Re: [Marxism] Question: An epoch of social revolution/2 (What Marx wrote)

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 5/7/2004 7:48:07 PM Central Standard Time,
DLVinvest@xxxxxx writes:

>This leads you to posit an "industrial system" as a mode of production
common to both capitalist and socialist forms of property. But those same 
sources
argue convincingly that the means of production are not the same as the
forces, and the relation that distinguishes capitalism from all previously
existing
modes is precisely that of capital to labor in the process of which surplus
value is expropriated and which creates capital itself, along with its
representative forms of the state and property. But the distinguishing feature 
of
socialism, what makes it different from capitalism, supposedly is not the 
property
form in which the productive forces are developed per se but the
"dictatorship of the proletariat" -- that is, the extent to which the 
working-class
controls the state, the state owns the means of production, and the state 
controls
production and distribution based on the guiding principle of "from each
according to their ability unto each according to their work." At least, that's 
the
common element in Marx. Lenin and Mao.<


Reply

I actually have more in common with those described as the "New Communist" in
Max Elbaum's "Revolution In the Air," than the 'legal Marxists' or the
Trotskyite tradition. The most basic reason is that all of us evolved from the 
same
curve of political and economic history during a polarity within communism
called the Sino-Soviet split. Sides were taken and the political and theory 
fight
against the revisionists in the Soviet Union was acute. I remember the theory
battle against the propoennts of what was called "the theory of the
productive forces."

It is important to stick to Marx and our own history. The watch word is
applied Marxism and not the legal Marxism of the college professor or petty
bourgeois ideologue. All of my economic writings are called "Rigid" or
"determinists." Yet not one person during my three years on Marxmail has every 
attempted to
elaborate on the system of sharecropping and its demise or what is taking
place in front of us . . . daily and hourly. The only exception was comrade DMS,
who is absolutely "no nonsense" when it comes to Marx. We may come from
different traditions but Marx is Marx and must be used as a reference.

Classes rise and fall based on developments in the material power of
production or the technological regime. Industrial machinery creates industrial
machinists. Computer software presupposes soft ware programmers.  A blacksmith
embodies a certain development in the means or rather material power of the
productive forces. The "Indian Chief" is associated with the "bow and arrow." 
The bow
and arrow expresses a certain applied technology.

The ideological struggle against the theory of the productive forces took
place in a context. The context was the fights against the revisionists of the
Soviet Union. China's low level of development of the material power of
production meant the ideological communists had to fight on the basis of ideas. 
We
communist workers pose every question of history in a historical context.

I do appreciate your questions and comments because there is a very large
Marxist intellectual movement outside of political Trotskyism. Marxmail is a 
name
that would make one think participants study or elaborate the theory and
standpoint of Marx. This is not the case. Without question I am here to defeat 
the
Trotskyites hands down in a framework every worker can understand. The reason
is because we are navigating in the dark along unchartered territory and
without a clear vision and clarity we are going to repeat all the mistakes of 
our
history.  We are going to the mat on every question. On the level of theory no
prisoners are to be taken. The abandonment of ones political tradition and
conversion to Marx or "the mat." This is a "no holds barred fight."

If a question is properly posed it will contain the basis of its solution
within its formulation. This is what Marx states:

"Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it can solve, since
closer examination will always show that the task itself arises only when the
material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the
process of formation."

All that I did was repeat the above in standard American English: "If a
question is properly posed it will contain the basis of its solution within its
formulation" 90% of what I write and 99% of articles concerning economic
phenomena is no more than copying Marx. The reason is simple. There is no other 
way to
pass the Marxist tradition to the next generation and the upcoming
combatants.

Marx created the concept "dictatorship of the proletariat" and elaborates on
this concept in his famous "Critique of the Gotha Program," - which Engels
"cleaned up" for publication because Marx curses everyone out. The dictatorship
of the proletariat according to Marx is a political form of property during the
transition from capitalism to communism.

During the period of industrial development who but the "state" can be the
holder of public property? The question deserves inspection. Is the public
property relations actually owned by the state or embodied - housed, in
governmental departments, Soviets and cooperatives protected by the state? Does 
the state
power protect - with the force of arms, these institutions that are invested
with ownership rights as a legal "right?" I have zero use and tolerance for
political Trotskyism because it is profoundly anti-Soviet after 1929 and rank
stupidity.

The syndicalists wanted the workers to magically own the "productive forces"
on the basis of plants - factories. The issue is not owning a freaking plant
or factories but the property relations that will govern reproduction. The
anarcho-syndicalists - and their petty bourgeois demand for magical democracy 
and
"bottom up" democracy, conceive the world on the basis of no authority or
discipline, - in relationship to themselves and have not a clue about the impact
of property. Lenin destroyed them - and Trotsky, in a series of polemics.

