To be fair, that's 'Prussia just before WWI'. It got a hell of a sight bigger between 1800 and 1870.
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Prussia
You said this:
But history is a reflection of past material conditions. It's essential to know those conditions if you actually want to create new social situations.
That pretty much denies historical development as a statement in this context. History is the (written; and arguably systematic) record of past events. It pretty much exists for a fraction of human existance. The period before that is called pre-history. The question is, without written history, (much less the systematic study of history)....how can there be understanding and if there is no understanding then how can there be new situations?
And even considering all this...Historical Materialism has been around for only a fraction of history.
The rise of the German nation has traditionally been tied to the Prussian state. Hence why everything that was not Prussia was called: "Lesser Germany"
To give you an idea...this is Prussia:
And that lasted basically untill WWI
To be fair, that's 'Prussia just before WWI'. It got a hell of a sight bigger between 1800 and 1870.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
History is past events. Historical development is an objective fact whether it happens to be understood or not. If it's not understood to a degree, or if it's misunderstood to whatever degree, that's problematical. Your semantics about it is an obfuscation.
You're just considering the history of the term. The historical past & historical development is 14 billion years old.
Prussia was the biggest state but it was one in 27 in the 2nd Reich.
Yes, exactly my point.
Which is what exactly? It's vacuous. Prussia was one state out of 27. Size isn't everything.
Well my point which I was politely trying not to make is that you have no idea about German history.
Geman interests were Prussian interests. Prussia dominated Germany untill WWI, economically, politically, administratively and military. The decline of Prussian hegemony within Germany started long after Bismarck. So when you say that Bismarck had to rise above his Juncker class and Prussian nationality is counter factual.
It may have been one of many states as you say in your previous posts...but the rest of the states were called "Lesser Germany". Which should give you a fairly nice indication of what the position of the other states was in respect to Prussia.
So why did Germany come into existance as a unified state? Because of Prussian interests conflicting with those of the Austrian empire and the Hannoverian dynasty. Germany's whole existance is based on protecting Prussian interests. Simply put.
This position is not really contested in debates between historians. The debate instead focusses on whether the unification of the Germanic states was a Prussian reaction to the defeat of Napoleon and the 2nd empire or the resolution of long term Prussian strategy which culminated in the unification of the Germanic state and creating a central European nation which would break the backbone of the kingdom of Denmark, France and the Austrian empire. This is a debate over details. The consensus is that Prussia was Germany.
Ok fair enough. Lets make some definitions.
Scientifically history is the study of records dealing with human events. Pre-history is everything before somebody thought to write things down.
Archeology is the study of (human related) material and environmental impact...or if you ask history students in Leiden: "Archeology is playing in the dirt".
If you approach history from the perspective of the progression of time and the place humans take in it...then historical development is merely the progression of time and the place humans take in it and what they done.
It is NOT directly linked to progress as in "improving" things. There are a whole lot of periods throughout history where there has been a regression, stagnation or decline.....everything except progress other than the progress of time.
History is =/= progress.
What started the discussion however is not your confusion of the terms "development" with "progress"...nor your linking of both these terms with something positive... but whether or not Historical Materialism is essential for class consciousness and subsequently if Historical Materialism accurately explains history or historical development is always a reflection of the material conditions...or economic position. (HM can not explain the stagnation of economic development when the material conditions were far more advanced than the entire economic system in use for example; nor could it explain the simultaneous existance of competing economic systems in one nation during one time frame; nor has it any answer to developments which run counter to economic interests and material conditions)
And so far that is not the case. Historical Materialism is a method that can explain certain developments. As a tool it is most definately not absolute and it can't be applied to the entire scope of history nor explain every development. Historical Materialism has only been around for a century...a mere fraction of the entire scope of history in your definition and a fraction according to mine.
Before that and even now there are other scientific methods. People were perfectly capable of understanding history without it and inspite of the lack of Historical Materialism a lot of people became very class conscious at a lot of points throughout history.
So it is far from essential for class consciousness. Nor is it in the best interest of the working class. Nor is an understanding of history essential for creating class consciousness in the first place.
