Marx - "means or end"

[jake williams]

There's a strange trend here (and elsewhere), it seems, to act as if certain figures, Marx most prominently but hardly just him, as if things are correct because he said them, rather than the other way around. This is perfectly sensible if one takes for granted ridiculous presuppositions about divine prophets, but I think it's clear that even Marx himself would not allow this. From what (admittedly little) I've picked up about him, he was convinced he was involved in an active process to study the nature of societies.

So is it really the belief of people, of anyone, here or wherever, that one should study Marx because Marx is by nature correct and so one should believe what he did? Because that's not how I operate at all, and really, I don't think anyone else should. I think I agree a lot with what he comes up with (and disagree quite a bit with a lot he came up with as well). So sure, I find out more and more of what he had to say, because I like some of his approaches to problems, and some of his conclusions. But it's not a natural property of the universe that things he said were correct.


On a related note - looking at some of his theories themselves, it strikes me as kind of, I don't know, nutty, to assume that, say, the proletariat, has a special and natural endowed status, rather than whatever special characteristics they have resulting from their typical majority status and basic productive engine of society.


I mean, am I confused, what's going on here? I'm having real trouble.

[kromando33]

I agree to an extent, some people are dogmatic, but if you read Marx it's pretty hard to disagree with his analysis, which in itself is extensive.

Also, regarding the proletariat, I recently made a thread on this, but if you read the manifesto Marx makes it clear that the proletariat are the only revolutionary class because they are the true majority and because they are an industrial class the most progressive. The proletariat arose because of the capitalist system of the bourgeois, other classes are simply left-overs from the feudal age, and are inherently reactionary.

[Luís Henrique]

Marx was a human being, although a very talented one; it is part of being human to make mistakes.


On a related note - looking at some of his theories themselves, it strikes me as kind of, I don't know, nutty, to assume that, say, the proletariat, has a special and natural endowed status, rather than whatever special characteristics they have resulting from their typical majority status and basic productive engine of society.

I don't think Marx ever suggested that the proletariat has a special and natural endowed status; on the contrary, he always argues in a historical way: the proletariat is the only class who, to defend its material interests, must confront the bourgeois order, and also the only class who can, by their actions, destroy that order (not because they are the majority, or because they are poor, or because they suffer, or because they work in huge militarised, hierarchical workplaces, etc).

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jammoe, that is certainly not the case; but anyone who comes here making wild allegations that have little basis in fact can expect a hard time.

I, for one, am highly critical of the Hegelian influence on Marx.

Others attack the 'labour theoy of value' or the 'falling rate of profit'.

Still others are against the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'

[kromando33]

Rosa I find your tendency of Marxist 'pick and choosing' rather disturbing.

[Marsella]

Rosa I find your tendency of Marxist 'pick and choosing' rather disturbing.

Marx 'picked and chose' and criticized parts of English political economy, French socialism, German philosophy....

Why should we not do the same? :/

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

K:


Rosa I find your tendency of Marxist 'pick and choosing' rather disturbing.


1) Good.

2) "Every truth is thus essentially destruction.
Everything that simply conserves is simply false."

Now, where have we heard that before?

[jake williams]

Rosa I find your tendency of Marxist 'pick and choosing' rather disturbing.
Part of what I'm saying in this thread is that I find the opposite tendency disturbing - that there seems to be a tendency, rather than studying ideas and accepting those we find accurate and rejecting those we don't, as I think we should, to arbitrarily accepting ideas because of whom they're associated with.

[Marsella]

Part of what I'm saying in this thread is that I find the opposite tendency disturbing - that there seems to be a tendency, rather than studying ideas and accepting those we find accurate and rejecting those we don't, as I think we should, to arbitrarily accepting ideas because of whom they're associated with.

Absolutely, which is of course, an entirely unscientific (and dare I say it - un-Marxist) line of thought.

Check this (http://rs2k.revleft.com/theory.php) out if it tires you like it does me.

:)

[mikelepore]

as if things are correct because he said them

However, it also happens frequently that people quote Marx because they want to use his phrase, which they feel is worded concisely, to explain a certain point, and then they credit the literary source to avoid plagiarism. Many people misinterpret that as a claim that it's true because Marx said it.

It also happens that some arguments are about whether or not Marx really wrote something, and so a contributor supplies a quotation to answer the question. Many people also misinterpret that as a claim that it's true because Marx said it.

[mikelepore]

I think I agree a lot with what he comes up with (and disagree quite a bit with a lot he came up with as well).

In addition to that, the sixty-year-old Karl Marx sometimes disagreed with the 30-year-old Karl Marx.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well said, Mike.

But the way the dogmatists here behave, you'd have thought Marx left the womb with all his ideas in place.

Or that he received them from on high, carved on tablets of stone.

[Lynx]

"I am not a Marxist." - Eponymous
Seriously, if Marx made this comment it was an appeal to consider ideas and not the person.

