<<For Hegel, and I assume for Marx and Engels, regular incremental changes
(magnitude) does not turn into quality, but rather at some critical point, a
new
quality emerges out of and negates regular incremental change.>>
^^^^^
CB: I said quantitative change turns into qualitative _change_ . I didn't say
incremental changes turn into quality - if that makes a difference.
Here's what I said:
Quantity turning into quality is a change in the type of change; it is
quantitative _change_ turning into qualitative _change_.<<<
Comment
Although I have a profound respect for Engels and Lenin, I would not attempt
any statement or (heaven forbid) an exposition on dialectic's and the notion
of quantity and quality from either standpoint. Generally, I approach the
writings of Engels in the context of the general literature written during the
era
of his exposition. The same applies to Lenin for that matter.
As an abstraction of motion I tend to speak of quality first and foremost in
the sense of a process and quantity in the sense of the stages of development
of the process, rather than categories. In exposition as applied dialectics
and our social movement, "quantity in the sense of the stages of development of
the process," is expressed as "quantitative boundaries in the development of
the industrial system."
For example the Taylor system as Fordism - (production and assembly
technique borrowed from the Singer Sewing Machine Company) represents a
defining
signature of a specific quantitative boundary in the quality that is the
industrial
system, with the property relations within. Soviet socialism - (to a large
degree) adopted this characteristic signature of a specific quantitative
boundary in the industrial system.
It is important for me to make the distinction between quantity in this sense
and quantity in the sense of numbers or amount. Change is not a simple or
complex shift in the balance of forces or the simple or gigantic increase or
decrease of the old. Nor can change and most certainly emergence - especially
in
the complex social sphere, be understood as a "qualitative increase" of the
same thing or a given quantity.
>>Quantity (understood as magnitude or process or the quantitative definition
of a specific quality or quantitative changes at a determined stage) turning
into quality . . . is a change in the type of change (!!!); it is
quantitative _change_ turning into qualitative _change. << . . . .
. . . . can - in my opinion, be understood to mean that the quantiative
expansion of a distinct quality reaches a nodal point or juncture or boundary
that
produces a qualitative change in the process ("Change in the type of change")
and this is not how the complex social process unfolds. "(T)he type of
change" is pregnant with meaning reducing itself to quantitative or qualitative
changes in the process itself (type of change) or a change in the tupe of
change
(processd) generally referred to as the movement of antagonism or non
antagonism as process.
While contradiction is the basis for growth and development, antagonism is
the basis for destruction and the rise of something new. Quantity passing over
into quality means that within a distinct process a new "substance," ingredient
or new qualitative definition has begun emergence or been injected into the
process and this new qualitative definition grows incrementally as development
or evolution. This "new qualitative definition" takes place quantitatively and
it is this new quantitative definition that causes or defines emergence.
How this new qualitative definition arises is a different question than
quantity passing over into quality on the basis of the growth of a new
qualitative
definition.
It is not like the system of Fordism got bigger and bigger or the machinery
of the Ford era got bigger and bigger and led to a qualitative change. Nor can
such quantitative expansion lead to a leap - transition, in the industrial
system or its property relations on the basis of expansion of the magnitude
called capitalism and or the industrial system. At any rate this is not what
has
happened in the past or today.
The quantitative introduction of a new quality (a quality antagonistic to the
social process as it exists) begins the leap or transition because the new
quality contains within itself a definition (identity) or evolution that cannot
be fully realized within the old framework of the process from which it
emerged.
The quantitative introduction of a new quality into a process is very
different than stating quantitative change turns into qualitative change. The
former
means that some aspect or component internal to the process grows
quantitatively and reaches a threshold producing qualitative change. This is
why I do not
use the example of heating water and the heat threshold of 212 degrees as
constituting a qualitative changing of water.
Water in a gaseous state is not qualitatively different from its liquid state
in my opinion. One can of course speak of a change in its mode or state of
being - manifesation, in the meaning of the word form. Thus one has to define
what aspects of the substance as a process, one is referring to because water
does not leap back and forth between one quality and another by simply boiling
it (212) or freezing it, although there is a change in its state as form. Here
one is simply referring to waters state or mode of being as a "quality." Ice
for example is frozen water.
In respect to the example of boiling water the problem is fairly obvious. The
water itself is a process; the heat or fire is a process and also the
container and their interactivity is a process being described. Boiling water
or
freezing it as such does not qualitatively change the process that is water.
The
process that is water can be alter qualitatively, but that is not the issue.
