Conversation Between ChrisK and Communist Mutant From Outer Space

  1. ChrisK
    Yes, I would say that there is something about dialectical materialism that is inherently reactionary. This comes from it being a philosophical system that is imposed on reality as being true as opposed to fitting with reality. It is, in other words, non-scientific and divorced from material life.

    It also doesn't help that many of the ideas amount to idealism (such as the unity and interpretation of opposites) which is counter to Marxism.

    I'm always happy to answer questions.
  2. While Hegelianism has been subject to ruling class control, so has the state, has it not? Is there something inherent in dialectics that makes it compatible with the ruling class uniquely and exclusively?

    And thanks for your responses to all my questions, especially on the ISO. I'll have to look into them further, since they sound like the only partially "Luxemburgist" group out there and due to my affinity for some of Trotsky's theories.
  3. ChrisK
    It is hard to put the point more succinctly than in my original post. But the broad strokes are that the Hegelian notions that DM imports are part of a ruling class ideology that is implicitly idealist. These metaphysical concepts are what Marx was criticizing when he demanded that we look to material life instead of to ideas.

    As for the ISO, they are Trotskyist, but reject parts of his thought and accept parts of Luxemburg's. They support the Russian Revolution and think that Trotsky should have led instead of Stalin. The rejection of the DWS theories is two-fold. First, it implies that the Soviet Union was more for workers than not, which is demonstrably not the case. Second, it implies that if a "socialist" nation invades another country (ie Finland) it makes that country a form of workers state. This contradicts the idea that the emancipation of the working class must be an act of the working class. They analyze the Soviet Union as being state capitalist.

    I hope this helps.
  4. The fiasco that is the Anti-Dialectics thread has muddled the case for anti-dialectics for me. Succinctly speaking, what is wrong with the dialectic? Is it a case of the Hegelian baggage, the conclusions drawn from it and their implications, etc.?

    Also, I was reading up on the ISO and they claim to be influenced by Luxemburg (not unique for a Trotskyist organisation, I know) and at the same time do not adhere to Trotsky's deformed and degenerated workers' state theories; is the organisation not essentially Luxemburgist then? Why do you reject the DWS theories?
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