some methodological lessons from them.


Your own one man class struggle, is that it?

Far from me to confuse my poor methodological ideas with class struggle. Class struggle is a colective deed, to which I try to bring my own contribution. But in no way I believe that such small contribution will turn the tide of History.


I wrote that when I imagined you accepted some form of the 'orthodox' theory.

I am happy to withdraw it, and apologise --, and replace it with 'threadbare theory'.

You will notice that you are calling it a "theory" - something I haven't so far dared to to.


I am sorry to have to tell you that if I put a hole in it even the size of a pin prick, that hole will itself be far bigger than your 'theory' -- so small is it.

Here we seem to go back to my first issue in this post. Just substitute "small" for "superficial" and we are back there. But might dare I say, perhaps the problem is that your needle is too large for the task?

It is curious, however, that it being so little, you felt the need to cut out a piece of it in order to better refute it. And finally, when you finally punch it, we may then evaluate which is bigger, my "theory" as you call it, or your hole.


But here goes:


"Contradiction" is the name we give to those situations, in which something, in order to ensure its existence, has to foster forces that will result in its destruction.

So, these 'forces' are not contradictions after all, but the whole situation itself is.

That seems to be the case.


In that case what active role do these useless 'contradictions' play?

And why should I ascribe an "active role" to contradictions?


And what guarantees that anything will emerge at the end?

Well, this depends of the nature of the contradiction. The specifical nature of the contradiction I used as an example seems to point that either the proletariat wins over the bourgeoisie, supresses capital and abolishes classes, or that both classes will ruin themselves jointly. Other possibilities - eternal capitalism, a return to feudalism or slavery, a new, historically stable, kind of class society ruled by a class that is not bourgeois - seem to be foreclosed.

But I don't see how such "guarantees" can be deduced by abstract reasoning about contradictions, dialectics, or opposites.


Marxist Hermeticists appeal to the 'negation of the negation' in order to counter that objection. But what can you appeal to?

I have no generic principle to counter your objection, sorry. Only the specific study of the situation in question can give us any answer.


And are these 'forces' internal, or external?

But "internal" or "external" to what? Is there some kind of eternal, universal, struggle between Internal and External? I doubt so.

Evidently, both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are "internal" to a capitalist society. A society that has no bourgeosie nor proletariat is not a capitalist society. On the other hand, of course, the bourgeoisie is "external" to the proletariat, and conversely.


And, how can you possibly distinguish these two without blowing apart your idea of a 'situation' (if. that is, you havve one)?

Sorry, what am I supposed to distinguish without blowing my supposed idea of a "situation"?


See, these initial objections are bigger than your 'theory'.

Well, I am glad that you put "theory" into quote marks. But I will insist again that you are the one ascribing this status to it.

But I must agree, your objections are bigger than my, ah, "theory". Perhaps they are too big to my "theory", and this is the reason they fail to address my points? Perhaps, after all, the giants you are fighting are just windmills?


But, why complain?

Because phylosophy, or even methodology, is not the be all end all of life. Without denying their importance, I still have other values to take into consideration. Civility in debate being one of them.


After all, isn't this a "situation" in which in order for your threadbare theory to "exist" it has to "foster forces that will result in its destruction"?

Quite possibly, but that is what remains to be prooved, isn't it?


So, even if your theory were correct, you should welcome my lethal attacks upon it, for in killing your theory, I simply confirm it! :P

I always suspected you were a closet dialectician... there you go, transforming things into their opposite...

Luís Henriqe

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


If you had read my previous post with a little more attention, you would see that I by no means hold "contradiction" as a synonim for conflict. In fact, when I wrote:

I am happy to be corrected (and I apologise for misquoting you -- whatever else I get up to, I do not like to do that, since I hate it when others do it to me).

Nevertheless, this 'clarification' of yours just creates another annoying "force that will result in" the "destruction" of your superficial 'theory'; for now we have these:


The contradiction is that the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency. The bourgeoisie needs the proletariat, and the proletariat needs to destroy the bourgeoisie (to avoid "the common ruin of the contending classes").

Which seems to see 'contradiction' as a relation of some sort; whereas this:


"Contradiction" is the name we give to those situations, in which something, in order to ensure its existence, has to foster forces that will result in its destruction.

Says it is a "name" and not of a relation (but relations cannot have names, or they would cease to be relations), but of a "situation".

Which is it to be?

So, this just confirms my view that you DM-fans (if such I may call you) do not really think before you type.


So you will still have to address what I am saying, instead of what you imagine that I am saying.

But that does not affect the fact that you alleged I had made an error over classical DM (when the quotations I gave you prove otherwise -- I do not expect an apology from you, but one would not go amiss), nor these points:


So, these 'forces' are not contradictions after all, but the whole situation itself is.

In that case what active role do these useless 'contradictions' play?

And what guarantees that anything will emerge at the end?

Marxist Hermeticists appeal to the 'negation of the negation' in order to counter that objection. But what can you appeal to?

