----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx
andthe thinkers he inspired'" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 0:06
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] the theory of the Communists may be summed
upinthesingle sentence: Abolition of private property. thesinglesentence:
Abolition of private property
CB
Here's my reaction to your reactions (now labelled V3).
Victor
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 ?
^^^^
V3: I regard the manifesto as a call to arms rather than a serious effort at
analysis. It is if anything more dated by the conditions that engendered its
production, than are Marx and Engel's theoretical productions. I know this
is not a direct or full answer, but it's the best I can give you for the
moment.
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.
V3: No, not like capitalism. Capitalism, beginning with Watt's steam engine
and its accessories, unites the innovative effectiveness of natural science
with production. The unity of science and production in Capitalist
production in the mid 19th century brought about the movement of creative
productive process from the slow, restricted development by creative labour
to the hectic and universal development we witness today.
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 ?
V3: This is in my view no longer a good question, because the answer must be
ambiguous at best. New forms of production, of relations of production and
so on emerge first as individual or singular events. Some of these develop
into particularities, i.e. special developments within universal world
contexts and even fewer of these eventually replace the universal modes in
which they were special developments and become themselves the universal
mode. Certainly this is the case with capitalism which begins as commodity
exchange, develops into a fairly complex array of interrelated institutions
throughout the European middle ages and only becomes the universal mode of
production in England in the early 19th century and in Europe in the early
to mid 20th century.
Is there a qualitative leap here?
That depends what you call a qualitative leap. In a sense virtually any
creative development, e.g. the development of direct exchange
(i.e.barter)the introduction of money, and the replacement of material
tokens of value (e.g. cowrie shells, precious metals and what have you) with
scrip are all evolutionary developments that are first, qualitative (as
singular innovations) and then quantitative (as they are adopted by more
individuals and communities) and finally once again qualititative (as they
become special and universal practices). Take, for example, the
representation of value by scrip. It's as ancient as the commercial
practices of Classical Greek and Chinese civilization, develops into the
regular practice of a considerable sector of European and Near Eastern
medieval society, i.e. urban commercial civilization, but only becomes the
universal mode of commercial relations between nation states in the mid 20th
century. Even today, scrip is yet to become the absolute universal mode of
representing value for all commercial transactions, though thanks to
computer tech, we are eventually and probably will see that occur within the
next 30 to 40 years.
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".
Prefaces to critiques of political economy are casual while political
manifestos are serious analytical statements?
No, Capital does not treat the issue of the relation between the relations
of production, i.e. capitalism, and the material conditions that engender
the development of capitalist relations of production. It is rather a
thorough scientific analysis of capitalism as it existed in early to mid
19th century Britain. In Capital the material conditions of production are
dealt with in the most abstract manner (only insofar as they are involved in
the relations of production) and there is no effort made to show the
concrete relations between the development of technical means, of natural
resources and so on and the development of British capitalism.
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 ?
^^^^^
V3: The answer to this follows from our discussion above. A search for the
mode of production that will replace the current one necessitates the
tracking of three separate phenomena:
1. Emergent particular modes of production, i.e. organization of
production, within the universal system that appear to be good candidates
(essentially that appear to be increasing in scale and importance, e.g.
power,) for future alternatives to the extant dominant system.
2. The relation of these systems to material world conditions with an eye to
determining the particular mode of production that is likely to enjoy the
most advantage from the most likely developments in the means of production
and the evolving character of productive activity (i.e. labour)
3. The developing character and personnel of the opposition to the
dominant organization of productive activity.
Note that the focus of our attention is on the mode of production and not on
one or another group of people, or protest group or what have you.
Historical analysis is first and foremost about the development of modes of
production and not about this or that social group. The rise of industrial
capitalism in the 18th and 19th century did not just produce capitalists but
also proletarians. In fact, up to the end of the 18th century there hardly
were any proletarians at all, even in Britain. The mechanization of
productive process and the development of the factory system were absolutely
necessary conditions for the rise of the modern proletariat no less than
they were for the rise of the capitalist factory owner, and neither were
characteristic of early 18th century Britain. At the outset of the 18th
century British productive labour was mostly skilled or semi-skilled and
still involved largely in manufacture rather than on the tending of
machinery, British agri-business was still the dominance source of income
for the state and for most of its citizens, and feudal law and government
was still strong, and the conditions of the development of industrial
capitalism were hardly perceptible even to the sharpest of observers. It is
only in the last third or fourth of the century that there appear the
initial signs of the development of a powerful industrial capitalist mode of
production that might develop the scale and power to contest the still
strong forces of feudal government in Britain.
Most of Marx's active research and analysis was carried out only shortly
after the two earliest industrial governing elites actually took over
effective rule of their respective nation states, in Britain in the 1840's
and in the US in 1865. Though Germany and France began to industrialise in
the early and mid 19th century, the capitalist elites of both countries had
to share power with strong agriculturally based elites up until the end of
WWII. So, for Marx the only examples of truly industrial capitalist
dominated communities were Britain and the US at the earliest stages of
their coming to full power. Important future developments of capitalist
production, such as the dominance of natural science as the means to the
development of new industrial processes, the diversification of the
proletariat, and of the full development of what we now know of as the
special capitalist brand of imperialism were barely known to Marx. Lenin's
work on theory and practice partly brought Marxist theory up to date, but
his creativity in this regard was partly limited by the orthodoxy of the
authority of the socialist labour movement and by the conditions of the
subject that most dominated his attention, the relation of Russian society
to the world-wide expansion of industrial capitalism. Both Marx and Lenin's
produced important concepts of the future development of industrial
capitalism, though neither men's works should be regarded as the last word
on the probable trajectory of the future development of industrial
production; its technology and its organization.
That's the past. Now what about the future?
At this point I have more questions than answers:
For example,
Are there current changes in productive process and in the organization of
production that are or are likely to come in conflict with capitalist
production?
One feature of interest is the rise of industries almost entirely composed
of technicians, scientists (and engineers) that could concievably operated
without the capitalist system, yet that actually or potentially wield
considerable power in the organization of social production. These features
are especially evident in high tech and biotech industries which appear to
be increasing in scale and in importance almost daily. What are the likely
developments of this sector of production and how will these effect the
capitalist system in the future?
As actual industrial production becomes increasingly mechanized, the
mobilization of labour is focusing on service rather than on direct
production. While the relation of this kind of labour to primary production
is extenuated, an argument can be made for their having a role in
production. So, what are the implications of this development of advanced
industrial production for the organization of production?
What are the consequences of internationalization of capitalism and the
conflict between labour and property?
and so on and on.
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.
Only to the extent that they share the same subject matter with Capital.
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 ?
See above
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.
V3: patience.
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
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