This belongs in Theory, I think.
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Does Communism negate Historical Materialism?
From my understanding of Historical Materialism, material conditions such as mode of production, class conflict, class relations etc determine the march of history. As opposed to the Idea driving history.
Now if Communism abolishes class antagonism, doesn't that mean that material forces will no longer drive history and history will be driven by Idea instead?
This belongs in Theory, I think.
Ideas are still a result of ones "material conditions". Think physics.
Material conditions, including for example means of production, does not disappear even after class antagonism is gone.
Why "think physics"?
"Events have their own logic, even when human beings do not." - Rosa Luxemburg
"There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen." - Lenin
If understanding you, yes the communist goal is to abolish materialism, and remove class antagonism. and to a further extent the classes them selfs. in a communist society what ideal would be driving people along would nolonger be pursuit of metrial goods but pursuit of "idea's" or non-material force would be "driving history", i'm uncertain what you mean by drive history, do you mean the forces that propel a society forward? or are you literally talking about creating history?
No. Communism is the conquering of social forces as a whole, and a return to associated social organization. According to DM/HM, it always exists, however under communism the "end of history" is reached, where class antagonisms are abolished as a mode of historical motion.
heiss93, your question is popular among dialectical materialists who use Hegel's model of "progress." They assert that the material conditions merge with the ideas surrounding those conditions and enact a force which reconciles the "conflict". Here we get a kind of "which comes first, the thing or the idea of the thing" puzzle which is really a question that cannot be answered.
The proper approach, I think, is to understand that "ideas" are limited to material effects, as a matter of reduction. Consider that language is a learned behavior, and that behavior is partial to material experiences, so the "idea", which is nothing more than language "in the mind", is directly reducible to the material conditions of past experiences. So no, the "idea" does not drive history. Rather, the voluntary behavior committed by a person who has an idea, and feels as if the idea is a stimulus for action, is caused by prior material conditions which have become matters of knowledge, primarily in memory, which actualizes itself through choice.....even though "freewill" is impossible.
The "idea" has relevance only through retrospect, meaning, nothing can be held as an "idea" that was not a previous conglomeration of thinking and acting in unison.
The struggle of the proletariat was experienced long before language was an evolved attribute. Consider that prehistoric workers experienced the pangs and agonies of laboring, and did not "think" to themselves with words or ideas: "this sucks". Instead, they felt the physical exhaustion and the lose of energy. Only at a point where man developed the capacity of language, and experienced the reality of class division, could he meaningfully communicate and express the same struggle he previously experienced physically, without the accompaniment of the "idea" of it.
In addition to this realization, he also had the intelligence to notice the opposing class that did not experience the same struggle as himself. Perhaps here is where we have the first real objection to opposing classes. The primitive man had the thought: "why does this guy not struggle like myself, but exists among us, consuming as we do." The first revolutionary activity was this rational contemplation, this nagging question concerning this opposing class's relevance and lack of performance.
I believe the effort to emancipate from the "useless class" is as old as even the smallest societies. From such beginnings, the revolutionary struggle was one which concerned itself with the utility and function of the group- it was simply a matter of trying to get rid of dead weight which did not produce. You have two cave men sitting around a fire. One of them tries to snatch the meat from the other.....the other remembers that he did not help in killing the game, and therefore refuses to share. Whereas two hunters would have a greater tendency to share the game, as they remember and recognize the mutual efforts each of them provided in the kill.
I imagine that instances such as this demonstrate the idea in mind here. Notice that language, outside of very simply phonetic expressions like grunts and clicks and shit, did not exist, so the extent of what ideas were had by these men was very simplified. The meaning of a verbal expression had to correspond with a routine behavior, or else the receiver would not know how to interpret it. So the rule applies again: material conditions first....languaging and idea second.
Class antagonism is not itself a material condition, but a consequence of material conditions, in this case the mode of production.
The establishment of a classless society wouldn’t mean an end to historical materialism. People’s consciousness would still be shaped by their material conditions, and in a classless society would correspond to different material conditions that would exist therein.
In fact, I’ve always thought that the Hegelian language really obscures the ideas of historical materialism. To put it another way, in ordinary language: the way people live shapes how and what they think. I don’t see why this would change in communism.
Last edited by Hyacinth; 2nd May 2008 at 04:26.
