Re: Social Relations, Revolution, and Capital [To MARIPOWER]

[MARIPOWER716@xxxxxxx]

>"Capital as a social power creates its own social relations and shapes of
ideological discourse and material interactions - and their shapes, that
constitute the material wherewithal of the shape thinking and generates its
spontaneous historically evolved praxis. Stepping outside this historically  
evolved
system is not possible as such but what happens is an internal development -
reconfiguration of classes begins, a compulsion, - not unlike that emergence
of the bourgeoisie and modern proletariat under feudalism, that compels
society  to leap to another political basis more than less in conformity to the
productivity and  ideological infrastructure and "superstructure."<


<I like it "cum grano salis" (with a grain of salt). According to Marx the
transformation of capitalism implies and marks the end of human pre-history and
 the beginning of human history. That means that humans do grasp their
"being" as a species and do overcome a mediation by ideological (alienated)
infrastructure and superstructure. Furthermore, productivity would no longer be
driven by
alienated forces. What do you think about it?
Value-free greetings
Petra>

Reply


"What do (I) think about it?"  Different strokes for different folks.  In the
last instance as individuals we are all just a grain of sand on the beaches
of history. It is when one grain of sand is taken and understood in relations
to the other grains that we get rhythm. At the end of this statement is a quote
from Marx concerning the stages of "overcoming a mediation by ideological
(alienated) infrastructure and superstructure."  I state emphatically that
communism is impossible without a communist class. That the communist class has
arisen and is a new feature in modern world history. That this communist class
arises on the same basis that all classes arise.

The fact of the matter is that we are undergoing a material change in the
productivity and communications infrastructure as revolutionary as the 
transition
from manufacture to "large scale industry" - nay, more revolutionary because
the basis is set for the abolition of the value producing system as it arose
in the real world and not as an abstraction.

Marx uses pre-history not so much in respect to the transformation of
capitalism in my opinion but post transformation called the communist society 
and not
simply socialism. This is of course why you must state what Marx "implied"
about capitalism, rather than what he actually stated. Further, I contend it is
not such much "pre-history" as it is the last stage of barbarism, which is the
meaning I derive from Marx as "lived praxis." Human being always grasps their
being as species and this is relative by definition and absolute as a
widening of human knowledge. The historical dimension of social consciousness 
moves
from the lower to higher forms of consciousness, and man finally acquires more
than less conscious control over his species activity as associated producer.
How things are grasped as species activity as the laboring process - its form
and content (dimensions), is conditioned by many factors and evolves over
time. Species activity is grasped and understood in every widening cycle of 
growth
and development and only at a certain stage in the development and evolution
of the material power of production, after society has seized control of this
activity on behalf of itself, does consicousnes becomes "conscious species
activity."

One can of course speak about how one  - for instance the African American
people, have understood their being and the monumental resistance waged against
the onslaught of capital. This was mentioned in a previous reply. Or perhaps
there is a need to describe my activity as a union rep in the course of a
30-year career in the auto industry and how the workers understand their life
activity as resistance to capital, but that was not my purpose. I recently 
wrote an
article for the A-List outlining 30 years of "conscious" activity.

At the end of the day classes are formed not by abstract logic but by the
material act of introducing new productivity equipment into the process of
production and this signals an internal development-taking place. Again the 
question
is framed as I raised the initial discussion as "what takes place to cause
the abolition of a class?"  "What is it that unravels the value producing system
as it unfolds in our daily life?" "What is the impact of the injection of a
qualitative new ingredient into the production process?"  I state emphatically
that a communist class has in fact arisen and what we are experiencing is
different than what Marx and Engels called "the reserved army of unemployed."

I state more than several times that we are at the beginning of the beginning
of this process but it is obvious to anyone that has looked at shifts in the
economy for the past 20 years. What destroys that value-producing system is
not man spontaneous enlightenment or a spontaneous leap in cognitive functioning
but tool development as the fundamentality. The revolution of the past
century occurred during the period of transition from agriculture to industry 
and
the unraveling of the value system during this era is not and was not possible.
He is some of the theory basis of my assertion.

"The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois
class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital
is wage labor. Wage labor rests exclusively on competition between the
laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the 
bourgeoisie,
replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by the revolutionary
combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry,
therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie
produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, 
above
all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat
are equally inevitable."  (Communist Manifesto).

"The advance of industry . . . The development of Modern Industry, therefore,
cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie
produces and appropriates products."  The grave digger of the bourgeoisie as
bourgeoisie and the value producing system is an internal development within the
system Marx calls industry and this industry is not an abstraction but something
that  . . . .  . Here is how Engels put matters.