IMO a basic understanding of current economics is far more important than understanding how the Bourgeois interests shaped progressive politics.
You're misrepresenting what the term "Lesser Germany" actually meant:
The German Question was a debate in the 19th century, especially during the Revolutions of 1848, over the best way to achieve the Unification of Germany.[1] From 1815–1866, about 37 independent German-speaking states existed within the German Confederation. The Großdeutsche Lösung ("Greater German solution") favored unifying all German-speaking peoples under one state, and was promoted by the Austrian Empire and its supporters. The Kleindeutsche Lösung ("Lesser German solution") sought only to unify the northern German states and did not include Austria; this proposal was favored by the Kingdom of Prussia.
The solutions are also referred to by the names of the states they proposed to create, Kleindeutschland and Großdeutschland ("Lesser Germany" and "Greater Germany"). Both movements were part of a growing German nationalism."
http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Question
& Bismarck's concerns went beyond just Prussian interests. "Bismarck implemented the world's first welfare state in the 1880s. He worked closely with large industry and aimed to stimulate German economic growth by giving workers greater security.[65] A secondary concern was trumping the Socialists, who had no welfare proposals of their own and opposed Bismarck's. Bismarck especially listened to Hermann Wagener and Theodor Lohmann, advisers who persuaded him to give workers a corporate status in the legal and political structures of the new German state.[66]"
http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..._German_Empire
All this is off topic here but you're trying to promote the notion that origins determine outlook. Learning & circumstances are going to work to change a person's outlook in time.
[QUOTE=PhoenixAsh;2806376]
Scientifically history is the study of records dealing with human events. Pre-history is everything before somebody thought to write things down.
Archeology is the study of (human related) material and environmental impact...or if you ask history students in Leiden: "Archeology is playing in the dirt". ]/QUOTE]
You're misrepresenting what the term "pre-history" actually means: "By "prehistory", historians mean the recovery of knowledge of the past in an area where no written records exist, or where the writing of a culture is not understood. By studying painting, drawings, carvings, and other artifacts, some information can be recovered even in the absence of a written record ...
"...In general, the sources of historical knowledge can be separated into three categories: what is written, what is said, and what is physically preserved ...
"Archaeology is a discipline that is especially helpful in dealing with buried sites and objects, which, once unearthed, contribute to the study of history..."
http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History
But "historical developments" doesn't necessarily imply that progress means always an improvement of things. & I never said it did!
That's just incorrect. It's an approach to the study of economic development & society based on a materialist conception of history. It's not based on a preconception about human progress. Nothing is inevitable.
To the extent that people rely on an idealist conception of the world, they're going to get things wrong. It's essential that people understand to whatever degree that's possible the historic past. & that past is a reflection of material events & developments.
That's looking at progressive politics in a one-sided way. It's not just bourgeois interests that are involved.
Sigh.
Well. Fine. If you want to believe your position that Prussia was merely one state of many and didn't totally dominate German politics up to WWI and that the GFerman unification was anything else than advancing Prussian interests....based on some Wikipedia quotes...contrary to all historical research done on the subject and fact then you are welcome to continue to believe so.
If you want to believe that Bismarck "rose above his Juncker class" and did not represent Prussian interests then you are fine to continue to believe so.
Naturally Bismarck had a welfare plan. That wellfare plan was part of real politics. It was implmented to prevent the working class from destabilizing the current system and creating economic advantage which was pretty much in the interest of the ruling classes of the states, including the Junkers who could continue their agrarian domination with improved industry. Now...that is all part of Economic Historical study. So look into it.
If you want to believe that Progressive politics is not subjective then you are totally entitled to continue to believe so.
And if you want to reject your previous notion that you pretty much implied progress is improvement then fine.
If you are going to dispute my argument about history and pre-history...I suggest you need to actually enroll in a history department and actually follow some lectures on what the field of History actually is instead of trying to find a position in debating semantics.
I have no interest in continuing the debate with you based on wikipedia knowledge.
