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(I tried to clear this up a little and left out the Hegelian crap since in fact al of made the same general error. OK. I was being a pinprick. Less pin . . .) The revolution from feudalism to capitalism was a social revolution, compelling society to reorganize itself around a new technology regime. The social revolution begins - is excited to life, as the result of a qualitative change in the material power of production. The revolution in the material power of production is not indifferent to the existing property relations, but interpenetrates it, and finally shatters its boundaries to the degree these boundaries prevent - fetter, the quantitative expansion of the new technological regime. The revolution from feudalism to capitalism was defined as such amid social and political upheaval where the decisive battles were waged in the political superstructure. The political superstructure - with the property relations within, manifest the strivings of a complex of classes. The real social revolution was from manufacture to industrial production, with the property relations within. Manufacture is a specific organization or of labor. The property relation within that has been at work, within a specific organization of labor blinds the revolutionary to the elementary. No matter how it is explained, at the end of the day, social revolution comes about because of revolution in the material power of production. A change in the form of wealth and its corresponding expression in class cannot produce social revolution on its own, only political revolt. In such a context no matter what class wins the political contest, the technological unpinning of society stays the same, even when the property form undergoes partial change. Consequently, many have written eloquent protestations against “the industrial monstrosity” conceived and articulated as the ultimate in human freedom. The problem is that no one could see beyond the industrial monstrosity until a new technological regime emerged. The material power of production is the more mobile aspect of the unity that is mode of production. Both - means of production and social relations of production are mobile as the one express itself through the other. One is more mobile than the other. Which one is the most mobile depends on the development of the social process at a given moment. You wrote: “The overture to an era of social revolution is, as Marx put it, the conflict between the means of production and the social relations of production-- between the organization of the means of production in a specific form of property, and the demands for the reproduction of that specific property which can no longer be satisfied by the means of production when organized in that form. Coincidentally, as the opposite identity of this process, organization of the specific property relations encapsulating production become an obstacle to the further development of the means of production." (end quote) Social revolution does not come about as the result of “the conflict” between means of production and the social relations of production. The conflict between means and relations of production drives a specific organization of labor, as it is productive, through all its quantitative boundaries of development. Revolution comes about because of revolution in the material power of production or the productive forces. It is precisely the revolution in the productive forces that sets the stage for the emergence of antagonism between means of production and social relations. The leap - transition, is a product of antagonism rather than contradiction or rather conflict. Marx talks about how the steam engine served as a catalyst for the revolution in the material power of production. He also describes in detail the impact of the cotton gin. It is the quantitative addition of a new quality - a new technology regime, which brings to an end, the intensive and extensive expansion of production on the old basis. In this instance, the old organization of production was manufacture, which in turn superseded handicraft, as the qualifying character of the material organization of productive forces. This happens because the new technological regime is a more efficient form of deployment of human-labor. The very real conflict you speak of - (between the organization of the means of production in a specific form of property, and the demands for the reproduction of that specific property) drives a specific organization of human labor + machinery + external energy source through all its boundaries of quantitative expansion. You write that at a certain stage of quantitative expansion of the production forces, these productive forces inhibit and prevent reproduction of the social relations with the property relation within, in which they have been at work. Here is how this is written: "Coincidentally, as the opposite identity of this process, organization of the specific property relations encapsulating production become an obstacle to the further development of the means of production." Marx writes the same things as: "At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces, these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution.” I believe that Marx wrote this as it appears because in 1859 it was self evident he was speaking of the impact - injection, of a new technology into what had become old forms and organization of labor. It was self-evident he was speaking of a new technological regime as it quantitatively reconfigured the entire society infrastructure. Does quantitative expansion leads to - produces, quality change or antagonism between the forward advances of productive forces and stagnate social relations, property? What causes the property relation to become an obstacle to the further development of productive forces is not just the quantitative expansion or increase in density of the existing productive forces. A new quality or new qualitative definition must enter the process to produce the material for a leap. By leap is meant "process of transition" or all the stages of quantitative additions of the new quality that