Victor victor
V2: Right, but he reiterated these very same ideas in the preface of Contribution to Critique of Political Economy in 1859. ^^^^ CB: Very same ? I'll have to read it again. Do you agree they are contradicted by the formulaions in the Communist Manifesto ? ^^^^ V2: In fact, both premedieval and medieval/feudal society was much more active than high school history books would have us believe. ^^^^ CB: But not like capitalism. After all, the so called middle ages witnessed repeated urban and peasant uprisings and efforts to establish utopias e.g. the Hussites of Mt Tabor and the Anabaptist regime of Munster and was a period of impressive advances in manufacturing technology. Remember, that the flowering of the natural sciences and technology of the 16 and 17th centuries preceded Capitalist Industrial society by 300 to 200 years. ^^^^^^ CB: Are you saying that there is not qualitative leap in development in capitalism as compared with earlier modes ? > 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. V2: Much of Marx's works were not published until long after his death, including his key 1844 works on private property (published in the mid 1930s). According to that formula the two last volumes of Capital, the Grundrisse (all of it, including the Precapitalist Formations), Theories of Surplus Value, and so on would have to considered casual flights of Karl's imagination. ^^^^ CB; This is overstatement. The Preface , like most prefaces, _are_ "casual", compared to the text. _Capital_ is on the same subject as The Preface to the Contribution ,etc. Probably , it represents what Marx thought was a better formulation of what he said in The Preface. Why didn't he use the same wording in _Capital_. Why count on people digging into your notes to find your key formulation of your ideas. That doesn't make sense. Even the form of the fettering thing is a _metaphor_. The "forces of production" that are not human can't act as subjects. The non-human forces of production do not develop themselves. The instruments of production can't burst asunder the relations between people. It has to be people who invent new instrument of production doing the "bursting asunder". You've got to pick a group of people to be the subjects of any bursting asunder. The groups of people who would be doing the bursting asunder would be who, as far as you are concerned ? ^^^^^ Marx's most negative discourse on private property are found in his earlier works (most unpublished until recent times). The Manifesto itself is hardly an analysis but, rather, an emotional a call for action at the very heights of the Europe-wide rebellions of 1848. Finally, the fact that Plekhanov and Labriola as well as Lenin all regarded the forces of production as the prerequisites of social organization of production must be worth some consideration in your argument. ^^^^^ CB: Marx knew of all of his earlier formulations. He settled on the formulatios in _Capital_ as his main publication of his ideas. The earlier formulations are superceded to some extent. Anyway, even if you go with the formulation in The Preface of the Contribution, the "forces" in that formulation have to be certain grouops of people. What groups of people do you consider the initators of bursting the relations of production asunder ? > 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. > V2: No comment needed. > > 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. V2: Ergo sum: >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. > ^^^ V2: In a certain sense this is just a way of saying: No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the tasks itself arises only when the material conditions of its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation. (Marx Contribution to Critique of Political Economy 1859). Which, as I wrote to WL is not really very helpful in making concrete the state in which the social organization is ripe for change. > > 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. > ^^^^^ V2: fair question, since this is the issue that lies behind my critique of Marx. It's somewhat involved so give me a day or two to describe it clearly. > > 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. >> > Cheerio, Charles _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
