Re: AUT: Re: The Limitations of "Open Marxism"

[Ilan Shalif <gshalif@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi people
Just few notes in the margins.
I hope I did understand both Chris and Holloway.

In my long political life which started at abot age 15
with reading Capital I and other marxist and leninist texts
I was mostly interested in the relevant psychological processes
of individuals and groups.

As I was basically atheist and materialist (and feminist) since age 9, I was not
really interested in all the philosophical polemics with the opponents.

First point I want to stress must be obvious to all activists interested
in what other people think and do.

Of course a person can take gravitation into intuitive concideration
all along life without clear understanding of this physical phenomena.

However, the more you are involved with moving masses, the better
your chances if you do know more....

As activists we do not only want to understand what happened in
the past and guess what will happen, but also influence.

The understanding of the subjectivity of people is most essential
because history is mainly interaction among people, because they
feel, they think, have knowledge and memories, and even prediction
about the future.

The intimately understandig of the relevant processes is essential
if people want to do thing in more successful way the intuition
derived from personal experiance and learning history.

The main field of psychology relevant to our activity is
that of opinions. The creating of opinions; the multitude of
opinions in people heads wich are full of contradictions; the
systematic influencing of opinions; and of course the relation
between opinion system and behavior.

The second point is usually conceptualized under the
label of "development of social systems" meaning
the path from the pre-historic nomadic human groups
till the modern globalising capitalism.

For sure the "trajectory" is not like a moving object in
airless space.... However, from my reading of the system
the development through primary tribal organization,
slavery, feodalism, national capitalism, modern
globalization is not the result of chance.

Of course the fact that this was the fact is not a strong proof
to any thing but the obvious that it was possible. Looking
in the accomulated finding we can also discern some societies
that the path of development was aborted. However, taking
into consideration the fact that humanity as a whole is
accomulating knowledge, and both develop and accomulate
means of production, the continuety is not one of many
equal probabilities but the main one.

Taking into concideration the "Chaus" nature of multi variable
system, we cannot predict the path of future development more accuratly
than the wheather... But, not like the wheather, we can influence
the future development more significantly than increasing
raining, killing the Ozon, and increasing the hothouse effects.

Though the description by past theorist was crude and unidimensional,
the concept of the "develpment of means of production" being the locomotive
of history is sound.

This is why previous system could not achieve stable state for
long periods and had to develop further or degenerate.

You can see it in the development of some societies that were not
in any connection or very marginal ones. You can see how the
development of means of production in the present (with the
exelerated concentration of means of production, the
absorbing of all the world in one system, and the globalization of struggle).
Ilan



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