reconfigure productive forces on a new basis. This tiny thing called "revolution in the productive forces" was understood as "conflict narrative," rather than the impact of a new quality- technology, into an existing system of production. First, a new quality must be injected into the existing system of production, in order for the law of quantity leading to qualitative change to come into operations. Exponential growth of productive forces remains quantitative change, or more of the same thing. If nothing qualitatively changes then nothing qualitatively changes. The new quality makes its historical entrance as a new technology, which is the productive of the most revolutionary of all productive forces, the human mind. Change does not occur all at one time. It is the quantitative accumulation of the new quality - technology regime, which produces the leap - transition, or rather the dialectic of transition - the leap. This appears as the emergence of new technological clusters. It is at a certain quantitative stage of the development of these new clusters that entire new systems of production emerge. At a certain stage in the growth of the new technology clusters, a nodal point is reach and crossed - nodal line, and new systems began to operate based on the new technology regime. Marx kept it simple and said the steam engine produces the industrial revolution. He did not mean the steam engine by itself or the cotton gin in isolation of the advance of science. Actually, I cannot say what Marx meant, but it seems what was implied was the clustering together of the new harnessing of energy and labor power expressed in the steam engine and cotton gin. In the field of production, as social relations, a quantitative increase of the same thing, or rather the increase in the same configuration of machinery + labor + energy source cannot produce a qualitative leap. We have to explain what causes the leap or transition to a new quality. I took very serious your article on the semiconductor industry, which consolidated the leap in my understanding. This article positions everything good: concentration of capital, organic composition of capital and impact on falling rate of profit and capital flight seeking maximum profitability. The one ingredient left out of this terrific article - brilliant I would say, is the impact of the semi-conductor industry on the old technological base infrastructure, of the productive forces. You analyzed the semi conductor from inside the process of production, which was the articles purpose. What of impact on the existing configuration of production? I always felt you approached the subject from inside the process because that is what you do and you do this pretty well. Maybe six or seven years ago, we exchanged some writings from Marx Theory of Surplus Value, Vol 3 I think, on the external collision of opposites and the emergence of antagonism. What I could not account for is this: “what is it that drives a "thing" to leap outside the process that birthed it, and stand in external collision with the very process of its birth? I could not answer this question because of asking the wrong question. Some other communist did solve the problem of conflict narrative. II. The conflict narrative is what is written ii the 1939 Soviet Textbook of Marxists Philosophy. What account for the leap and emergence of antagonism? Here is how the Soviets presented matters. Pardon the lengthy quote. “The contradiction of any process is resolved, not by some external force, as think the mechanists, hut by the development of the contradiction itself. This is true also in regard to antagonistic contradictions. But in the course of development of an antagonistic contradiction at its different stages, only the premises for its resolution are pre pared and ripen. The contradiction itself at every new stage becomes ever more intensified. An antagonistic con tradiction does not pass beyond the stages of its partial resolution. Thus the periodic crises of capitalism arc a violent form in which the contradictions of a given cycle of capitalist reproduction find their resolution; but in relation to the contradictions of the capitalist means of production as a whole, these crises emerge only as landmarks of the further intensification of these contradictions and of the ripening of the forces making for the violent overthrow of capitalism. Antagonistic contradictions are resolved by the kind of leap in which the internal opposites emerge as relatively independent opposites, external to each other, by a leap that leads to the abolition of the formerly dominant opposite and to the establishment of a new contradiction. In this contradiction, the subordinated opposite- of the previous contradiction now becomes the dominant opposite, preserving a number of its peculiarities and determining by itself the form of the new contradiction, especially at the first stages of its development. But in contradictions that do not have an antagonistic character, the development, of the contradiction signifies not only the growth of the forces making for its final resolution, but each new step in the development of the contradiction is at the same time also its partial resolution.” (End Quote) The modern proletariat of which Marx speaks is the product of two simultaneous events: revolution in the productive forces and bourgeois private property. The modern proletariat is modern in relationship to industrial implements of production, described as cooperation in Capital Vol. 1 and proletariat in regards to the property form. What creates him? Marx answer is the “advance of industry” or the industrial revolution. You have generally answered the question of creation as “the advance of industry combined with the workers defeat, which imposes the proletarian form of servitude upon them.” The Soviet narrative describes the class struggle as it is driven by successive quakes of crisis of overproduction, each one more violent than the other, and on this basis the proletariat enters into antagonism with the bourgeois power. The proletariat is birthed in antagonism with the bourgeoisie and the quantitative expansion of the productive forces