Further.

"Thus it comes about, to quote Marx, that machinery becomes the most powerful
weapon in the war of capital against the working-class; that the instruments
of labor constantly tear the means of subsistence out of the hands of the
laborer; that they very product of the worker is turned into an instrument for 
his
subjugation.

"Thus it comes about that the economizing of the instruments of labor becomes
at the same time, from the outset, the most reckless waste of labor-power,
and robbery based upon the normal conditions under which labor functions; that
machinery,

'the most powerful instrument for shortening labor time, becomes the most
unfailing means for placing every moment of the laborer's time and that of his
family at the disposal of the capitalist for the purpose of expanding the value
of his capital.' (Capital, English edition,)

(End of quote: Engels Socialism: Utopia and Scientific)

Fortunately the world is big enough for different opinions and this includes
those whose opinions are to be taken as a grain of sand. Here is what Marx
state in his Critique of the Gotha Program.

"Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of
production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does
the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products,
as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist
society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly
as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor";
objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has
developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from
capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and
intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose
womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society
-- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What
he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social
working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the
individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social 
working day
contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society
that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his
labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social
stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The
same amount of labor, which he has given to society in one form, he receives 
back
in another.

"Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the
exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and
form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give
anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to 
the
ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far
as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned,
the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a
given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in
another form.

"Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although
principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of
equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the
individual case.

"In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized
by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the
labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made
with an equal standard, labor.

"But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies
more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve
as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it
ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for
unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a
worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual
endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, 
therefore, a
right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very
nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal
individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not 
unequal)
are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an
equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in
the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in
them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is
not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an
equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption
fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than 
another,
and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would
have to be unequal.

"But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as
it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist
society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and 
its
cultural development conditioned thereby.

"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of
the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis
between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only
a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also
increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the
springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then can the narrow
horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on 
its
banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
(End of Quote)


Marx defines a higher stage or phase of Communist society on the basis of
"after the productive forces have also increased" and after society has taken
possession of its species activity as associated producers. It just so happens
that the industrial system is being reconfigured on a new qualitative basis in
front of the proletarian revolution and the material elements to defeat and
render obsolete the antithesis between mental and physical labor, that grew up
on the basis of the industrial system, has appeared. This in fact was a
profound theoretical question for Marx 150 years ago but a practical question 
for us
today. Why is that? Technology.

Does this mean that our gray matter - brains, is unimportant? Of course not.
It does mean the context for the application of our gray matter is undergoing
a qualitative reconfiguration. In fact the subjective aspect of the social
process stays in flux and frequently shifts but possibility of social change 
must
be described within the historical boundaries of an era and specific
quantitative and qualitative configuration of society.

How can this be stated firmly without offending the reader? We - my parents
and their parents and their parents and their parents have waged an unrelenting
struggle since our emancipation as slaves against the degenerates, fascist,
criminal murders, thugs and hijackers and the fight could not be decisively
won, until certain shifts took place in the productivity infrastructure that
widened the field of combat.

Different people will explain the reason the fight could not be won
different. I am to believe that some clever abstract conception of capital 
governs my
fight for humanity? That I am to attach importance to a clever articulation of
the abstract character of labor as a self mediating system reproducing itself
and its social forms. No comrade, you do not see the trees or forest because
you are proceeding within the framework of abstract logic. The essence of our
thinking as a people has never - not, been that humanity could not overcome
itself and barbarism. No one waited to read a freaking book by Marx to 
understand
what we consider the most elementary understanding of the human condition.
You speak of pre-history and I speak of barbarism. Why is that? Why is this not
the last stage of barbarism?

What I understand as the course of development of the historical consequence
is never - ever, confused with the moment and what is possible. If our
physical mass was sufficient why would we allow ourselves to be hung, murdered 
in our
millions, rape and burnt alive? Why would be allow our churches to be bombed
and our little girls murdered? Why would we allow a system of barbarism to
reduce our average age - life, expectancy to 38 years old in the major 
industrial
areas? Our levels of incaraceration at the hands of fascist in the South and
reactionary bourgeois democratic forms in the North are the highest perhaps on
earth, in not the imperial centers.

We are perhaps fighting for different things and that is alright.

I accept your lecture on "Consciousness" and the self-mediating forms that
flow from an unraveling of the abstract character of labor. Fine.

My freedom sits on the horizon and we shall seize it because a new class
configuration is in birth that widens the social fight and this new class at its
core is the result of the injection into the production process of new
qualitative ingredients.

Nor do I take what you have written as a grain of salt. What you have written
is profound and I shall remember it always as a sign of the times.

Melvin P.