What I actually said speaks for itself.
You claimed: "rest of the states were called "Lesser Germany"". That's factually wrong. I didn't say that Prussia wasn't the dominant player but "Lesser Germany" referred to a plan of unification that didn't include Austria. For all your hot air about historical research, how could you have gotten such a basic fact wrong?
No, it actually isn't factually wrong but unless you move past wikipedia quotes and actually read some extensive research on it you would find the Prussians refered to the rest of Germany as such. What you were refering to was the Klein Deutsche Losung....or Small Germany. In other words we are talking about two seperate things. Which by the way is also explained wrong in your wikipedia article.
You all miss what is origin of Prussia...
Prussia was originally a land inhabited by Prussians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Prussians) who was a Baltic tribe. Baltic tribes have formed nations of Lithuanians and Latvians and had nothing to do with Germans. They had common roots with Slavs and there is a group of balto-slavic languages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages). Prussians were harassing Masovia and Masovian prince Konrad asked for help the Teutonic Knights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_Knights) to make an order with them. And then the history of Prussians started to end. The Teutonic Knights have conquered Prussia and created a church state. They started to harass Lithuanians who organised a union with Poles and they've won two wars against Teutonic Knights. But Prussians culture and language started to deteriorate. Prussia was divided on Royal Prussia belonging completely to Poland and Ducal Prussia that had an autonomy within Polish Kingdom but was dominate by German aristocrats. In 1700's Ducal Prussia went out from Poland and created a state with Brandenburg. But they wanted to have a king. Brandenburg was part of the Empire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire) and couldn't have a king. But Prussia wasn't. Them they've changed a name for Kingdom of Prussia. And this is how emerged a Prussia that you're discussing of.
However, that Prussia had to do with real Prussia as much as communism wit the Soviet Union...
"Property is theft."
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
"the system of wage labor is a system of slavery"
Karl Heinrich Marx
That pretty much denies historical development as a statement in this context. History is the (written; and arguably systematic) record of past events. It pretty much exists for a fraction of human existance. The period before that is called pre-history. The question is, without written history, (much less the systematic study of history)....how can there be understanding and if there is no understanding then how can there be new situations?
History is something unfolding in the here and now. We live therefor we are history.
Brospierre-Albanian baseball was played with a frozen ball of shit and tree branch
"History knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of the Soviet Union."
Henry L. Stimson: U.S. Secretary of War
Take the word “fear” and the phrase “for what, it’s not going to change anything” out of your minds and take control of your future.
[I]Juan Jose Fernandez, Asturias
"I want to give a really bad party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there's a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see"
You can diss my sources but you haven't provided any of your own here. There's no real semantic difference between "Small Germany" & "Lesser Germany", OK? Proving there was a prejudice held by Prussians against the other Northern German states doesn't change the *fact* that there was two plans of unification that nationalists considered, & that the terms contemporaneously used, "Lesser Germany" & "Greater Germany" are historical facts.
http://http://books.google.com/books...ermany&f=false
History is past events whether we have a written record or not. & past events are past material circumstances. That's what historical materialism signifies. I don't why you people insist on obfuscating on this.
Actually you are the one obfuscating the debate.
It was your assertion that Prussia was just an equal amongst all the German states. This is obviously not true. Regardless of the plans for unification and the terms used you have not provided any backup for your claim. Prussia dominated German politics untill WWI and no matter how yoyu try to shift the focus of the debate the consensus between historians is that German interests were Prussian interests and that those interests have been the driving force for the unification.
The terms I am refering to were terms used by the Prussians and have NOTHING to do with the unification plans. Get over it.
It was also your assertion that Bismarck rose above his Juncker class because he became chancellor and therefore had German interests in mind. Which is the assertion that led us to debate the unification in the first place. Again you are wrong on that assertion because...as I have already told you. German interests were Prussian interests and Bismarck did everything in his power to assure the hegemony of the Prussian interests. That included social changes.