And are these 'forces' internal, or external?

And, how can you possibly distinguish these two without blowing apart your idea of a 'situation' (if, that is, you have one)?

See, these initial objections are bigger than your 'theory'.

Back to the Hermetic drawing board, eh? :)

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 03, 2007 06:54 pm
I am happy to be corrected (and I apologise for misquoting you -- whatever else I get up to, I do not like to do that, since I hate it when others do it to me).
Apologies gladly accepted.


Nevertheless, this 'clarification' of yours just creates another annoying "force that will result in" the "destruction" of your superficial 'theory'; for now we have these:


The contradiction is that the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency. The bourgeoisie needs the proletariat, and the proletariat needs to destroy the bourgeoisie (to avoid "the common ruin of the contending classes").

Which seems to see 'contradiction' as a relation of some sort; whereas this:


"Contradiction" is the name we give to those situations, in which something, in order to ensure its existence, has to foster forces that will result in its destruction.

Says it is a "name" and not of a relation (but relations cannot have names, or they would cease to be relations), but of a "situation".

Which is it to be?

Well - this doesn't really sound like a problem.

I am not saying that a contradiction is a name; I am saying that "contradiction" is a name. The word "dog" doesn't bite (You may see that I haven't even made the popular mistake of forgetting the quote marks).

Also, I fail to see why a relation cannot have a name, how could we reason about something that cannt have a name, or how giving a name to something will cause such a strange change to that something.

Listen, you are certainly much more able to make fine terminological distinctions than I am. But, frankly, this is scholastic.


So, this just confirms my view that you DM-fans (if such I may call you) do not really think before you type.

You can call me Luís Henrique.

If you can show me were I alleged you made an error over classic DM, I will gladly apologise. But since I don't think I have made any assertions about classic DM, I will have to ask you where have I made such mistake.


But that does not affect the fact that you alleged I had made an error over classical DM (when the quotations I gave you prove otherwise -- I do not expect an apology from you, but one would not go amiss)


nor these points:

Marxist Hermeticists appeal to the 'negation of the negation' in order to counter that objection. But what can you appeal to?

And are these 'forces' internal, or external?

And, how can you possibly distinguish these two without blowing apart your idea of a 'situation' (if, that is, you have one)?

See, these initial objections are bigger than your 'theory'.


See the post above.


Back to the Hermetic drawing board, eh? :)

I don't have one. :(

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


I am not saying that a contradiction is a name; I am saying that "contradiction" is a name. The word "dog" doesn't bite (You may see that I haven't even made the popular mistake of forgetting the quote marks).

Ah, the old use/mention dodge.

But, I fail to see this helps you; in fact quite the revesre.


The contradiction is that the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency. The bourgeoisie needs the proletariat, and the proletariat needs to destroy the bourgeoisie (to avoid "the common ruin of the contending classes").

Now this suggests that you think "contradiction" is thus a name for a relation -- which, if that is so, it would be a major step backwards.


Also, I fail to see why a relation cannot have a name, how could we reason about something that cannt have a name, or how giving a name to something will cause such a strange change to that something

A name works in a different logical way to relational terms.

So in "x loves y", "...loves..." works relationally since we can use it to form sentences like "Fred loves John", or "Julia loves Susan", putting names in the place of the gap markers.

If you name a relation it can no longer function like that.

Of coure, you can ignore this caveat, but then you might find it hard to say what you actually do mean.

So, you could try phrase your point like this :

"X contradicts Y", but you will not then be able to use names in the pace of "x" and "y" since only propositions (or clauses) can contradict one another.

But, I hear you say, 'I do not intend to use this word this way'. You intend it this way:

"The proletariat contradicts the bourgeoisie"

Fine, but if then the word "contradict" here is a name, then you would have now three names in concatenation, and this would not be a propostion, but a list.

And lists say nothing.

This is an ancient error, going back now nearly 2400 years;so you are in good company.

So, I think you need to sharpen up your syntax if you want to say the sorts of things you think you want to say.

However, I can save you the trouble of bothering to find a way out of this hole: some of the best logicians on the planet have been racking their brains out over this one now for over 100 years, and have got precisely nowhere -- and they are not likely to either. Here is why:

http://www.ul.ie/%7Ephilos/vol4/frege.html


Listen, you are certainly much more able to make fine terminological distinctions than I am. But, frankly, this is scholastic.

Translated this reads: "I object to the fact that you have caught my sloppy thinking out...."


If you can show me were I alleged you made an error over classic DM, I will gladly apologise. But since I don't think I have made any assertions about classic DM, I will have to ask you where have I made such mistake.

Here, in response to my claim that DM-theorists say that things change because of their opposites, and into their opposites, and that they also create their opposites when they change, you commented:


Indeed, all of this seems utterly absurd, and I don't believe in any of it.

Fair enough, you then qualified this with a:


This is not what I call contradiction.

