At 11:02 29/10/97 -0500, Louis Proyect wrote:
>Ajit:
>>
>>This is a serious problem with teleological theory of history, as well as
>>the Marxist theory of praxis, which accepts the teleological theory of
>>history. As long as one holds that historical and dialectical materialism
>>is the 'true' theory and the road to truth (as Lenin did), then many crimes
>>against humanity can be justified in the name of history and human destiny.
>>A Stalin can always justify killing millions of innocent people in the name
>>of history and human destiny. Same goes with the philosophy of praxis (2nd
>>and 11th Thesis on Feuerbach).
>
>Well, wait a second. The real culprit in all this teleological
>totalitarianism was not Marx, nor Hegel. Nor the Enlightenment thinkers
>before Hegel. Nor Descartes who got the whole totalitarian rational-thought
>campaign going. You have to go back to Plato who put Reason on a pedestal
>and started the mechanisms that led to the Gulag Archipelago.
____________
I have not read Plato. But Descartes definitely does not have any
teleological theory of history.
____
Ajit:
>
>> It asserts that it would prove the
>>correctness of the theory by practice. If the practice involves crime
>>against humanity then that must be committed to prove the truthfulness of
>>the theory (both Paul and Jim should take a note of it). That's why I think
>>the Gandhian concern for compatibility between means and end is important.
>>
>Louis Proyect:
>Gandhi? Didn't the party he form get involved in all sorts of nasty
>communal fights with the Moslems? I guess we have to put the Bhagvad-Gita
>in the prisoner's docket along with Plato's Republic.
__________
Gandhi did not form any party nor was member of any political party. To
implicate Gandhi with "nasty communal fights with Muslims" is sheer
nonsense. Where you get your informations from?
_______
____
>
>
>>On the question of whether India was inherently a stagnant society or not:
>>It seems to me that Marx, following Hegel, does want to come up with a
>>'materialist' theory, as opposed to Hegel's 'idealist' theory, of
>>stagnating nature of Indian society.
>
>Marx was wrong in adopting the Asiatic Mode of Production as the key to
>explaining British domination over India, China et al. More recent research
>puts the rest of the world on roughly the same level as Western Europe
>prior to the age of colonialism. I especially recommend Janet Abu-Lughod's
>"Before European Hegemony 1250-1350". What Marx did say about India is not
>simply that capitalism was going to civilize the barbaric Indians. He
>thought that capitalism was revolutionizing the means of production, but
>that genuine PROGRESS was achievable only through socialism. The 2nd
>International enshrined the view that Great Britain was "civilizing" India,
>but Marx's writings tended to have much more tension around the question of
>the British role.
>
>There have been attempts by the Analytical Marxists to breathe new life
>into the British "civilizing" mission thesis, especially from John Roemer:
>
>"There are, in the Marxist reading of history, many examples of the
>implementation of regimes entailing dynamically socially necessary
>exploitation, which brought about an inferior income-leisure bundle for the
>direct producers... Marx approved of the British conquest of India, despite
>the misery it brought to the direct producers, because of its role in
>developing the productive forces. Thus, the contention is proletarians in
>India would have been better off, statically, in the alternative without
>imperialist interference, but dynamically British imperialist exploitation
>was socially necessary to bring about the development of the productive
>forces, eventually improving the income-leisure bundles of the producers
>(or their children) over what they would have been."
>
>The following paragraph in Marx's 1853 article, "The Future Results of
>British Rule in India", presents a more richly dialectical presentation of
>the possibilities India faced after England's conquest.
>
>"All the English bourgeoisie may be forced to do will neither emancipate
>nor materially mend the social condition of the mass of the people,
>depending not only on the development of the productive powers, but on
>their appropriation by the people. But what will they not fail to do is lay
>down the material premises for both. Has the bourgeoisie ever done more?
>Has it ever effected a progress without dragging individuals and people
>through blood and dirt, through misery and degradation.
>
>"The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new elements of society
>scattered among them by the British bourgeoisie, till in Great Britain
>itself the now ruling classes shall have been supplanted by the industrial
>proletariat, or till the Hindus themselves shall have grown strong enough
>to throw off the English yoke altogether."
_________
This only proves my point. There is a clear teleological stages theory of
history here. Crimes of capitalism, in this case colonialism, is pardoned
because it was essential preparation for socialism. I think later on, e.g.
in CAPITAL, he is no longer tied to such theory of history.
Cheers, ajit sinha
