Rod Hay wrote:
> Since I, unlike Lou, am not able to consult Marx upon what he 'had in
> mind.', lacking as I do the power to make the dead speak, I will confine
> my comments to what Marx actually wrote.
Since Marx wrote contradictory things in respect to this issue, confining
yourself to what Marx actually works is implicitly, like it or not, claiming
the power to make the dead speak. An alternative to either philology
or spirit-raising -- and alternative which it seems to me that, with some
slippage, Lou follows -- is to focus on trying to understand history. Even
if we do tend to believe that Marx was always right, we have no choice
but to assume otherwise when he contradicts himself.
Before continuing, let me say that it is my view that the passage at issue
is probably one of the most unfortunate ones in the entire corpus of
Marx's writings. If he actually thought what he actually says here, he
was wrong.
> The quote that Lou provides, and others similar to it, is a useful
> summary of how Marx saw historical change occurring.
See Tom Walker's post on this. His construal makes better historical
sense, regardless of whether it is a correct interpretation of the passage.
>
> "At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces
> of society come into 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."
*Either*, Marx was speaking of the transformation of one mode of production
into another, in which case he was simply wrong, and the assertion gives us
no guide to historical understanding, *or*, as Tom Walker asserts, he was
speaking of transformations *within* capitalism, and Rod is correct but
his argument is irrelevant to Lou's argument.
>
>
> An analysis of current capitalism would look closely at the relation
> between technology and property rights. To take just one example, that
> we have discussed recently, -- the relationship between intellectual
> property rights and information transition technology. Something has to
> give and the big intellectual property corporations are running scared.
> Existing property rights can not be enforced. The results are unclear,
> because not only no I not have the power to channel the dead, I am not
> clairvoyant. But the existing relations of production with change.
But, as I said above, you are claiming to be clairvoyant. Nothing in the
quoted passage from Marx allows us to assert, on the basis of what
he "actually said," that what he said is or is not relevant here. For an
argument of the incompatibility of this passage with the totality of
Marx's understanding of history, see Ellen Meiksins Wood, *Democracy
Against Capitalism*.
The *political* issue, all questions of clairvoyance and philology aside,
is the "inevitability" of the transition from mode of production to another.
Cohen seems to think that an important proposition, and that it creates
a contradiction between theory and the need for political action. I agree
with Lou that there is no such inevitabilty, and the contradiction is an
illusory one. Or, one could quote Mao, "If you don't hit it, it won't
fall."
> And despite Lou's claim to know what Marx 'had in mind,' much of what
> Lou says contradicts what Marx wrote. Lou's theory of the end of
> capitalism is a Ricardian one -- that nature provides limits to the
> growth of capitalism (also put forward by in Marxist language by Rosa
> Luxembourg, but she knew that she was contradicting Marx).
I haven't made up my own mind on the political issue here, but aside from
a desire to provoke Lou I don't see what makes you so confident that
you have inside information that the rest of us lack on a hotly disputed
issue in marxist scholarship.
> Marx explicitly argued against that idea. For him, the limits to
> capitalism were internal to capitalism. Capital by its actions creates
> its own opposition. Now he may have been wrong, but that is what he
> said.
I think you are *probably* correct, but the probability is nowheres near
strong enough to justify this arrogance.
> There is no reason to believe that engagement of Marx's more abstract
> writings will promote political quietism. It is not the esoteric
> exercises of the academics that has led to the profound weakening of the
> socialist movement. But rather the lack of a socialist movement that has
> led to increasingly abstract and alienated intellectual work.
I agree.
> When there
> is no socialist movement, socialist intellectuals will talk to each
> other and to other colleagues. And they will talk in current
> intellectual language.
Could be. But that means that socialist intellectuals (as you define them)
are no more relevant to politics, historiography, or political theory than
are (say) Sanskrit philologists. I'm not wholly in agreement with Lou as
to the current tasks of socialist intellectuals -- but as you define them
they are *merely* intellectuals, having at most entertainment value.
> That will continue despite the moral outrage
> expressed by the true 'Marxist Revolutionaries.'
Huh? You believe that it is impossible or (perhaps) merely comic at this
time to be a "marxist revolutionary"? I suspect you have a romantic
conception of "revolution." Perhaps the conception of a student at ISU
who went off with the remark: "Call me when the revolution comes and
I'll be there with my rifle"? Even in the times of total quietude there is
nothing to stop intellectuals from thinking about the conditions for
changing that quietude (if not to bring that change about at least to
help us recognize it when/if it occurs).
> A moral outrage that
> would be more productively spent, if it were directed, in the public
> forum, against a system which promotes a set of values that is
> destructive to humanity.
I thought Lou's post was (perhaps unusually?) quite free from moral
outrage. I share his purely intellectual outrage at sloppy thinking -- and
it is certainly sloppy thinking to foist a concept of "inevitability" on the
*totality* of Marx's thought, quotation-mongering aside.
> My local paper today carried an article from the Associated Press on
> rising levels of global poverty. According to that article the UN
> estimates that the number of people living in absolute poverty (defined
> as living on less that $1 US per day) has grown by 200 million in the
> last five years. This in a world that has enormous excess capacity in
> agriculture -- where in the rich industrial countries farmers are paid
> to limit output. Here is a prime example of a contradiction between
> technology and property relations. We have the technical capacity to
> feed everyone but existing property relations prevent that from
> happening. Will the conflict lead to positive change? I don't know, but
> surely this is a situation that allows socialists to promote alternative
> property arrangements.
"Promote alternative property arrangements"? Do you mean, merely
writing academic paper proving that capitalism is bad? What else is
new.
Rod, not Lou, in this case seems to regard Marx's text (every word of
it, in isolation) as constituting Sacred Scripture.
Carrol
>
>
> Although I share Lou's opinion of Cohen's work, (I much prefer Shaw's
> treatment of Marx's theory of history) Gerry Cohen is not the enemy. He
> is simply a very bright ex-CP philosopher trained in analytic
> philosophic techniques, that wants to talk to his fellow intellectual
> workers.
>
> Rod