But your original "I do not believe a word of it" etc, was directly aimed at my claim that this is what classic DM says.

Which I have now shown that it does.

Now in response to my objections, you say:


See the post above.

I did, but I do not see how it answers this:


Marxist Hermeticists appeal to the 'negation of the negation' in order to counter that objection. But what can you appeal to?

And are these 'forces' internal, or external?

And, how can you possibly distinguish these two without blowing apart your idea of a 'situation' (if, that is, you have one)?

See, these initial objections are bigger than your 'theory'.

These are still unanswered,as far as I can see.


I don't have one

See a doctor then.... :D

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 03, 2007 06:54 pm

The contradiction is that the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency. The bourgeoisie needs the proletariat, and the proletariat needs to destroy the bourgeoisie (to avoid "the common ruin of the contending classes").

Which seems to see 'contradiction' as a relation of some sort; whereas this:


"Contradiction" is the name we give to those situations, in which something, in order to ensure its existence, has to foster forces that will result in its destruction.

Says it is a "name" and not of a relation (but relations cannot have names, or they would cease to be relations), but of a "situation".

Which is it to be?
A little more on this.

When I say,


the relationship(s) between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both of conflict and of functional dependency

I mean that the relationship (or relationships? are there many relationships between these two entities, or should it be treated as just one relationship?) has a double nature. On one hand, the bourgeoisie cannot exist without extorting surplus value from people who are not members of the bourgeoisie - the proletarians. On the other hand, the proletariat cannot free itself without destroying the bourgeoisie.

So we have this:

1. A needs B;
2. B needs to destroy A.

Whether this is a situation, a relation, or whatever, I leave to your classificatory abilities. What seems important, to me, regarding this, is that this is the reason why any other possibilities besides those pointed by Marx - victory of the proletariat or "common ruin of the contending classes - or Rosa Luxemburg - "Socialism oder Barbarism" - are ruled out (but do you think they are ruled out? from your previous posts, I get the impression that you don't; am I wrong?).

I am sorry if this does not build up into a holistic "theory of everything" that can explain historical conjunctures through intellectual abstractions (and, consequently, can be destroyed by equally abstract exercises of reason). I don't believe in those. In History, as a science, I believe in the primacy of the specifical and of the concrete.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 03, 2007 08:34 pm
You intend it this way:

"The proletariat contradicts the bourgeoisie"
By absolutely no means; in fact, the fact that I don't think that "the proletariat contradicts the bourgeoisie" is a meaningful sentence is the reason I gave that famous answer to Citizen Zero.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 03, 2007 08:34 pm
A name works in a different logical way to relational terms.

So in "x loves y", "...loves..." works relationally since we can use it to form sentences like "Fred loves John", or "Julia loves Susan", putting names in the place of the gap markers.

If you name a relation it can no longer function like that.
The love of Julia for Susan.

Here, you have the name of the relation...

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH, thanks for that, and I do not think there is very much there with which I would want to argue.

So, why you muddy this up with all those bogus 'contraditions' -- when you have all those ordinary language relational terms to do duty for you (and of eminently clear senses) -- beats me..

That would be like using flat earth theory to assist geology.

All of which underlines one of the main points of my essays -- we do not need an ounce of Hegel to help explain Historical Materialism.

To make yourself clear, even you had to ditch him.

As to the original question, if it can be shown that Marx did think what you say, I'd have to disgree with him.

Nothing in nature is inevitable (mainly because to think so would be to anthropomorphise reality).

However, I think that the options you hold out, it highly likely that one or other will come about.

But, only through our efforts.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


The love of Julia for Susan.

Here, you have the name of the relation...

Absolutely right, and if you follow that link I posted you will see how us logicians handle that.

[Sneak preview: if you name that relation it will no longer work as a relation -- you just get another list.]

----------------------------------------------------------------

Correction on edit:


The love of Julia for Susan

This is not actually a name, but a definite description, but it is a singular designating expression for all that, and the same point applies.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


By absolutely no means; in fact, the fact that I don't think that "the proletariat contradicts the bourgeoisie" is a meaningful sentence is the reason I gave that famous answer to Citizen Zero.

Once more I am happy to be corrected.

The point about relational expressions still stands, though.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 03, 2007 08:34 pm

If you can show me were I alleged you made an error over classic DM, I will gladly apologise. But since I don't think I have made any assertions about classic DM, I will have to ask you where have I made such mistake.

Here, in response to my claim that DM-theorists say that things change because of their opposites, and into their opposites, and that they also create their opposites when they change, you commented:


Indeed, all of this seems utterly absurd, and I don't believe in any of it.

Fair enough, you then qualified this with a:


This is not what I call contradiction.

But your original "I do not believe a word of it" etc, was directly aimed at my claim that this is what classic DM says.
All of this (the propositions you quoted) seems pretty absurd, and I don't believe in any of it (in any of those propositions).

