Eva:
>None of the "Grand design" etc. is involved in a marxist analysis, as it
happens.
Only the description of economic mechanisms and their depictable
consequences. Please do not follow the established sloganising about
socialist thinking, it is false propaganda.
I'm not exactly sure of what is meant by this, but in my opinion everything
important ever written in the social fields has involved sets of
presuppositions and desired outcomes that can be called a "grand design".
Marx didn't simply wake up one morning and say to himself "Hmm. Today I'm
going to start thinking about the economy and write a book on capital". He
had given a lot of thought to how the world works before his ideas jelled
into what can only be termed "a grand design" which took him from how the
world actually works to how it ought to. He borrowed heavily from other
grand designs, particularly Hegel's dialectical theory of history. If, as
you seem to be saying, Kapital is essentially analytical, taking us from the
world as it is to the logical outcome of this world, the Communist Manifesto
is most certainly ideological and most certainly prescribes a revolutionary
aftermath that is most certainly a "grand design".
A more important point, however, is that, when a theory enters the realm of
the practical, steps and consequences are attached to it which the author of
the theory may not have intended. Crusaders, ideologues and petty
politicians, many of whom have only a very passing knowledge of the original
grand design, take over and create a grand design which happens to suit
their particular purposes. The vast, repressive, enormously wealthy and
powerful medieval church was built on the simple words of Christ, just as
the vast, (then) enormously wealthy, repressive and powerful Soviet Union
was created on the appealing, if not simple, ideas of Marx. I'm sure both
Christ and Marx would have been horrified if they were able to see what had
been done in their names.
Ed Weick
