Question to Various comments in In Digest 77 by Michael Perelman 01 March 2002 18:15 UTC
Marx's idea of social forces may be grounded more in common sense than in some deep theory. One other factors that I see in his understanding of the transition to socialism runs as follows: people will see the tremendous social forces (capabilities or potential) of capitalist production alongside the actual performance, leading to great dissatisfaction and a readiness to make a change. I remain very skeptical of any attempt to give precise numerical calculations for any part of Marx's theory. Marx does use rough, back of the envelope, calculations from time to time. They seem appropriate. Recasting Marx in algebraic, mathematical, or precise numerical form, seems a bit foreign to his overall project, which his understanding the nature of capitalist society and the weaknesses that will lead to the creation of a socialist state. — ^^^^^^^^ CB: Perhaps we can say that many of Marx's concepts work out for ordinal but not for cardinal numeral calculations. One example might be that over the very long run of human history, besides the fact that we are all dead, it does seem likely that the power of the physical forces production in the technical physics sense of power increases though not uniformly or without ups and downs. Power is defined in physics as the time rate of doing work P = dW / dt. This is true by the growth of the human population alone as the muscle power is a physical force of production. Domestication of animals adds many new muscles. Then every machine that is discovered, the wedge, the wheel, the lever , steam engine . augments muscle power. Let me make clear that I am not calling this growth of power of the forces of production human progress, but phyiscal "progress" in the most vulgar sense. As I said, because forces of production are always accompanied by their shadow in the forces of destruction, and so "progress" in the power of the forces of production, is increase in the power of the forces of destruction at the same time. And so, progress and uneven development of physical prowess underlies "...injustice, tyranny, servitude - in short , the whole reprehensible history of the past.' as Engels puts it in _Anti-Duhring_ .
