Reply MP: To state that: "Class in capitalism is a by-product of an unequal and exploitative economic system; the division of society into economic classes is something that socialists wish to abolish" is obviously wrong and immediately spotted by anyone except the novice to Marx method.
Class within the bourgeois mode of production is the product of changes in the means of production that began development under the landed property relations or its political expression as feudalism. Classes at all times rise and fall and develop - emerge, on the basis of changes in the material power of production and how this material power is organized as a combination of human labor + tools, instruments, machines + energy source. Classes are formed by the introduction of new productive equipment. That is, by the reorganization of the means of life. Almost always, the new class and new classes are tied to and work with the new means of production. Today's new class is shoved away from the means of production and this is very different in human society. Even if one disagrees with the previous sentence . . . no one within Marxism can disagree with the fact that classes are formed by the introduction of new productive equipment and rise and fall on the basis of changes in the means of production. Such is the ABC of Marxism. In other words capitalism does not create the modern working class or the industrial proletariat. The revolution in the means of production creates the industrial proletariat as it evolves from heavy manufacture within the framework of political feudalism. Marx and Engels chart the emergence of the modern proletariat of their time in the Communist Manifesto and in Engels "Anti Durhing" and Socialism: Utopia and Scientific. Class can only be abolished in connection with the evolution and destruction of the value relations. Melvin P X-INFO: INVALID TO LINE One response: >>>Do you agree or disagree with the following proposition: Production and economic classes are the starting point of Marxist analysis> of human society, including in the Manifesto, because human life, like all> plant and animal life must fulfill biological needs to exist as life at > all.> Marx and Engels are looking for _necessity_ to put historical materialism on a scientific basis. In human biology there is necessity, things that > must> be done. <<<<<< Response: <<<<In essence, yes, whilst wishing to rewrite the first phrase as 'Production and economic relations between human beings are the starting point of Marxist analysis of human society'. 'Class' is a category that Marxists use to explain the division of people according to their economic positions, in various ways. To make it an a priori norm risks fetishisation, making class somehow about immutable identity and the like (and thus to hopeless romanticisations of those things perceived to be most 'proletarian' in nature, on the basis of empirical observation). Class in capitalism is a by-product of an unequal and exploitative economic system; the division of society into economic classes is something that socialists wish to abolish. >>> Solidarity, _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