We got to Bismarck because of your assertion that progressive politics were not subjective but objective. Which you have completely failed to do. You also asserted and implied that progressive means better. A statement you later denied making and that revolutions can not be anything else than progressive. Again...you have failed to back that up and so far we have established that progress is measured in terms of subjective interests. Now...if you would read the wiki entry for progressive politics you would see a whole range of conservative elements have been called progressive...even scientific racism is called progressive politics. So the term doesn't mean what you think it means.
History as you use it is unscientific. Strange because you keep insisting on a scientific approach to historical research. The field of history only concerns itself with the period where there is written documentation/records/sources. If you talk about a scientific approach to historical research you are by default talking about a scientific approach to the period of which there are written sources....no matter how often you repeat the vulgar dictionary defintion of history. History as a research field is something entirely different.
Now your insistance that history is the result of material conditions and only historical materialism can lead to an understanding of history is complete and utter bullshit. Historical materialism is problematic because it doesn't actualy explain anything outside of a very specific time frame and can not deal with inconsistancies and obvious histrociual developments which run counter to the theory. Even Marx himself didn't dare name Historical Materialism the only method of understanding history.
You have failed to adress ANY of the sources I gave to you about the matter and you have not addressed one of the concerns and criticisms that were noted in those sources.
So no...I have not been obfuscating anything. You have no idea what we are talking about.
No, you're quite wrong. 'As an archaeologist', specialising in (late) European prehistory, I can completely back up PheonixaAsh here; European history begins with writing in and about Europe. There is no 'history' before the Greeks (before Herodotus really) because no-one was writing history. In the north, there is (almost) no history before Caesar; in Scotland it's arguable that there is no history before AD1100 (I've heard prehistorians refer to the period from A600-AD1100 as 'proto-historic' which seems reasonable).
Prehistory is pretty precise as a concept. Where there is no 'history' (ie written accounts to provide a conceptual framework of chronology) then the culture is 'prehistoric'.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
I said it is was one in many states. You can't infer from that any magnitude of power.
German interests were not just Prussian interests because the interests of all the other states were involved regardless of Prussia being the leading state.
The terms you refer to was specifically the terms used by those who supported one unification plan or the other.
My point was Bismarck's origins didn't dictate his outlook. His interests in Prussian hegemony & the his interest in unification guided his outlook. & you seem to be operating with the great man theory. The driving forces that influence Bismarck's thinking was the rise of productive forces, growing German industry that made it necessary for unification to begin with. You're all hung up about Prussia. Prussian interests was just a means to an end greater than itself.
I said that Bismarck did some progressive things regardless if he did so only to maintain the status quo. You can't claim w/o absurdity that worker's compensation is not a good thing, no matter how lame it may have been. Just because I call it progressive is not an endorsement of reformism.
The field of history does not discount pre-history because there are records & artifacts other than written documents that can determine things about the past.
History, that is past events, didn't happen in an immaterial realm. By historical materialism, this is what I'm talking about:
"What, then, is the chief force in the complex of conditions of material life of society which determines the physiognomy of society, the character of the social system, the development of society from one system to another?
This force, historical materialism holds, is the method of procuring the means of life necessary for human existence, the mode of production of material values – food, clothing, footwear, houses, fuel, instruments of production, etc. – which are indispensable for the life and development of society.
"The first feature of production is that it never stays at one point for a long time and is always in a state of change and development, and that, furthermore, changes in the mode of production inevitably call forth changes in the whole social system, social ideas, political views and political institutions – they call forth a reconstruction of the whole social and political order ...