Of course I believe you when you say that Hegel, Engels, etc., have said those things. It is them (concerning this subject) that I disbelieve, not you (concerning the fact that they said that).

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ah, I see!

Fair enough then!!

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 03, 2007 08:46 pm
So, why you muddy this up with all those bogus 'contraditions' -- when you have all those ordinary language relational terms to do duty for you (and of eminently clear senses) -- beats me..
Can you offer us some alternatives?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 03, 2007 08:46 pm
As to the original question, if it can be shown that Marx did think what you say, I'd have to disgree with him.

Nothing in nature is inevitable (mainly because to think so would be to anthropomorphise reality).
Ah, but society is made of human beings; anthropomorphising it is not the same as antropomorphising nature.


However, I think that the options you hold out, it highly likely that one or other will come about.

But, only through our efforts.

Sure. However, never mind how much efforts someone nostalgic of feudalism might put into recreating it, the effort is bound to failure, because there is no social class that can take up the task. Capitalism does not reproduce a group of people who want feudalism back; but it does reproduce a group of people to which communism is of direct interest.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


Can you offer us some alternatives?

Well, according to you, any word will do.

I just prefer the ordinary ones we already have, the ones you had to use to explain your meaning.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


Ah, but society is made of human beings; anthropomorphising it is not the same as antropomorphising nature

Well, of course, but the way you had to explain the inevitability of the demise of anything and everything (by the use of entropy -- which is not human, the last I checked), suggests that to make this work, in the end you have to do this -- attribute agency to nature.


However, never mind how much efforts someone nostalgic of feudalism might put into recreating it, the effort is bound to failure, because there is no social class that can take up the task. Capitalism does not reproduce a group of people who want feudalism back; but it does reproduce a group of people to which communism is of direct interest.

But it could return if there is large scale destruction of the productive forces (natural and/or human).

Now I agree with you; society is ripe for revolutionary change.

We just have to make sure as best we can that it happens.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 04, 2007 12:12 am
Well, of course, but the way you had to explain the inevitability of the demise of anything and everything (by the use of entropy -- which is not human, the last I checked), suggests that to make this work, in the end you have to do this -- attribute agency to nature.
Those are two separate issues, don't you think so?

The increase in entropy is a natural phenomenon; it doesn't seem to be related with any "agency" of nature. Similarly, if you drop an object, heavier than air, at some height of Earth's surface, it will fall into the ground, quite inevitably, without need of any anthropomorfisation of nature.

On the other hand, societies, while they are also part of nature, have distinctive features, the fact that its members stablish ends to attain being one of them.



However, never mind how much efforts someone nostalgic of feudalism might put into recreating it, the effort is bound to failure, because there is no social class that can take up the task. Capitalism does not reproduce a group of people who want feudalism back; but it does reproduce a group of people to which communism is of direct interest.

But it could return if there is large scale destruction of the productive forces (natural and/or human).

Possibly. But the fact remains; there is no social class, or any other social force, inherent to capitalism, that will make the restoration of feudalism an aim. On the other hand, there is a class to whom communism is a possible aim; and another class whose aim - the maintenance of capitalism - is, in the long run, inviable; if it succeds in avoiding the other class to attain communism, it won't ensure an eternal life to capitalism, but its own ruin, together with the ruin of the other class.


Now I agree with you; society is ripe for revolutionary change.

We just have to make sure as best we can that it happens.

Why is it ripe for revolutionary change?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 04, 2007 12:07 am
I just prefer the ordinary ones we already have, the ones you had to use to explain your meaning.
You will notice that I had to use lots of them. But since I need to refer to this quite frequently, I need one word, or at least a short expression. I am sure you can suggest one.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


The increase in entropy is a natural phenomenon; it doesn't seem to be related with any "agency" of nature. Similarly, if you drop an object, heavier than air, at some height of Earth's surface, it will fall into the ground, quite inevitably, without need of any anthropomorfisation of nature.

I agree (on the first item), but I only dragged it in because you had made that very appeal.

The second part, I also agree with (that is, with the fact that objects fall in the way you say -- but we did not need any science to tell us that!). It is when one moves into the normative mode (i.e., 'objects must do this or that'), that I begin to part company with tradition.

However, the background to my claim that the use of scientific law in this way is inherently anthropmorphic takes much stage-setting, so I won't persue that part of the disscussion here (but I have hinted at the direction it could take in several threads in the Philosophy section, in the determinism and free will debates). [I will be devoting an Essay to it in the near future.]


But the fact remains; there is no social class, or any other social force, inherent to capitalism, that will make the restoration of feudalism an aim. On the other hand, there is a class to whom communism is a possible aim; and another class whose aim - the maintenance of capitalism - is, in the long run, inviable; if it succeds in avoiding the other class to attain communism, it won't ensure an eternal life to capitalism, but its own ruin, together with the ruin of the other class.

Once again, I agree, the class war could do something worse, as Marx noted.

