Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marxism and Humanism
This is such horseshit. This is a peculiarly French variety of humanism and anti-humanism. It has nothing to do with how the concept is understood in the English-speaking world. Humanism is not metaphysics. The problem with humanism in the USA is different, as its relationship to Marxism. See my blog entry: http://reasonsociety.blogspot.com/2007/04/socialism-humanism-novack-mattick.htmlSocialism Humanism: Novack Mattick At 01:39 AM 2/13/2009, Charles Brown wrote: Louis Althusser 1964 Part Seven. Marxism and Humanism http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1964/marxism-humanism.htm ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] socialism icon needed
Aside from the hammer-and-sickle, and photos of Marx or other iconic figures, what other emblem of socialism can you think of? ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Marxism and Humanism; Laborious Humanism
CB: In Althusser's terms, the mature Marx significantly relocates humanism and essentialism, philosophical anthropology to human labor in that it is a main source of value; and there is a sense of human essence in the abstract equality of all abstract human labor. It's homogeneous and uniform. It exists in the organism of every ordinary individual. It's human labour pure and simple. , identically abstract ( and abstractly identical, human labor generally and physiologically and ESSENTIALLY the expenditure of human brain, nerves, muscles, c. Both the value creating character , and the use-value creating character of labor ( see below), are essentially human Marx's is a laborious humanism, in _Capital_ Capital I: The labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labour, expenditure of one uniform labour power. The total labour power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. Each of these units is the same as any other, so far as it has the character of the average labour power of society, and takes effect as such; that is, so far as it requires for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed on an average, no more than is socially necessary. ...But the value of a commodity represents human labour in the abstract, the expenditure of human labour in general. And just as in society, a general or a banker plays a great part, but mere man, on the other hand, a very shabby part,[14] so here with mere human labour. It is the expenditure of simple labour power, i.e., of the labour power which, on an average, apart from any special development, exists in the organism of every ordinary individual. ...While, therefore, with reference to use value, the labour contained in a commodity counts only qualitatively, with reference to value it counts only quantitatively, and must first be reduced to human labour pure and simple... ..On the one hand all labour is, speaking physiologically, an expenditure of human labour power, and in its character of identical abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value of commodities... The general value form is the reduction of all kinds of actual labour to their common character of being human labour generally, of being the expenditure of human labour power. For, in the first place, however varied the useful kinds of labour, or productive activities, may be, it is a physiological fact, that they are functions of the human organism, and that each such function, whatever may be its nature or form, is essentially the expenditure of human brain, nerves, muscles, c. CB:There is even an essential human natural equality of the use-value creating character of labor. Capital I: So far therefore as labour is a creator of use value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity, without which there can be no material exchanges between man and Nature, and therefore no life. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Marx's laborious humanism, species-being
Here is more elaboration of human essence in labor in the abstract, human species-being. For Marx, labor is human creative essence. Making is essentially human ( as is making out; smile) Of course human leisure, play, recreation is of species-being , and human essence , too. In this sense, philosophy of football is not an improper usage. CB ^^ The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value THE LABOUR-PROCESS OR THE PRODUCTION OF USE-VALUES http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives \ the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman’s will be steadily in consonance with his purpose. This means close attention. The less he is attracted by the nature of the work, and the mode in which it is carried on, and the less, therefore, he enjoys it as something which gives play to his bodily and mental powers, the more close his attention is forced to be. The elementary factors of the labour-process are 1, the personal activity of man, i.e., work itself, 2, the subject of that work, and 3, its instruments. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Why is history a history of class struggles ?
Althusser says: In 1845, Marx broke radically with every theory that based history and politics on an essence of man. This unique rupture contained three indissociable elements. (1) The formation of a theory of history and politics based on radically new concepts: the concepts of social formation, productive forces, relations of production, superstructure, ideologies, determination in the last instance by the economy, specific determination of the other levels, etc. (2) A radical critique of the theoretical pretensions of every philosophical humanism. (3) The definition of humanism as an ideology. ^ CB: By at least 1848 with the _Manifesto of the Communist Party_, we can infer that Marx has relocated the essence of humans , his humanism in Althusser's sense, in human labor. This is in part the reason that history is a history of class struggles. For exploitation of labor triggers a human instinct in exploited laborers to recover and enjoy all the fruits of their labor, appropriate all the products of their work. History progesses as exploited laborers win victories restructuring the immense superstructure with each revolution. Althusser's claim that Marx's radical new theory is scientific is correct because the new theory deals with _necessary_ connections in human society. Labor is necessary for human life. Capital I: So far therefore as labour is a creator of use value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity, without which there can be no material exchanges between man and Nature, and therefore no life. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Toolmaking and use as an aspect of the human labor and essence
Benjamin Franklin defines humans as toolmakers, Franklin anthropology. Control of fire, chemistry, is toolmaking, and Promethean anthropology. CB http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm An instrument of labour is a thing, or a complex of things, which the labourer interposes between himself and the subject of his labour, and which serves as the conductor of his activity. He makes use of the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties of some substances in order to make other substances subservient to his aims. [2] Leaving out of consideration such ready-made means of subsistence as fruits, in gathering which a man’s own limbs serve as the instruments of his labour, the first thing of which the labourer possesses himself is not the subject of labour but its instrument. Thus Nature becomes one of the organs of his activity, one that he annexes to his own bodily organs, adding stature to himself in spite of the Bible. As the earth is his original larder, so too it is his original tool house. It supplies him, for instance, with stones for throwing, grinding, pressing, cutting, c. The earth itself is an instrument of labour, but when used as such in agriculture implies a whole series of other instruments and a comparatively high development of labour. [3] No sooner does labour undergo the least development, than it requires specially prepared instruments. Thus in the oldest caves we find stone implements and weapons. In the earliest period of human history domesticated animals, i.e., animals which have been bred for the purpose, and have undergone modifications by means of labour, play the chief part as instruments of labour along with specially prepared stones, wood, bones, and shells. [4] The use and fabrication of instruments of labour, although existing in the germ among certain species of animals, is specifically characteristic of the human labour-process, and Franklin therefore defines man as a tool-making animal. Relics of bygone instruments of labour possess the same importance for the investigation of extinct economic forms of society, as do fossil bones for the determination of extinct species of animals. It is not the articles made, but how they are made, and by what instruments, that enables us to distinguish different economic epochs. [5] Instruments of labour not only supply a standard of the degree of development to which human labour has attained, but they are also indicators of the social conditions under which that labour is carried on. Among the instruments of labour, those of a mechanical nature, which, taken as a whole, we may call the bone and muscles of production, offer much more decided characteristics of a given epoch of production, than those which, like pipes, tubs, baskets, jars, c., serve only to hold the materials for labour, which latter class, we may in a general way, call the vascular system of production. The latter first begins to play an important part in the chemical industries ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
