[A-List] To each according to work

["Charles Brown" <charlesb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> "james daly" <



I share with Charles (I think) dislike of Marx's implicit emphasis on 
technology. However, I think Marx's meaning in his use of the term 
"universal" in this context refers to the unity of the human race which
has 
been brought about paradoxically by the world market. Community no
longer 
means loyalty to a tribe, horde etc., with concomitant duty to fight
rival 
tribes etc., but what Feuerbach called "species-being", which is 
consciousness of oneself as a member of the human race, transcending 
consciousness of oneself as member of a tribe etc.

^^^
CB: I see what you mean, and it is an interesting thought.  

However, the notion of "tribalism", and loyalty to tribe expressed here
is bad and inaccurate ethnography and anthropology.   The primitive
communist groups were pretty much or relatively at peace with each
other, contrary to imperialist/colonialist propaganda. "Tribe" is a
European construct, not an accurate representation of indigenous
consciousness and culture.  "Savages" weren't savages.  War is invented
with the origin of the state.   The rule was marrying outside one's kin
, or exogamy, uniting groups.  There was no conquest of territory, etc.


The current species-being as consciousness of the whole human species
is a _re_uniting of the species, which closer to origin probably had
consciousness of itself as a whole, universal consciousness.

******************

Ted Winslow wrote:

"From each according to his : ability, to each according to his
needs!"

That such a principle proved impracticable in the former Soviet Union 
doesn't invalidate this claim since the requisite individuality and 
developmental conditions didn't exist there. In fact, they have never 
existed in any community.

^^^^ CB: Actually,they have existed in pre-class communites,
"primitive" 
communist communites, as in the Western Hemisphere before the Europeans
got 
here, or many parts of Africa, Australia; everywhere before the rise of

"civilization".

That's part of why we know it is not contrary to human nature to
organize 
society on this principle. It existed for most of the time of human
society, 
200,000 years before class society started.

How can this claim be made consistent with Marx's claim that the
principle 
"only" becomes practicable when the conditions specified in the
preamble 
have been met, conditions which include "the all-round development of
the 
individual" and with his claim that such fully developed individuals, 
"universally developed individuals,"

^^^^ CB: It could be made consistent with this if the individuals in 
primitive communism were universally developed individuals, no ? Why
don't 
you think individuals in elementary societies cannot be universally 
developed ?

"are no product of nature, but of history. The degree and the
universality 
of the development of wealth where this individuality becomes possible

supposes production on the basis of exchange values as a prior
condition, 
whose universality produces not only the alienation of the individual
from 
himself and from others, but also the universality and the
comprehensiveness 
of his relations and capacities"?

^^^^^ CB: Why is it that you think primtive communist societies could
not 
meet these conditions ? There is nothing in there about high
development of 
technology ? Have you read _Stone Age Economics_ by Marshall Sahlins 
demonstrating that hunting and gathering societies and by implication 
ancient hunters and gathers often have more leisure time than modern 
industrial societies ? The relations in such societies are famously,
largely 
those of mutual recognition and respect.



___________________________________



This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com