Moreover, the ruling class could ruin the environement (in their search for profit -- or in war) to the extent that much of life as we know it ends. Now they have no long-term interest in doing that, but there is no 'invisible hand' guiding the future of our planet, looking after the interests of the bosses -- so it is always possible that they screw things up.


Why is it ripe for revolutionary change?

Are you kidding?? :blink:


You will notice that I had to use lots of them. But since I need to refer to this quite frequently, I need one word, or at least a short expression. I am sure you can suggest one.

That is only becuase I challenged you.

But even then, the use of this word clouds the issues, for, apart from the things we discusssed, it suggests that the things you wanted to say were capable of being expressed in such superficial terms -- when they are not.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 04, 2007 12:03 pm
It is when one moves into the normative mode (i.e., 'objects must do this or that'), that I begin to part company with tradition.
It is, of course, a metaphor - "must" in the strict sence is a verb that only accept human or abstract subjects.

But so is


society is ripe for revolutionary change

for society is not a biological organism; it cannot be "ripe" in the strict sence.

Which of those metaphors is nastier?

And, frankly, do we believe in the possibility of a metaphor-free language? Is it even desirable?


Moreover, the ruling class could ruin the environement (in their search for profit -- or in war) to the extent that much of life as we know it ends. Now they have no long-term interest in doing that, but there is no 'invisible hand' guiding the future of our planet, looking after the interests of the bosses -- so it is always possible that they screw things up.

Yes, it is, but I rather think this would be covered under the "common ruin" clause. In fact, I would say that if it was not for proletarian (and petty-bourgeois, perhaps) class struggle, they would have already screwed everything, or at least would be far more advanced in doing it.



Why is it ripe for revolutionary change?

Are you kidding?? :blink:

Would that I was.

Some thirty years ago, the world seemed "ripe" for revolutionary change, and we were in fact seeing things that very much seemed the beggining of such change. Portugal, Greece and Spain; Nicaragua and Iran; "Portuguese" Africa shaking off the shackle of colonialism; and all South American dictatorships headed for their end.

Then came Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Reagan, and a quarter century of stern bourgeois worldwide offencive against the working class. Yes, there seem to be faint signs that such offencive may have found its limits, but even then, our camp is devastated, our organisations destroyed, our morale low, our banners routed, our champions dead or making money within the system.

What makes you believe society is ripe for revolution?


But even then, the use of this word clouds the issues, for, apart from the things we discusssed, it suggests that the things you wanted to say were capable of being expressed in such superficial terms -- when they are not.

It is a metaphor, if you wish - like "must" or "ripe". Much closer to being a dead metaphor, I would say, than "must" and its anthropomorphising undertones, or "ripe" and its organicist conotations.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


It is, of course, a metaphor - "must" in the strict sence is a verb that only accept human or abstract subjects.

What is the 'metaphorical meaning' of "must" then?


for society is not a biological organism; it cannot be "ripe" in the strict sence.

Ah, but I can cash this metaphor out (to use William James's phrase).

I defy anyone to cash "must" out in a similar way.


And, frankly, do we believe in the possibility of a metaphor-free language? Is it even desirable?

No, but some metaphors hide an anthropomorphic view of nature, one that still dominates traditional thought to this day.


What makes you believe society is ripe for revolution?

In the sense that the required forces are there, they are just quiescent right now.

So, a fruit can be ripe (in the sense that it is ready to eat) even if no one actually eats it.


It is a metaphor, if you wish - like "must" or "ripe". Much closer to being a dead metaphor, I would say, than "must" and its anthropomorphising undertones, or "ripe" and its organicist conotations.

But, "must" has no metaphorical sense here that I can see.

You need to say why you think it is a metaphor.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 03, 2007 06:54 pm
(but relations cannot have names, or they would cease to be relations)
I must call you on this, again.

You seem to be confusing levels here.

You can't stop relations from being relations by giving them a name. Your argument is, or should be, that we refer to relations both using relational words (verbs, in the case), and nominal words:


Susan loves Mary.

Susan's love for Mary

If the second quote above is a nominal phrase, as it is, that doesn't change the fact that the relation between Susan and Mary is one of love of the first for the second. So it seems that you have been using "relation" and "relational words" as interchambiable things, when they are not:


Love is a relation.

"Love" is a relational word.

But not


Love is a relational word.

(This is false, because love is not a word)

And


"Love" is a relation.

is a valid sentence, but, then, the quote marks do not denote the same thing as in

"love" is a word.

Rather, they mean that the word "love" is being used in a different sence from the usual; so the sentence


"Love" is a relation.

is synonim with


What you call "love" is a relation.

or


What passes for love nowadays is a relation.

But it would indeed be very strange if we could make Susan's love of Mary cease to be a relation by giving it a name.

And more,

classes of relations have names, as it easily seen for the fact that their names can figure in lists of names:


Three things I am fond of are love, chocolate, and science fiction books.