pushes it into crisis with the bourgeoisie. In the process of struggle for survival, the proletariat is pushed outside or leaps outside the struggle between employer and employed and appears in external collision with the bourgeoisie power expressed in the state. At the point of conquest of political power, the proletariat becomes the dominant class in society and abolishes its anti-thesis - the bourgeois class. “The proletariat is birthed in antagonism with the bourgeoisie and the quantitative expansion of the productive forces pushes it into crisis with the bourgeoisie.” Crisis alone is not sufficient to produce qualitative change. Is capital - as a historically evolved social relation of production, a property relation, birthed in antagonism with itself? No. Well, here I go back onto the proverbial limb. Wage labor is “the opposite identity of this process” that is capital. Capital is not birthed in antagonism with the electro-mechanical process or what is called industrialization. Capital - as a property relation, is birthed in antagonism with the landed property relations and the limited bound of manufacture. Capital evolves and progresses in contradiction with its opposite identity. Cooperation stands in antagonism with the limited bound of manufacture. Cooperation annihilates manufacture organization of labor. Capital in its opposite identity is birthed in antagonism with the serf form of labor, which is the opposite identity of the nobility as the landed property relations. It is the quantitative addition of a new quality to an existing system of production that transforms a "conflict" into an antagonism. At least this was my first impression. III. The conflict - contradiction, which is the "organization of the specific property relations encapsulating production", does not become antagonistic to the historical specific organization of production that birthed it and in which it houses. That is contradiction does not become antagonistic at a certain stage of development of the contradiction. This proposition is specifically what Chairman Mao wrote. The conflict between say the serf and nobility never became antagonistic because it could not. Antagonism is a concept of negating or sublating through a path of destruction or annihilating of a previously existing unity. An existing state of development of production - quality, cannot become antagonistic to itself, based on an intensive and extensive quantitative increase of itself, because an existing state of development of production encased in property, has its own history and had in turn mad it’s appearance within the womb of an old relations - unity, as antagonism. The addition of a new quality reconfiguring productive forces creates new classes - forms of class, corresponding to the new technology regime. Because the new classes are housed in and expressed based on property, they are birthed in antagonism with the old form of property. The new classes exist in contradiction with themselves and antagonism with the old classes precisely because they are expressions of property. The application of electricity to the industrial process created the industrial machinist. The application of the semiconductor to the industrial process creates a class of software workers. These new classes, or rather form of class are birthed in antagonism with the pre-existing system of production. Contradiction or "the conflict" does not become antagonistic. Contradiction gives way - is superseded, by antagonism. Conflict remains driving a system through its quantitative boundaries. Consequently, the previous generations of communists and Marxist could not explain the behavior of the industrial proletariat at the front of the curve. We, I, felt that imperial bribery of the workers was the problem and with revolutionary fortitude we could overcome what turned out to be a problem of productive forces development. Then I started trying to write from the standpoint of boundaries in the development of the industrial system. The serf could no more overthrow the system of feudalism than the industrial workers did did could over throw the system of industrial organization of labor - with the property relations within. What overthrows feudalism is the revolution in productive forces as it creates new classes hostile to the old system of production and its corresponding property forms. Read your article on the semiconductor industry inside out. Then consider if what you describe is the internal operation of a new technological regime. The semiconductor ain’t no modified steam engine. IV. What saved the capitalist system is not imperialism or bribery of the workers in say the post World War II years. Marx presents the equation. “No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the tasks itself arises only when the material conditions of its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.” “(F)or which there is room - space?, in it have developed.” How does one make a concrete assessment and estimate of how much room is left in a social system configured based on a specific organization of machinery + labor + energy configuration? There is only one way. By looking backwards and trying to figure out to what degree, the old social system has been negated - sublated. Consequently, every generation of Marxist, no matter what orientation made the same historical error. The conflict narrative is a historical limitation and not some evil deviation. For “which there is room” for the development of the productive forces, is in fact the story of conflict and at what point conflict is superseded by antagonism. At this point and moment in time, under conditions of property, “which there is room” is defined by the emergence of a new technological regime that brings to an end expansion of the productive forces on the old basis. V. Antagonism supersedes contradiction. Conflict remains. The generations of man are much to young for the knowing of the creators. As toilers we were created and as toilers we remain, enchanted by the gold never meant for us. WL. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from _http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