Actually, one would have to disrupt the unity by injecting something else into
the unity process - bond that makes water H20, to change it qualitatively.
This can be done. Boiling water does not change it qualitatively. Nor does
freezing water changes it in the context of the meaning of quantity passing
over
into quality.
To continue:
Now the new quality develops quantitatively (incrementally) and, through a
step-by-step process, disrupts and destroys whatever previously held the
process
together. The change process erupts as the result of a new qualitative
ingredient disrupting the bond that held the old unity together. Quantitative
change
does not become qualitative change. Quantitative change passes over into
qualitative change because a new quality is in process evolution and it is the
quantitative expansion of this new quality that constitutes the process of
"passing over."
Beginning with quality and its quantitative configuration has always helped
me.
For example, an understanding of quantity and quality helps explain why the
simple intensification of the social struggle doesn't lead to political
revolution. The relation of quantity and quality is indispensable to helping
identify
the actual stages and steps in the line of march of the social revolution of
our time and the tasks of revolutionaries at each of those stages. A
quantitative increase in the exploitation, poverty and misery of the workers
cannot and
will never lead to communism. Revolt and even political revolution can take
place but not communism. Society cannot leap to communism on the basis of any
kind of political revolution without certain other qualitative changes - before
hand, in society.
People organize (create productive relations) around their tools and the
knowledge of using them (the productive forces) for the production of their
food,
clothing and housing and development of their culture, the arts, media, music,
etc. The dialectical development of the struggle between the constantly
developing productive forces and the static productive relations is the motive
force for the quantitative development of social systems.
Qualitative change (negation in its most common usage) in the motive forces
used in production is the basis of qualitative changes between economic
formations.
The sum total of the productive relations constitutes the economic structure
of society. The basis of the productive relations of capitalism is that the
working class has to sell its labor power to the capitalist class in order to
live. This fundamental relationship is static. Society, however, is much more
complex.
The relationships among the workers, among the capitalists, and between the
workers and capitalists are all part of these definite indispensable relations
that shape not simply the society but the individual. For example, the special
oppression of black people is part of the productive relations, as is the
position of the proletarian woman. The struggle for reform is precisely a
struggle to reform the productive relations. In this country, there have been
the
legal reforms of Social Security, civil rights and women's rights, to name a
few.
Capitalism's basic law of private appropriation of socially produced
commodities needs to be reformed. Since it cannot be reformed, the use of
advanced
robotics, production and distribution control by computers disrupts that law.
The quantitative (incremental) injection of a new qualitative ingredient into
the productive forces - computers, advanced robotics and digitalized process)
unravels or ruptures the bond between worker and capitalist qualitatively.
The sale of labor power and the labor process become incompatible with the
mode of distribution. With no reforms left, society turns toward revolution.
It is not enough to state that the bourgeois revolutionize production because
as a historical curve production is always revolutionize as the law of
history development.
Marx describes the process over and over and in Capital Vol. 1 Chapter 32,
Historical Tendency of Capitalist accumulation he describes the process under
what he calls "this petty mode of production exists also under slavery,
serfdom,
and other states of dependence. . . . At a certain stage of development, it
brings forth the material agencies for its own dissolution. From that moment
new forces and new passions spring up in the bosom of society; but the old
social organization fetters them and keeps them down.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm
Marx description makes it clear he is talking about the injection of a new
qualitative ingredient into an old sect of production and social relations
(property) and it is this new qualitative definition that grows quantitatively.
"This mode of production (petty mode of production. WL) pre-supposes
parcelling of the soil and scattering of the other means of production. As it
excludes
the concentration of these means of production, so also it excludes
co-operation, division of labor within each separate process of production, the
control
over, and the productive application of the forces of Nature by society, and
the free development of the social productive powers. It is compatible only
with a system of production, and a society, moving within narrow and more or
less primitive bounds. To perpetuate it would be, as Pecqueur rightly says, "to
decree universal mediocrity". At a certain stage of development, it brings
forth the material agencies for its own dissolution. From that moment new
forces
and new passions spring up in the bosom of society; but the old social
organization fetters them and keeps them down. It must be annihilated; it is
annihilated. Its annihilation,"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm
"At a certain stage of development, it brings forth the material agencies for
its own dissolution."
Quantity does not turn(ing) into quality, but rather pass over (interactivity
or as it is called inter/inner penetration) on the basis of "new forces and
new passions" - a new quality definition birthed within the sum total of the
old production relations.
_______________________________________________
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