And so, we can put individual relations in relation to classes of relations:


What Susan feels for Mary is love.

Or, more provocatively,


The relation between acumulation of capital and the tendencial low of the profit rate is a contradiction.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 04, 2007 11:45 pm
What is the 'metaphorical meaning' of "must" then?

"Will" - which by the way is another "antropomorphic metaphor", just one whose anthopomorphic flavour has vaned away even more.



for society is not a biological organism; it cannot be "ripe" in the strict sence.

Ah, but I can cash this metaphor out (to use William James's phrase).

I defy anyone to cash "must" out in a similar way.

I am sorry; I am afraid that I don't understand what you mean by "cash out a metaphor".


No, but some metaphors hide an anthropomorphic view of nature, one that still dominates traditional thought to this day.

However, society is not nature, and society is anthropic, so I fear that "anthropomorphising" society is not the same as anthropomorphising nature...


In the sense that the required forces are there, they are just quiescent right now.

So, a fruit can be ripe (in the sense that it is ready to eat) even if no one actually eats it.

And what are the forces required for revolution?

Your analogy to the fruit, besides, does not hold (and has a curious Engelsian flavour): whatever the "forces" (a Newtonian word, this one) in capitalist society that are required for revolution, they are certainly "internal" "forces" if we insist in with the word. This is not the case with the eating of the fruit, which is most obviously "external".

And, in fact, the use of "ripe" as "ready to eat" has necessarily an anthropic, perhaps even a teleological conotation. A fruit, in and of itself, is ripe when it is about to fall onto the ground; calling it "ripe" when it is ready to eat brings the idea that the fruit's finality is to be eaten.


It is a metaphor, if you wish - like "must" or "ripe". Much closer to being a dead metaphor, I would say, than "must" and its anthropomorphising undertones, or "ripe" and its organicist conotations.


But, "must" has no metaphorical sense here that I can see.

You need to say why you think it is a metaphor.


Fine. Here is the non-metaphoric use of "must":


Johnny must go to school every morning.

It follows that Johnny in fact goes to school every morning. Or,


Johnny will go to school every morning.
And so we have put "must" and "will" in a position in which they look like synonims - even if they, of course, are not so.

Which brings the metaphor:


Whenever I drop this ball, it will fall to the floor.

Just like Johnny will go to school every morning. And, since we use


Johnny will go to school every morning.

and


Johnny must go to school every morning.

as synonims, we are tempted to say


Whenever I drop this ball, it must fall to the floor.

when we mean


Whenever I drop this ball, it will fall to the floor.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


You can't stop relations from being relations by giving them a name.

I never said you could, but when you name a relation the linguistic expression you use to do that cannot function as a relation (since, manifestly, it is a name!).

And of course you can make sentences out of lists:


Three things I am fond of are love, chocolate, and science fiction books.

But you cannot make them out of only names.

So, much else that you say is not relevant to the point I was making, interesting though it was.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


"Will" - which by the way is another "antropomorphic metaphor", just one whose anthopomorphic flavour has vaned away even more.

I am sorry, you lost me here.

[Look: I said I did not want to get distracted onto this topic here.

So, if you want to bang on about this, may I suggest you start a thread in the Philosophy section?]


I am sorry; I am afraid that I don't understand what you mean by "cash out a metaphor".

If I say that "Fred is a pig" (Fred being a man), I can cash this metaphor out by saying that Fred eats sloppily, makes odd noises, never cleans himself, is greedy, etc.

Now, this suggests you adhere to the 'prediction' (or perhaps regularity) explication of such anthropomorphisms:


Whenever I drop this ball, it must fall to the floor.

when we mean

Whenever I drop this ball, it will fall to the floor.

Now, I am quite happy with such an explication, since all of the old metaphysical bite has been removed.

But this won't always work: I drop the ball, and it rises.


whatever the "forces" (a Newtonian word, this one) in capitalist society that are required for revolution, they are certainly "internal" "forces" if we insist in with the word. This is not the case with the eating of the fruit, which is most obviously "external".

I do not know how you know these are Newtonian 'forces'; for one thing they are not goverened by inverse square laws. Neither are they vectors.

And your distinction between 'external' and 'internal' is unsustainable too; whatever is internal to, say, capitalism, is external to the working class. Whatever is internal to an apple allows me (an external agent) to eat it (i.e., it has insufficient internal structural strength to resist my teeth).


And, in fact, the use of "ripe" as "ready to eat" has necessarily an anthropic, perhaps even a teleological conotation. A fruit, in and of itself, is ripe when it is about to fall onto the ground; calling it "ripe" when it is ready to eat brings the idea that the fruit's finality is to be eaten

I am OK with teleology when it applies to the purposes of agents, like us.