Our political democracy in America is not simply bourgeois democracy but by
definition bourgeois industrial democracy. Jeffersonian democracy was long ago
defeated and is historically obsolete. The computer calls forth a change in
this industrial democracy not UN-similar to the impact of the mechanization of
agriculture and the liquidation of the sharecropper - eleven million strong, as
a class. Black folks did not create the Civil Rights Movement. Rather the
Civil Rights Movement arose as the by product of the mechanization of 
agriculture
and the resultant need to reform - the form of political and social relations
in America to accommodate changes - quantitative, in the mode of production
or the material power of the productive forces.

Generally the relationship is not direct between mode of production, the
ideological sphere and the political superstructure. In America we are dealing
with a purity of bourgeois/industrial production relations unlike anything on
earth. There is no sense of "noble obligation" - a carry over from feudal
economic and social relations, here in America as in Canada or England.

America is uniquely revolutionary possessing an absence of feudal economic
and social relations. The mechanization or agriculture takes off in 1940 and one
decade later - after WWII comes to an end, all hell breaks out. The social
struggle shifted violently and million of people where thrown "into play."

Millions are on the crest of being thrown into "play" today as the result of
the revolution in the technological regime. We face a situation that is pure
Marx.

This approach is not "economic determinist," but flat out Marxism. Humanity
has been fighting against oppression and exploitation for forty centuries and
Marxists must describe the environment - context, of this continuous struggle,
on the basis of class formation and state of development of the technological
regime. The "other guys" - bless their petty bourgeois hearts, explain 99% of
things on the basis of what they think someone thought or wrote as a polemic.
A petty bourgeois position means a set of political propositions that does not
transcend the outlook of the petty bourgeoisie as a dying class. This
decaying and dying class tends to posit - another word I hate, social relations 
as
"fixed" and stationary and on this basis views itself as permanent and views
society in relationship to itself.

In America there is no need for the state to be the holder of public property
or a system of governmental agencies. To begin with we are going to destroy
the property relationship, not invest the state with title of "Property
holder," - but rather Guardian. The reason this is possible is solely because 
of our
stage of development of the productive forces or more accurately, our state of
development of the material power of production. No more than a "credit card"
will be necessary to access distribution of social products. This credit card
is not a means for exchange, but rather accounting and reproduction. The
state will have an over sight function.

Socialism is not an economic system. Inscribed on its banner is "he who does
not work shall not eat." Communism has a different banner. "To each according
to their need and from each according to their ability." "Need" and "ability"
are products of history or formed and recast historically. Comrades have to
reread Marx with an eye on the new era we have passed into. Marx discuses "need"
in his "Economic and Philosophic Manuscript of 1844" and has a section
dealing with Human Needs or requirements.

At the risk of seeming more ridiculous than I am, the Marx dialectic is an
excursion into the art of the obvious. Comrades see contradictions everywhere .
. . between their hand and the glass of water in it . . . between husband and
wife . . . and other such childishness. We Marxists speak of the unity and
strife internal to a process - not external collision between things.

We simply cannot ignore the technological regime in a society. The
technological regime or the material power of production is the heart of Marx 
conception
of the science of society. Communist workers never ignore or belittle the
subjective factor. It is our mastery of the subjective factor that allows us to
be leaders in the first damn place.

Rather than debate the concept mode of production is not our task to describe
American history and its specific direction? Marx speaks of "the mode of
production in material life." Is this not the material power of the productive
forces? There is a subtle difference between the "productive forces" and the
"material power of production" but both include human beings by definition.

Is not the materialist conception of history predicated upon and presuppose
the existence of human being? "Economic determinism" . . . in the context of
intellectual America is blasphemy and a refusal to engage bourgeois property on
the basis it currently exists.

The industrial system is a material fact. I am saying that the industrial
system is the mode of production of commodities that our discussion is centered
on. Marx states point blank "with the property relations within." What is the
property relations "within?" I am saying that I am going to take anyone to the
mat - very hard, that claims that socialism is an economic system. Capitalism
is short speak for the bourgeois mode of production or reproduction on the
basis of the bourgeois property relations.

Everyone claims Marx and we have read a little. I personally read the
Communist Manifesto 5-7 times a year for thirty years and I will be damn if it 
did
not take me 20 years to figure out that Marx does not say that the proletariat
is the grave digger of capital.  The advance of industry digs the grave for
capital or rather, the bourgeois property relations.

Lou is going to kick my ass if I use all this bandwidth quoting Marx. Read
the last five paragraphs of section one of the Communist Manifesto. The entire
first section is about the development of the technological regime.

I use to sign my early writing to this list "overthrow the last period."
Well, everyone is going to the mat . . . hard. The "kid gloves" are off. I am
going to the mat hard. Everything is subject to discussion. Marx is not going to
be debated and it is refreshing to hear from someone outside the ideological
insanity of political Trotskyism.

What we are discussing is the highest level of Marxism in American today.

Melvin P.

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