Waistline, whose almost always wrong: 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. ^^^^^^ Lawyer Brown, lawyerly question: What is it you think the classes struggle over in the class struggle that Marx and Engels refer to ? It is the bourgeois revolution in the property relations that triggers constant revolutions in the instruments of production. MP: The facts of life remain what they are no matter how one explains things. First tools, instruments and machinery is developed in human history and then property relations. See . . . when the Biblical Adam struck the first hoe in the ground (there was no Adam to til the land) there most certainly did not exist any form of property relations. The reason why is that something must exist to own first. Then these tools and instruments have to be deployed over a lengthy period for the human community to acquire a surplus of products, over and above ones immediate needs, and then property forms emerge as a field of contest. First comes the revolution in production then its manifestation in the stagnant superstructure of society. What triggers the revolution in production is human ingenuity but this is not a planned act and hence, it is proper to speak of the spontaneous development of the means of production as a current of human history. I have no hesitation whatsoever with my approach and vision that views material relations of production - rather than ownership rights or forms of property relations as being fundamental. It is not the bourgeois revolution that triggers revolution in the instruments of production and this is fairly obvious. Adding the word "constant" does not change elementary basic facts or the law system defining the interactivity between material artifacts of production and forms of classes. Like a petty flogging attorney you cannot see the obvious. The issue is not the pace, tempo or centrifugal forces of the revolution in the productive forces. What triggers the revolution in the productive forces is human ingenuity. You ask Lawyer Brown, "What is it you think the classes struggle over in the class struggle that Marx and Engels refer to" as if you have an important insight. Your question is bogus because classes are not abstract categories. Following your petty flogging lawyer mentality, may I ask what classes you are talking about? As long as you remain in the theater of the abstract you make sense to yourself and those like you. What the workers and the capitalist struggle over - in the class struggle (listen to this self contained logic that passes itself for insight) that Marx and Engels speak of, is obviously what they have always struggle over in the class struggle that Marx and Engels speak of. Now in the history of America what the workers and capitalist have struggler over . . . is nothing because this is a bogus question. The struggle between the workers and capitalist is in its essence always a struggle for a greater portion of the social product and for political liberties. This is called the class struggle because it is a struggle between contending classes that constitute the basis of the social system. This understanding is all right until one considers the meaning of society moving in antagonism. My understanding of the meaning of antagonism, as I have stated perhaps ten times springs from and build upon the prevention of the meaning of antagonism in the Textbook of Marxist Philosophy 1936 pages 170 - 176. What the serf and nobility struggle over poses the question incorrectly. Rather the question posed is "what describes the struggle between serf and nobility as the two basic social classes underlying the system of landed property - with its entire infrastructure of tools, instruments and machines that corresponded to this particular mode of production." See . . . Mr. Lawyer the struggle between the two basic class of a social system - what is called the class struggle, is what drives a particular social system through its various quantitative boundaries of expansion. The same is true for worker and capitalist. The struggle between worker and capitalist in America has never been about abolishing the social system of which they constitute. At every phase of this very real struggle - since at least the Civil War, the struggle between worker and capitalist have been a struggle for a more equality share of the social products on the part of the workers and for expanded political liberties. During this struggle the communist has fought to impart to the cutting edge of the social struggle a communist consciousness of the relations of one class to another. What classes struggle over is their self perceived rights. As long as you remain in the theater of the abstract . . . Mr. petty flogging attorney . . . you remain at the bottom with car salesmen. Now you know why American society holds your occupation in contempt. No one expects to get a straight answer from a lair or rather lawyer. And on top of all of this you still espouse Uncle Tom Marxism . . . begging for your rights. Melvin P.
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