So, I stand by my metaphor.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 05, 2007 10:55 am
I never said you could, but when you name a relation the linguistic expression you use to do that cannot function as a relation (since, manifestly, it is a name!).
Well. You said this:


If you name a relation it can no longer function like that.

in which the word "it" seems to refer directly to the word "relation", so I read it (correct me if I am wrong) as a synonim to:


If you name a relation [this relation] can no longer function like that [like a relation].
I see now that you mean that the name of a relation is not a relational word, which is obviously true, but doesn't seem to have anything to do with the issue of contradictions. Now please tell me, do you use "relation" and "relational word" interchangeably?

All the conundrum can be easily cleared like this:

If a contradiction is a relation, then it must be expressed by relational words:


The tendencial low of the profit rate contradicts the necessity of capital accumulation.

Which is fine. But you have seemed to imply that then the phrase

the contradiction between the tendencial low of the profit rate and the necessity of capital accumulation

is meaningless. But we can see it is not, like this:


Susan loves Mary.

expresses a relation, while


Susan's love for Mary.

simply gives a nominal form to such relation, so that it can be used, for instance, in lists:

The smell of hot coffee, a Haydn's symphony in the record player, a nice fire, and Susan's love for Mary, made a perfect evening.

or as the subject of a sentence:


the contradiction between the tendencial low of the profit rate and the necessity of capital accumulation points to the demise of capitalism.


So, much else that you say is not relevant to the point I was making, interesting though it was.

Well, it is relevant in the sence you have been accusing me of faulty logic, and it seems I have been able to prove that that's not exactly true...

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


Well. You said this:

If you name a relation it can no longer function like that.

in which the word "it" seems to refer directly to the word "relation", so I read it (correct me if I am wrong) as a synonim to:

If you name a relation [this relation] can no longer function like that [like a relation].

It certainly bears that interpretation, but it also bears this one, too:


If you name a relation [this named relation] can no longer function like that [like a relation].

And:


Now please tell me, do you use "relation" and "relational word" interchangeably?

No, I do not. [Except by accident.]

The other stuff you write does not seem to be about anything I have said or believe -- once more, interesting though it is.


Well, it is relevant in the sence you have been accusing me of faulty logic, and it seems I have been able to prove that that's not exactly true...

Well, not if it not relevant to anything I have asserted, nor to falsifying anything I have.

I do not think I denied that a list of definite or indefinite descriptions can be inserted into a sentence, merley that a list of names cannot form a sentence (save you use words that are not names to articulate them).

I think that none of your examples do that -- but I am glad that I am forcing you to think about your ideas far more closely than you appear to have done hitherto.

However, I do not know why you are banging your head against this rock; this is a well established logical principle. It is not something I just dreamt up.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 05, 2007 11:15 am

"Will" - which by the way is another "antropomorphic metaphor", just one whose anthopomorphic flavour has vaned away even more.

I am sorry, you lost me here.
The innocent word "will" used to have the conotation of volition (just like the noun "will" still does).

"The apple will fall to the floor" could then be interpreted as "the apple wants to fall to the floor" - just like more modernly "the apple must fall to the floor" can still be interpreted as "the apple has a moral obligation to fall to the floor".

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 05, 2007 07:30 pm
If you name a relation [this named relation] can no longer function like that [like a relation].

And:


Now please tell me, do you use "relation" and "relational word" interchangeably?

No, I do not. [Except by accident.]
If the latter sentence is true, then the former is an "accident". Think about it.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


If the latter sentence is true, then the former is an "accident". Think about it.

You are going to have to be less enigmatic if I am to follow what you are trying to say.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 06, 2007 02:10 am
LH:


If the latter sentence is true, then the former is an "accident". Think about it.

You are going to have to be less enigmatic if I am to follow what you are trying to say.
mkay.

If you name a relation [this named relation] can no longer function like that [like a relation].

You seem to be confusing relations with relational words.


Susan's love for Mary

is a relation. But what we mean is not that the sentence above is a relation, but that whatever goes on between Susan and Mary is a relation of the kind we class as "love".

We can change grammatical classes as much as we wish; Susan will still love Mary the same way she did before. The relation is untouched by our syntactical manouevers.

What you seem to be trying to say is that if you give a relational word a nominal form, this relational (formerly) word will no longer function as a relational word. Which is, of course, while true, a purely sintactical phenomenon, with no bearings upon reality.

But if you put it in the terms of your sentence, I have the impression that you are telling me that if I give a name to Susan's love, this will in some way affect that love in itself.

And as you say that you don't do that except for accident, I can only conclude that such sentence is an accident.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


You seem to be confusing relations with relational words.

On the contrary, I think I am rather clear on this.


Susan's love for Mary

is a relation.

It is a nominalisation of one.




But what we mean is not that the sentence above is a relation, but that whatever goes on between Susan and Mary is a relation of the kind we class as "love".

You might not have noticed, [i]but this is a phrase, not a sentence.


We can change grammatical classes as much as we wish; Susan will still love Mary the same way she did before. The relation is untouched by our syntactical manouevers.

