Something else must happen in history to dig the grave of an existing social system and that something else is all ways bound up in the material development of the instruments of production. I refuse to glorify the so-called workers. Their struggle have driven the bourgeois mode of production through its various quantitative stages of development in the same way that the serf drove feudalism through its various quantitative boundaries. In the exact same way that the serf could not overthrow feudalism as a social system, the workers cannot overthrow capitalism.
The grave digger of every social system in history is exemplified in the emergence of new instruments of production rather than the existing classes connected to and existing in correspondence to the system of which they constitute. The slave did not overthrow slavery as such and the serf did not overthrow feudalism as such ant the serf drove feudalism through its various quantitative boundaries. In the exact same way that the serf could not overthrow feudalism as a social system, the workers cannot overthrow capitalism. In theory it may have been possible for an isolated section of humanity as serfs, to overthrow the feudal system in a small corner of earth, but this would be a true anomaly. The grave digger of every social system in history is exemplified in the emergence of new instruments of production rather than the existing classes connected to and existing in correspondence to the system of which they constitute. The slave did not overthrow slavery as such and the serf did not overthrow feudalism as such and the workers on a world scale cannot overthrow the bourgeois mode of production as such. It is impossible. In this concrete meaning the workers are not the grave digger of the bourgeois mode of production. The advance of industry is the issue. Social system are overthrown when something ripens in them and this something is not the two basic classes that constitute the social system. That is why there could not be revolution and insurrection in the imperial centers on earth. Let us assume that all the subjective factors or intellectual development of the class are in place with class parties but we are faced with a low level of development of production, like Russia, in 1917. What you end up with is the need to build an industrial system as was the case in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Not only was this not communism, but society cannot leap to communism on the basis of the industrial system anyway. The Soviet Union was a value producing society under the dictatorship of the proletariat. This was not a bourgeois mode of production and the value relations did not operate freely on the basis of competition in the market. But you had the value relations supported by - not foreign trade, but the relationship between agriculture and industry. Surely you do not believe that the working class in the Soviet Union served the role as the gravedigger of capitalism? We simply see things different. I reject the concept that the working class are the grave digger of capitalism because that is not what Marx wrote. Instead I advance a very different proposition. The bottom line is that the two basic classes of a social system cannot - are not free, to overthrow the system of which they constitute. It is impossible. Nor can either of the two basic classes that constitute the social system, as production logic, dig its grave. It is simply not possible. Here is what Marx states and you can understand it anyway you choose. >>The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." < _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
