This is stimulating but wrong--stimulatingly wrong--I think. Marx
speculates that all epochs have their own law of population, for
example. He was only ('only'!) studying capitalism and what went
before. There are surely laws of history in communism but we don't
know
what they are yet. Communism is a realm of more freedom, and certainly
freedom from the laws of capitalism you mention, but there is still
necessity to recognize and work with, the underlying necessity of
interacting with nature, our existence as biological beings.
^^^
CB:
Yes, I agree. We will still have to eat and sleep etc. We will still be
earthly beings. The word "necessity" in the phrase "realm of
necessity" is a somewhat specific usage. Check here:
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2006w13/msg00105.htm
The "realm of freedom" does not mean that there will be nothing people
must do in order to survive materially. It means the peculiar
necessities ( your unnecessary necessities) imposed by class divided
society will no longer be imposed on people.
What I say usually is there will be new contradictions. The
contradictions of class divided society, those irreconcilable
antagonisms will be gone. But , as you imply, there will still be
contradictions with nature. There will still be challenges to physical
survival that we will have to meet. As an example that has come up
since Marx died, fossils fuels will eventually be depleted, so we will
have to find new mass energy sources. I mean fossil fuels weren't even
the main source of energy in Marx's lifetime. That adventure is a big
new contradiction.
^^^^^
(And
there's a feminist dispute with Engels footnote you mention--Marx
doesn't make an exception, that word 'all' again, "The history of all
hitherto existing society..." There is still struggle, a history of
struggle probably going back before we were human, due to the
reproductive division of labor.)
^^^^
CB: There is a struggle and _unity_ of opposites ,yea.
In that sentence, the "class" of "class struggle" is used to refer
specifically to antagonistic contradictions in the productive division
of labor between exploiting and exploited classes. In _The German
Ideology_, they also see this as between predominantly mental and
predominantly physical labor. The evidence is those don't exist in the
original human societies. Marx was alive when Engels put the footnote in
, I think. Marx was studying ethnography heavily at the end of his life
( See _Precapitalist Formations_ ; International). Didn't even finish
_Capital_. Engels says he wrote _The Origin of the Family , Private
Property and the State_ as a kind of bequest from Marx ( I think that
was the usage). In 1848, they didn't have much anthropology ( see my
crtique of their anthropology in _The German Ideology_ in "For Women's
Liberation)
Which was the exploiting group in the ancient reproductive division of
labor ? (smile). Of course, the "division of labor" between who gets
pregnant and who doesn't was biological ,not cultural. However, a
division of labor doesn't necessarily have to be an antagonistic
contradiction. For example, the division of labor between a pilot and a
navigator is not inherently antagonistic. The division of labor in "the
sex act" is not inherently antagonistic. Can be a non-antagonistic unity
and "struggle" ( wiggle) of opposites (!). A couple dancing is a
harmonious unity and struggle of opposites.
^^^^^
The goal would be to get down to the
necessary necessities, if you will, and not be controlled by the
unnecessary necessities, the necessities imposed by the laws of
capitalism--maybe that's what you're getting at here. I think Lenin
says something about humanity's asymptotic historical relationship with
freedom--getting closer but never quite there.
^^^^^
CB: There's the old Hegelian trope that freedom is the mastery of
necessity. The "realm of necessity" and the "realm of freedom" use
freedom and necessity in this sense. With class divided society,
including capitalism, there is enormous mastery of nature with much
technology, but the vast majority don't get the full benefit of the
technological control of nature because they are forced to jump through
so many artificial hoops to get their necessary necessities , as you
put it.
^^^
I'm just back from Venezuela where they're trying to build
socialism--through participatory democracy--in the middle of a
capitalist stew. Whew! It's a daily confrontation between democracy
and capitalism. Chavez says, "Yes, it is important to end poverty, to
end misery, but the most important thing is to offer power to the poor
so that they can fight for themselves."
Jenny Brown
CB: Viva , Chavez and the V Rev ! Self-determination ! The working
class as subjects of history.
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