Hi Ben, > On Feb 4, 2026, at 14:59, Ben Seattle via groups.io > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Academic marxism, unfortunately, tends to view all questions from the > perspective that social revolution needs to be avoided--or regarded as a > process of gradual change-
That sounds like an over-generalization to me. I just read a very academic-Marxist book that was all about revolutionizing social relations. She wrote this about productive forces, though: "As we’ve seen in chapter 3, critics of social domination like Harry Braverman and Moishe Postone argue that capitalism has remade not only the social organization of production but also the technologies of production themselves. This constitutes a significant departure from classical Marxism’s more technically neutral view of technology, which holds that a socialist society could simply use the machines developed by capitalism for different purposes. If we see the productive forces as themselves shaped by the imperatives of capitalism, however, it’s harder to see how they could be put to alternative ends." Battistoni, Alyssa. Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature (p. 220). (Function). Kindle Edition. I think the notion of the productive forces as neutral led Lenin to support Taylorism, which imposes bosses rules on workers rather than ensuring democratic control of workplace operations by the workers themselves. Mark -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40516): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40516 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117439078/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
