Re: [A-List] FW: Part 2 - "911 and its Meta-Politics"

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 11/26/02 11:56:54 AM Pacific Standard Time, mstainsby@xxxxxx writes:

> >Terror is going drive Islam fundamentalism and Arab nationalism into a
> >formidable alliance.  Bush was right.  It is a new Crusade.  Just like the
> >previous crusades, the West will lose and will suffer the consequences by
> >seeing it civilization set back into a long dark age.
> >
> >Henry C.K. Liu


I want to further pursue the question of ideology - how people think things out and the economic factors that have buttressed the "American ideology." This thread will be followed up on but in the process of our daily on-line contributions - a new framework for theoretical and ideological debate, many issues arise. 

Other matters appear that need to be addressed because they highlight the theoretical and practical problems facing the social movement and Marxism as a method of inquiry. 

In a current debate on Pen-L that arose in connection with the death of John Rawls, brother Lou Proyect states as a follow up to his synopsis on the man (John Rawls), "the American political theorist whose work gave new meaning and resonance to the concepts of justice and liberalism," the following.  

"It should be obvious that any philosopher who tried to revive the concept of the social contract would have little in common with Marxism, which posits social class as the fundamental unit of analysis. What is not so obvious is the degree to which a sub variant of Marxism, namely Analytical Marxism (AM), adapted to this rather individualistic framework. This is from my critique of John Roemer, one such AM'er:"


This innocent paragraph is fraught with misconception and totally devoid of an understanding of the critical difference between Marxism and the Marxist/communist policy. The question of ideology exists beneath the surface of this misconception. 

Does Marxism "posits social class as the fundamental unit of analysis"? Anyone that has read Marx and the many brilliant writings of Frederick Engels must answer with a responding "No!"  The fundamental unit of the Marx theoretical approach to society, history and social life is coined in the term "historical materialism." This is not the same as saying "social class" and the difference has today become a material issue of policy. 

Marx analysis does not rivet on social class but rather what he considered the axis of his approach to man and society. I am of course referring to his specific conception of the mode of production in material life. Social class is not the fundamentality that gives rise to social relations of production or the mode of production. It is the mode of production in material life that sets the basis for social classes. Here is what is being stated: to proceed from the doctrine of the class struggle - social classes, and not the theory of the class struggle - the material power of the productive forces, which most certainly includes the modes of accumulation to the same degree it includes social class, is to sink to the level of ideologist. 

Sir here is Marx words, although Engels expressed the same thing repeatedly in the manner in which people think things out and by doing so carved out his place in history. 

"In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. 
The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness." 

Marx states several things in the above sentences. 
A, or 1. "In the social production of their life,"
B, or 2.  "men enter into definite relations."
C. or 3.  these relations "correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces," which I understand to mean 'correspond to a definite stage and state -phase, of development of the material power of the productive forces." 
D. or 4. "The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general."

Sir, how can one say that social class is fundamental or to be more exact, Marxism "posits social class as the fundamental unit of analysis"? 

The ideologues will of course say, "well, I meant . . .. And you don't understand that what we are really saying is the same thing . . . social production means social class because the material power of the productive forces engender social classes," but they are wrong in terms of what Marx stated and his understanding of the societal process as transformation. 

Social production means the infrastructure on which the individual is organized and though this organization, which stamps his individual activity with a social or common character, constitutes a society or social: the mode of production. On the basis of the mode of production Marx construct the theory - historical abstraction, of the science of society or the evolution of the mode of production, the emergence of classes, the development of the commodity form and money. 

The ideologues are also wrong on the manner in which they articulate what they think is the way the American people think. Hell, the American peoples already know that they are "evil" in varying degrees - and so is rest of the world according to the American ideology, and they understand that they are the most imperial - the boss or directing agent, in world social affairs. 

Brother Lou was drawn into this conversation because of the synopsis on John Rawls who advocated a different concept of individual liberty and fairness. What is not understood is the material basis on which this doctrine of fairness consolidated itself and it had everything to do with the plight of the Negro people or what in American history is called by the Marxist - pardon, a section of Marxist that consolidated on the basis of the greatest uprising against the state authority in America since the Civil War, the mechanization of agriculture. In other words the freeing - emancipation, of the sharecropper as sharecropper and his transition into industrial proletariat. 

More was involved than simply the transformation of agriculture because this occurred within the framework of the existence of Soviet Power, the defeat of a certain national industrial-national financial sector of capital and its emergence into what is now understood to be a pre-speculative form. What was involved was an accumulation of factors that would birth a new qualitative phase of history. 

To speak of the material changes in the material power of the productive forces is to be labeled a "reductionist," although I seek fundamentality and not reduction. 

The ideological forms loom larger than life itself and this is the shell in which social struggle is fought out. 

Here is the weak point in the American ideology, which is a class ideology of the billionaires. In yesteryear the expansion of the economic tended to buttress the ideological claims of the ruling class. Anti-communism was tightly linked to white chauvinism and anti-foreign because "foreign" is backwards - a less developed state of commerce. 

"The Indian is a noble savage and the Negro is a tool to be used and educated and the foreigners are - alien, to our way of life. Even the Brits are backwards and worship a King and Queen. The German are - you know, taken to bouts of insanity and believe in a white that is a tad bit too white. The rest of the world is a jungle - feudal social structures." 

The reality of economic expansion and well being - something the bourgeoisie and communist must compromise with, buttressed the ideological form. 

I believe that the next phase of profitability of the capital industrial system is going to crystallize the communist class as a political force and nothing on earth can halt this process. The crystallizing is the result of the transition to a new mode of production, which in turn gives rise to new class formations. 

I'm rambling and trying to "come down" from dealing Black Jack to tables full of peoples, who all want to win.  

I did not get to the point about the complexity of how classes fight things out on the basis of sectors and ideology. Nor why the victor is forced to compromise. 

This thing about the class struggle is misunderstood. 


Melvin P.