. Victor . CB: response to "the theory of the Communists may be summed up inthe single sentence: Abolition of private property"> > > If Marx had thought changing the technological regime were the focus for > revolutionary activity , _Capital_ would have been a book of > engineering-physics, not political economy.
Victor:Actually Marx did regard changing forces of production, labour and the means of production, instruments and subjects of production, as the "motor" of social change. (See the recent exchange of messages between V, V2 and WL.) CB: Your discussion there is based on an 1846 letter to P.V. Annenkov, which letter is superceded by subsequent works such as the Communist Manifesto. In fact in your discussion with Waistline you reach a point in discussing the Annenkov letter where you say: "Victor: Indeed, does Marx intend to account for the development of the forces of production by seeking their origins in political economy? The answer to both questions for reasons stated above and for the reasons you give below must be a resounding, NO! " CB: Wrong answer, Victor. The answer is YES ! Here's the thing. For most of the actual time of history, society is not in a period of social revolution. In fact ,before capitalism, the _forces_ of production do not develop very much , very rapidly. The instruments of production and the division of labor stays pretty much the same for millenia, and centuries. There isn't any great development of the forces of production throughout slavery, nor feudalism. So,in the quote on relations of production fettering the relations of production, Marx is sort of musing especially about capitalism, not really all modes of production of all times. ( Although there is a way to see that quote as more general) Notice, the Preface to the Introduction to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy or whatever in which the quote occurs WAS NEVER PUBLISHED. Marx didn't put out there for everybody his daydreaming about this. So, don't hold him to it so tightly. It's just a metaphor to sum up what he was thinking. He didn't mean it to be the most important statement he made at all, or else he would have published it. The formulations in _Capital_ are much more important , because they represent Marx's final decision on how to present his thinking to the wide public. V: The role of the material forces of production as the conditions of social practice are not direct causes of the relations of production, hence Capital could be written strictly on the relations of production. As in economics in general, in Capital the presence grise of the forces of production is in the form of abstractions that concern only its role as the condition for the social interactions it engenders. CB: I agree that the forces of production detemine the relations of production by LIMITING them. In that sense , they are CONDITTIONS of the relations of production as you say. So, if the productive forces fall below a certain limit, as when they don't protect New Orleans from a flood, there is potential that there will be a change in the relations of production,because the situation has fallen below the acceptable limit. The logical form is modus ponens and tolens. Relations of production ==> the forces of production. If relations of producution , then forces of production. Modus tolens: not forces of production, not relations of produciton. But for the forces of production,no relations of production. Force of production are a NECESSARY condition of the relations of production. Necessity is the mother of invention. So, when there is a great flood, it is necessary to invent a new setup ( new relations of production. ^^^^^^^ > >CB: The following demonstrates that followers of Marx and Engels would focus on > changing property relations, ownership relations, not on impacting the human productive forces who invent, inventors,scientists and engineers who make the scientific and technolgoical revolutions. _Discovery_ of the use of > things, technological invention is not the process that Marx claimed to have mastered such that Marxists would lead technological innovation, and somehow > shape technological disccovery and invention to cause a revolution in property relations. "Discovery" , by definition is unforeseeable. V: While it is true that Marx did not focus on the role of material conditions for social practice, he also did not denigrate their importance. He did however, reason in a fashion similar to your argument that invention is a phenomenon not given to analysis and as such technological development should be regarded as a sort of un-analysable natural force that gathers steam and then blows off decadent social systems that can no longer cope with its accumulated changes. CB: Maybe. I think it is more that when the productive forces _fail_, a situation of necessity arises. With capitalism, the failures of the productive forces are not in their scientific and actual capacity but in the crises of "over"production, wherein the capitalists destroy, underuse, abuse, move, curb etc ,in a word FETTER the forces of production to producing less than what those forces COULD obviously do FOR people. ^^^ Victor: As I wrote to WL this premise ignores the potential of Marxian dialectics to develop a rational theory of changes of the forces of production no less precise than the theory of the relations of production. Such a theory would necessarily concern also the social relations of production that are the conditions of technological development, but in sublated form, as abstractions describing only the relevance of social organization of production to the development of labour and of the means of production. CB: Please explain in other words. ^^^^^ Victor: Any effort to develop theories of social change, cannot be based on half (assed?) theories. To understand the likely trajectories of evolving classes and of changing class relations we must understand how the material conditions of production are impacted upon by social organization of production as well as how the forces of production impact upon the relations of production. From both first-hand experience with socialist experiments and from research I suggest that one of the critical failures of the practical program of social change, of social revolution if you will, arises out of the failure of Marxist theory to consider the impact of social change on productive practice. > "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the > single > sentence: Abolition of private property. " V: The abolition of private property is largely a legal issue, i.e. that element of the relations of production that are interpreted as rights in the system of governance characteristically conditioned by feudal and capitalist modes of production. In fact, the abolition of private property can only occur when the material conditions and the modes of production are such that new kinds of rights and new forms of governance become viable alternatives to the present one. > _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
