"Quality and Quantity and Contradiction. Stalin argues that qualitative changes occur "not accidentally but as the natural result of an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual quantitative changes."11 We should note that this is only one aspect of this category of dialectical logic. It is the more "commonsensical" side of the problem. The more difficult question is how, concretely, do different quantities of the same thing change the quality of it, or why is it that a phenomenon is something other than its constituent parts taken separately. For instance, a thousand soldiers fighting together on a battlefield constitute qualitatively something different from a thousand fighting separately. Common sense tells us it is concentration that makes the difference. Yet a thousand soldiers fighting separately, scattered throughout the countryside, can sometimes be more effective than a thousand in concentration. As we can see, it is an aspect of dialectics that is not only complex, but forces us to recognize the unity of the two sides. Yet in Stalin the quality quantity process becomes more one of causality. Small incremental changes in abstract quantity create large qualitative leaps. There is no room for how these new qualities affect the quantity. There is no appreciation of the reciprocal relation of the philosophy of praxis (Marxism — ed.) quality is also connected to quantity and this connection is perhaps its most fertile contribution." Comment I am in overdrive conditioned to do 12 hours work with a couple of break and a lunch period. The above is why I hate and remain anti-philosophy. We are not going to hide behind philosophic concepts and mumbo jumbo.. Allow me to get the heart of the issue of Quality and Quantity and Contradiction. Here is the question posed by the author: "The more difficult question is how, concretely, do different quantities of the same thing change the quality of it, or why is it that a phenomenon is something other than its constituent parts taken separately." In this authors critique of Stalin’s "Dialectical and Historical Materialism" he adopts the exact same underlying thinking of Stalin and presents the same conclusion in different words. The question "how concretely do different quantities of the same thing change the quality of it," means you have not solved the equation. This is the wrong question. Here is the equation: the introduction of a new quality, - incrementally or quantitatively, into an existing process (quality/quantity), begins the quantitatively change - alteration, of the old quality. At a certain stage in the accumulation of the new quality, the old process or old quality begins the process of breaking down, and is forces to leap to a new qualitative definition. How this takes place is pretty easy for the workers to grasp. Once you introduce a new quality into a process and it begins quantitative expansion or receives more inputs or additions of the new quality, the process halts development and expansion on the old basis. This is so because the process now evolves and develops with the new quality within it. In society, specifically a historically distinct social system (mode of production), more of the same or a quantitative increase of the same thing cannot produce a qualitative leap or compel society to change qualitatively. The industrial revolution, inaugurated by the steam engine, was a new quality that brought the expansion of manufacturing to an end as it grew quantitatively on the old basis of the old technology. Not all at what time, but all the related clusters of technology associated with the underlying principles of the steam engine came into play quantitatively.. Now the process of quantitative injection of a new quality - the steam engine and related cluster of technology ( the mechanical flywheel, and electro-mechanical transfer bars and levers that Marx spends an inordinate amount of time writing about in Capital 1 dealing with machinery) contains its own law of development or dialectic. That is to say, the quantitative growth and expansion of the new quality - that has been injected into the old process - quality, meets resistance in the old means of production. This is so because the ld process - quality, is in fact a different quality and configured based on different principles of operation. The path of the quantitative growth and evolution of the new quality is a distinct process within itself that is interesting and exciting but carries us away from the main point. We have discussed this on this list as the law of emergence. A quantitative increase does not lead to qualitative change as such. This is how it is explained to the workers. To change something you make take something away or add something new to a process or situation. The reason why is because a process is really a coherent system of events. A system is a combination of parts making up a whole thing. If you increase all the same parts of the system then you end up with a big fucking system. Nothing changes. However, if you subject or add a new qualitative into an existing system you begin its qualitative alteration. How to say all of this is a 50 page glossary with 50 - 60 terms is an art. A professional editor, preferably one who is Marxist is needed. Now, in respects to Stalin’s dialectical and historical materialism, written 72 years ago in a still peasant country by an individual that had a peasant like mind, (revolutionary to the highest degree and extremely advanced for 1938, but speaking to a proletariat that was peasants ten years ago,) this booklet has it place in history. My thing is the critics adopt the exact same method and a nigga like me is not supposed to know when Fred is saying the same thing as Ed. Man, I need the critical and a level of ruthless intellectual passion unbounded.
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