I agree, but your capacity to talk about it is altered, for you now have to use a phrase to do so, as opposed to expressing the relation directly as in (this genuine sentence):

"Susan loves Mary"


What you seem to be trying to say is that if you give a relational word a nominal form, this relational (formerly) word will no longer function as a relational word. Which is, of course, while true, a purely sintactical phenomenon, with no bearings upon reality.

Correct, but it now affects your capacity to talk about it, for now that phrase is a singular term, not a relational expression.


But if you put it in the terms of your sentence, I have the impression that you are telling me that if I give a name to Susan's love, this will in some way affect that love in itself.

Not so, it merely affects the logic of any sentence in which you embed that phrase.

Again why are you bashing your head against this rock?

Whatever you attempt to do, you will not be able to get round this syntactic obstacle.

You can try if you like, but you would be far better occupied trying to straighten the coastline of Norway -- for all the good it will do you.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 06, 2007 08:07 pm

Susan's love for Mary

is a relation.

It is a nominalisation of one.
Susan's love for Mary is a relation.

"Susan's love for Mary" is a nominalisation of a relation.


You might not have noticed, but this is a phrase, not a sentence.


Yes, you are of course right.

It was an accident. Meaning that the fact that I called a phrase a sentence was an accident, not that the phrase was one.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 06, 2007 08:07 pm

But if you put it in the terms of your sentence, I have the impression that you are telling me that if I give a name to Susan's love, this will in some way affect that love in itself.

Not so, it merely affects the logic of any sentence in which you embed that phrase.

Again why are you bashing your head against this rock?

Whatever you attempt to do, you will not be able to get round this syntactic obstacle.

You can try if you like, but you would be far better occupied trying to straighten the coastline of Norway -- for all the good it will do you.
So, all in all, your point is that I cannot use "contradiction" in the same syntactical positions as "contradict(s)"?

Good point...

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


Susan's love for Mary is a relation.

And how do you know that?

Because this is true:

"Susan loves Mary".

Now, the sentence form you are using above is predicative: "x is an F"

If you try to use your phrase to talk about this relation, you will certainly be able to do so, but only in sentences where it operates as a singular term, not a relation.

So, in "x is a relation, you have to use a singular term to map this onto the sort of sentence you seem to be aiming for.


"Susan's love for Mary" is a nominalisation of a relation.

Not so; I think you mean:

'"Susan's love for Mary" is a nominalisation of a relational expression.'

Nominalisations are linguistic items, and relations are not.

So: '"Susan's love for Mary" is a nominalisation of "Susan loves Mary".'

Hence, I think it is you who is confuing these two levels.

Now, we can keep doing this until the cows evolve if you like.

But, feel free to keep bashing your head....


So, all in all, your point is that I cannot use "contradiction" in the same syntactical positions as "contradict(s)"?

I do not have an 'overall point'.

You can use this word anyway you want, but logical syntax prevents you from meaning whatever you like with it.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 06, 2007 11:32 pm

"Susan's love for Mary" is a nominalisation of a relation.

Not so; I think you mean:

'"Susan's love for Mary" is a nominalisation of a relational expression.'
Oh yes, shame on me. :)

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Yes, you need your little legs slapping... :)

[Luís Henrique]

I am tempted to quote a Galilean prophet, but I may as well await for the recent withchunting wave to vane... :lol:

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Er??? :blink:

[Scratches head furiously...]

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 10, 2007 07:56 pm
Er??? :blink:

[Scratches head furiously...]
The recent 'noia about pro-lifers...

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I am sorry, I have clearly been beamed onto a parallel universe where the enigmatic is the norm....

I repeat:

Eh??? :blink: :blink: :blink:

[Dr Mindbender]

I think the way things are going, it is more than concievable capitalism will out-live planet Earth. Someone must take the fight to the cappies.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

US, you could be right.

But -- we have to make sure you are not!!! :)

[Axel1917]

Capitalism's downfall is not inevitable, and there is no final crisis of it (if we don't succeed, they will find a way to rejuvenate themselves by squeezing the working class even harder.). The importance of marching side to side with the toiling masses and building a revolutionary party is utterly important. If we don't achieve socialism in the 21st Century, there may not be any humanity left in the 22nd Century. Socialism or barbarism is literally the choice humanity must make - it is not some abstract slogan.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Which just goes to show, Axel/Volkov that you and I agree over far more things than we disagree!! :)

[RebelDog]

Capitalism's downfall is inevitable, just as humanity's is. What endures forever anyway? If we take the 2nd law of thermodynamics and apply it here, we see no lifeforms and their systems can survive the ever increasing disorder. In the nearer future I am sure that capitalism will succumb to insurmountable contradictions and ever-happening challenges to its existence by the proletariat.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dissenter, we discussed a page or so back; thermodynamics is a theory, and as I pointed out, the vast majority of scientific theories are now on the scrap heap. So, there is a high probablity that this will go the same way.

For all we know the demise of humanity might be evitable, or it might not.

The answer to that isn't inevitable either.