[jake williams]

But the way the dogmatists here behave, you'd have thought Marx left the womb with all his ideas in place.

Or that he received them from on high, carved on tablets of stone.
This is a lot of what I'm talking about.

My main point is that we do (or, again I think should, for logical/intellectual reasons) accept communist ideas because they're good for people, and for no other reasons. I do think I'm not just going crazy to think I see a lot of "communists/Marxists/etc. should(n't)" around here, as if an idea's association with communism/Marx is a justification. I don't think it is. Many, even most broadly communist ideas I agree with, but that's on their own merits.

I don't know if I'm arguing with anyone, I just want to try to clarify, and understand myself, and others. I guess because I really want a comfortable political community, people whom I can talk to about how I think the world should operate without being treated like a psycho or a demon. I'm getting seriously tired of disagreeing with everyone about everything.

[INDK]

Hear, hear. There should never, ever be a Marxist that is in complete agreement with Marx. Marx himself went through ideological evolutions. Moreover, not everyone who is Communist should be afraid of being ideologically promiscuous and not afraid to be in between ideological persuasions.


"I am not a Marxist."

Though the idea remains, this was an extremely specific context in which Marx criticises French Marxism that was popular in the 1860's.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jammoe:



My main point is that we do (or, again I think should, for logical/intellectual reasons) accept communist ideas because they're good for people, and for no other reasons. I do think I'm not just going crazy to think I see a lot of "communists/Marxists/etc. should(n't)" around here, as if an idea's association with communism/Marx is a justification. I don't think it is. Many, even most broadly communist ideas I agree with, but that's on their own merits.



But only if they are acceptable to and accepted by workers, otherwise we mighty as well go and do something else.


I'm getting seriously tired of disagreeing with everyone about everything.

But, that is something you will have to accept if, as you rightly say, Marxism is not a body of dogma.

And you see, we already agree over some things!:)

[Luís Henrique]

I really want a comfortable political community,

I fear that is impossible. Politics is about conflict, and conflict is uncomfortable.


people whom I can talk to about how I think the world should operate without being treated like a psycho or a demon.

But who's treating you like a psycho or a demon? People will disagree with you, that's only natural, as you haven't access to the Ultimate Truth. Some of them will do it in a reasoned, mannered way; others will do it in the childish way of namecalling, pidgeonholing, etc (but this would say more about themselves than about your ideas, I dare say).

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Marx 'picked and chose' and criticized parts of English political economy, French socialism, German philosophy....

Why should we not do the same? :/

I don't think he picked and chose those things. He criticised them in their entirety.

Luís Henrique

[jake williams]

I fear that is impossible. Politics is about conflict, and conflict is uncomfortable.
Fair enough, but I want "camaraderie", if you will. Young capitalist kids get scholarships and political and economic scholarships to, you know, protect them from ultra-left universities. In addition to the fact that they're fundamentally supported by the society.

My general point is that, yes, having my beliefs, our beliefs, that takes us out of mainstream, perhaps even our own mainstream. But to some degree, I want people with whom I basically agree, who can hear the frustration and the hell of it all, the fact of what we're fighting and the process of the fight and what we're fighting itself, and say "yes, I'm here for you, keep going".


But who's treating you like a psycho or a demon?
It feels like the presumption of the dominant society. Partly it's an old cold-war ethic, but it ain't just that because it ain't just communism. Not necessarily here, of course, but if I were to bring up some of my basic beliefs about the world, openly at all, with, say, my neighbours, my relatives, my classmates, I'd get some really, really dirty looks, and be sort of brusquely reprimanded, really in shock, and then be immediately ignored thenceforth, until/unless I smartened up.

[dksu]

I know exactly what you mean (or at least I think I do ;o). I think the idea is that you want your ideas to progress and to make sense - so to make intelligible conversation about these things, you need people around who at least some of your basic presuppositions. Or else you're going to have to explain even these ad nauseum, and possibly get nowhere ;o.

BTW, interesting that you're right down the street in Guelph, I'm in Waterloo ;p.

[kromando33]

I fear that is impossible. Politics is about conflict, and conflict is uncomfortable.

If you mean 'politics as class struggle', then sure I agree, I hope however your not referring to rotten liberal 'pluralism' and the like.

[gilhyle]

The pattern of arguments from authority within communism has at least two sources - Marx's incredibly insightful writings and, more sinisterly, the degeneration of the communist movement. Not all argument from authority is bad. Some is a useful short-hand. Sometimes the argument is about what Marx believed and that is itself an interesting and important topic. That said, arguments from authority are certainly often a bad thing.

Why are the proletariat progressive?......simply because capitalism is based on the division of capital from labour and only those whose interests can be promoted by overcoming the division of capital from labour can overturn capitalism.and the only people in that category are people who live off their labour. Such people are not automatically separated from the interests of capital, but they can be, depending oncircumstances