"The second feature of production is that its changes and development always begin with changes and development of the productive forces, and in the first place, with changes and development of the instruments of production. Productive forces are therefore the most mobile and revolutionary element of productions First the productive forces of society change and develop, and then, depending on these changes and in conformity with them, men's relations of production, their economic relations, change. This, however, does not mean that the relations of production do not influence the development of the productive forces and that the latter are not dependent on the former. While their development is dependent on the development of the productive forces, the relations of production in their turn react upon the development of the productive forces, accelerating or retarding it. In this connection it should be noted that the relations of production cannot for too long a time lag behind and be in a state of contradiction to the growth of the productive forces, inasmuch as the productive forces can develop in full measure only when the relations of production correspond to the character, the state of the productive forces and allow full scope for their development. Therefore, however much the relations of production may lag behind the development of the productive forces, they must, sooner or later, come into correspondence with – and actually do come into correspondence with – the level of development of the productive forces, the character of the productive forces. Otherwise we would have a fundamental violation of the unity of the productive forces and the relations of production within the system of production, a disruption of production as a whole, a crisis of production, a destruction of productive forces."
file:///root/Documents/1938:%20Diale...aterialism.htm
Castorisdias is a revisionist. Your "primer" is either a poison pill or a blue pill, whichever applies. He not only denies the relevance of historical materialism but he also apparently denies dialectical materialism.
Actually you can....and the exceptions confrim the rule.
Right. So basically you do not understand what we are talking about at all and do not understand how politics work or how interests are served. Ok.
Except when you actually translate it into German.
And that is why your historical materialist outlook completely and utterly fails. Because the German unification was not a materialist factor but extended beyond class inetersts and relatinship to the means of production.
Actually...I can claim that without any absurdity. And this is why.
Lets apply your logic:
A payrise is never a bad thing. Right? Unless that payrise is less than inflation rates in which case the payrise is absolutely zero. In that case payrise is a means to prevent strikes and action which actually do improve the situation of the working class. This was the fundamental argument behind the changes: to prevent changes that would actually change things.
And those are not studied by historians.
You can argue till you are blue in the face...but this will not change.
Yes. And I am telling you that historical materialism is a tool and method and not an absolute fact or the only means to actually understand history. Nor is it the only scientific method nor that the materialist circumstances were the only determining factor in human development.
Unlike your initial claim.
Yes, I am fully aware of what Historical Materialism is...and like I said. It is a tool and not the end-all method of understanding history. Furthermore it is only correctly applicable during a very specific time frame and has severe limitations that actually can not explain large swats of history or certain developments.
Yes...and I do too. A lot of historians actually reject historical and dialectical materialism...a whole lot of revolutionaries do too by the way. For us it is a method amongst many.
And incidentally...not all Historical Materialists are revolutionaries or are social and political conservatives.
I will remind you of this article as an example.
https://libcom.org/library/history-r...us-castoriadis
But I would also like to direct your attention to Mann and Gelner who critique Historical Materialism and critiqued the idea of economic primacy and all other social modes being subordinate and only developing when a new system was matured. Their views state quite the contracy where Mann says ideological forces need to change before economic forces can change and Gelner actually saying political and military forces need to radically allow for economic change. Others have argued among similar lines. And we have not even breached the poart where we are going to need to talk about the driving force in history being class struggle.
And that is all besides the fact that periods in time actually directly contradict the theory of historical materialism and historical materialism actually failed to explain history in those periods.
Now...Marx hismelf knew HM was merely a method and actually recognized that his knowledge of history was limited in order for his theory to be anything other than a broad outliner with some valid elements. So I don't get your
unwillingness to accept that HM is not the end-all necessity you make it out to be.
What are you talking about? Signifying, for example, that there's one particular doughnut out of a dozen out of box that's on a dish on the table separate from the other eleven still in the box does not at say anything about what flavor that doughnut it is or what size it is in comparison to the others.
This, I think comes down colloquial vs specialist understanding of what history is. For the professional historian, history is a methodological intellectual discipline which deals with the human past in written civilizations. Indeed, it is separate, albeit very closely related, to both archaeology and classics.
However, most people do not think of history in those terms. They think of history as being the past and even include the non-human past. They think of the history of the universe. But professional historians do not concern themselves with the cosmological past or the non-human past.
The vast majority of historians deal primarily with the written word and do so most of the time. Some might also deal in oral sources, images, material culture (a friend of mine looks at fabrics as a means of expression of political views, another looks at medieval letter seals, another at paper as a cultural item under wartime austerity), etc, but I is not wise to overstate this.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
- Hanlon's Razor
