Re: Heroes, causes and Marx

[Adam Shapira <vorlon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Margaret Trawick wrote:
>


> In the twentieth century, Marxism as an overall program has not succeeded, nor
> has it failed.  It has made, and will continue to make, a great contribution
> toward the liberation of human beings from their own self-destructive devices.
> But is it not possible to learn from the mistakes, and to revise the Marxist
> program accordingly?  I know that "revisionism" has resulted in corruption,
> destruction, and fallbacks to old established systems of domination.  But can
> we not look to a greater vision, incorporating the wisdom of Marx,
> acknowledging his mistakes, and building upon the many unexpected lessons
> learned of the past century?

And a high priority must be keeping people like
Stalin out. The Bolshevik revolution may have
started out benevolent ... but then, it had
Stalin (and maybe a few others like him) just
riding along, in hopes of manipulating the
movement so that he could become the new
dictator in the Czar's place ... and in the
end, he succeeded.


>
> Some things change, some things stay the same.  Forgive the triteness of this
> quotation from some popular song.  But I think we have to look objectively at
> what has changed and what has stayed the same.  Also, it is foolish to reject
> the thoughts of people who are not Marxists in Marx's tradition.  Marx is not
> some kind of god.  He was a brilliant man who made a great contribution to
> human thought.  But he was also fallible.  He made some conceptual errors.  The
> minute you deify him, you kill the contribution.

Of course ... Marx never asked to be deified.

>
> People who think that socialist revolution is no longer on the agenda are
> simply blind.  It does not matter whether they are Marxists or not.  Anyway,
> who cares who is a Marxist and who is not?   You do.  I don't.  I care about
> who sees clearly the world as it is, and who has the courage to say what they
> see.
>
> >>
> >> And since Marx has explained very clearly how the development of the forces
> >> of production explodes the constraints put in their way by any historically
> >> inadequate set of relations of production (in the case of capitalism, by
> >> the private appropriation of wealth being in antagonistic contradiction to
> >> the social production of wealth), we can assume that capitalism will not
> >> last for ever, and neither will the capital relationship it rests on.
> >> "Flash in the pan" it might well appear to be to people living a millennium
> >> from now, but for us it means not just our own lifetime but that of many
> >> generations preceding us. Let's hope it won't oppress many after us.
> >>
>
> I think there is a serious problem in assuming that capitalism will inevitably
> lead to its own demise.  Two serious problems.  First, nothing is inevitable.
> We cannot assume anything.  Whatever happens will be made to happen by human
> beings - you, me, and everyone else - acting of their own free agency.  Second,
> assuming inevitability is a form of fatalism.  It encourages inaction.

Unless you re-define the term "inevitable". What I'm
saying is that the term "inevitable" may not be meant
literally. Perhapse, the "inevitability" of the demise
of capitalism refers to two things combined ...

  (1) Capitalism causes serious social problems, to
  which many people in *all* nations (including the
  US) are victims.

  (2) If enough people get sick of these bad conditions
  that are brought on by capitalism, the pelple *can*
  fight back, and do so *successfully*. The key words
  being "*enough* people". Just a person here and a
  person there won't be enough to stop capitalist
  exploitation. It has to be a large enough group.

>
> We may work and fight to make what we perceive as inevitable happen sooner.
> But really what we are working and fighting for in this case is the well-being
> of ourselves, our own children and our own grandchildren.  It can go no further
> than that.  The ruling classes care about exactly the same thing.  They want
> themselves, their children and their grandchildren to continue with their
> privileges.  This is a matter that can be worked out.
>
> >>
> >> Money represents value produced by labour. It's the collection of this and
> >> its divvying up that creates the confusion. Again Marx clarifies this in
> >> the Grundrisse, in the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
> >> and in Capital itself. He shows the fundamental relationship between money
> >> and commodities, and demonstrates the various ways in which fetishism acts
> >> to give the impression of real phenomena to things which are only
> >> derivative and secondary (like profit, interest and wages) as opposed to
> >> the scientific reality and primacy of things which appear to be abstract
> >> and insubstantial (like value). This fetishism produces the smoke and
> >> mirrors, the ghosts and the hallucinations.
> >>
>
> All agreed.  Previous comment retracted.
>
> >>
> >> Marx did think about it. In Capital I he has the chapter on commodity
> >> fetishism. Much of the Grundrisse is devoted to this kind of theme, and
> >> almost of Capital III deals with the processes of fetishism of surface
> >> reflections of value that lead to profit, interest, wages and the various
> >> financial instruments that preoccupy so many people who should know better.
> >>
>
> This is why I advocate more concern for the local,  less universalism, and less
> globalization.  So that people will not be alienated from the fruits of their
> own labor.  Clearly, people of different localities must support one another,
> so that if a crop fails here, food will be provided from the surplus produce of
> there.  Capital (money) is the most convenient means of exchange.  It is also
> the most convenient means of domination.  I do not see any way to stop
> capitalist exploitation except from within the capitalist system itself,
> through anti-trust legislation and the like.

There is a point here ... but eliminating currency and
going back to the barter system is not necessarily the
solution to our problems. Before people started coining
money, they used gold and other precious metals, and
at even earlier times they used other things, such as
shark teeth, etc., all as forms of currency. I could
almost say for sure that having currency is part of
Human nature, in which case abolishing it would most
likely lead to it re-evolving.

Even now, when formal currency exists, informal forms
of currency tend to evolve as well. For instance, if
you have enough high-valued MAGIC: THE GATHERING cards,
I bet you could buy a whole lot of stuff without having
to touch a dollar or a cent.

Then again, though I do not advocate abolishing
currency, I *do* think it needs to be reformed.


>
> All I can say to this is, look more to the present.  Get out of the USA.
> Fordism reigns there, and the workers of the USA are nationalistic to the
> hilt.  They consider their enemies to be people who come from other countries.
> An international union of workers is the farthest thing from their minds.
>
[snip]
>
> The workers of the USA rightly consider that they have a pretty good deal.
> They are better fed than the workers of any other country, and they want to
> keep it that way.  They know that they are members of the global ruling class.
> Sure they are exploited by the hyper-rich and they know that, too.  They deal
> with it by means of their own mini-capitalist enterprises.  They would be out
> of their minds to try and overthrow the American Way.
>
> America is the home and center of global capitalism.  It is more internally
> stable than any nation is or ever has been.  If you want to fight capitalism,
> you have to fight America, and you have to fight the American working class.
> Good luck.
>
[snip]
>
> All I can say is to look outside modern America for the sacrifices to happen.
> See them, join them, renounce the American nation.
>
> MT

I disagree with this statement about America. Most Americans
*don't* want to be exploited ... but they just don't know
what they can do about it.

True, the American worker's class may have more *physical*
means than workers in other countries ... but not enough
to make up for the fact that they, just like workers of
everywhere else, have little or no control over their
what happens.