[Marxism] (Why didn't Lenin) - Marxism in America and

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: Waistline2@xxxxxxx

-clip-


Each stage of development of the industrial system produces it own unique
challenges to Marxists and communists. Marx does not write about "socialist
relations of production." Marx writes about bourgeois property relations and
industrial relations of production. In the Soviet Union what many communists
"saw" were "socialist relations of production" and this vision more than
less conformed to their boundary of development of the industrial system.
What these
communists "saw" was a historical illusion that has been shattered on the
basis of the technological revolution. What existed in the former Soviet
Union was an industrial system, with industrial relations of production -
with the property relations within.


^^^^^

CB: Ok on this issue of Marx's usage of  "relations of production", I have
reproduced below the passage you often quote. In it , Marx says "at a
certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of
society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or-what
is but a legal expression for the same thing-with the property relations
within which they have been at work hitherto."  The logical , grammatical
interpretation of this is that "relations of production" are "property
relations".  So, it doesn't matter if Marx never used the exact clause "
socialist relations of production".  In Marxist terminology "socialist
relations of production" are "the same thing" as socialist property
relations. "Property" is a legal expression. The non-legal expression for
the same thing is "relations of production".
In other words, Marx's usage in the passage below is the opposite of what
you say when you say "Marx writes about bourgeois property relations and
industrial relations of production." If he says relations of production are
the same thing as property relations, then bourgeois property relations are
bourgeois relations of production. And "industry" is a form of the material
productive forces of society, what I would call the technological regime,
which includes a particular stage of the historical development of the
means, instruments and technical organization of production. Industry can be
with bourgeois or socialist property/relations of production.

So, I agree when you say "The industrial system is a specific configuration
of human labor and electromechanical process sitting on a historically
specific energy grid."

I didn't say anything about "overthrowing" the industrial system, as you
allude to below.

In the context and text of the Communist Manifesto, the working class _was_
the "lowest stratum" of society.

In this passage, you will note that Marx uses "mode of production" in the
same sense as he speaks of "modern bourgeois" and "feudal" , etc. "modes of
production".  I do think Marx "equivocates" or uses "mode of production" in
both senses - including and excluding property relations in its meaning - in
different texts. Also, in general, Marx does not confine himself to
mathematically rigorous word definition. Nonetheless, above I meet your
challenge to show where Marx uses "relations of production" as I am using it
here,not the way you do. He uses it with property relations "within" i.e.
relations of production _are_ property relations.

Another synonym for "bourgeois relations of production" is "wage-labor and
capital". Wage-labor and capital is a property relation, not a technical
relation.


In this back and forth debate, my overall point would be that the end of the
SU must be analyzed with the whole world as the political economic WHOLE,
not just the SU itself. The main arena of the class struggle in the world
was between the SU and the imperialist countries. Thus, imperialist
militarism and economic isolationism were "internal" factors in the
development and failure of the SU. They were just as "internal" as any
shadow operation of the law of value in the SU.

You quote the Manifesto as follows: "The proletarian movement is the
_self-conscious_, independent movement of the immense majority, in the
interest of the immense majority." (my emphasis)  This responds to one of
your other questions to me as to where Marx said that the proletarians are
conscious in their revolutionary task.


Charles -

Marx quote follows.


"In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations
that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of
production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their
material productive forces.

"The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic
structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and
political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social
consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the
social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the
consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary,
their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage
of their development, the material productive forces of society come in
conflict with the existing relations of production, or-what is but a legal
expression for the same thing-with the property relations within which they
have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive
forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of
social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire
immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering
such transformations a distinction should always be made between the
material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can
be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal,
political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic-in short, ideological forms
in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.

"Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of
himself, so we cannot judge of such a period of transformation by its own
consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather
from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between
the social productive forces and the relations of production.... In broad
outlines, Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production
can be designated as progressive epochs in the economic formation of
society." [11] [Cf. Marx's brief formulation in a letter to Engels dated
July 7, 1866: "Our theory that the organization of labor is determined by
the means of production."]



Waistline:

The property relations were socialist in distinction to the bourgeois
property relation. This meant that nothing other than means of consumption
could pass into the hands of the individual. Building socialism from the
15th Congress of the CPSU (B) until the 20th Congress (1956) meant building
an industrial system without individuals owning the power of capital - means
of production, or
the bourgeois property relations.
Marxism in America has had a very difficult time and this difficulty is
rooted in the development of our own working class. The workers will never
overthrow the industrial system because it is not possible. A system of
production cannot be overthrown. What can be overthrown is the property
relations. What brings the industrial system to an end is not a
"transformation of quantity into quality" or the industrial system expanding
thorughout the earth, but rather an injection of a new qualitative element
into the production process. The industrial system is a specific
configuration of human labor and electromechanical process sitting on a
historically specific energy grid. Here is the historical barrier the
Soviets hit - not the operation of the law of value. Social revolution means
the revolution in the material power of production or the technological
regime and this revolution compels society to leap to a new political basis.
Unlike during the era of Lenin and Stalin, our
task is the abolition of property and not changing the form of property. The
key resides in the evolution of the proletariat in the sense that Marx uses
the term. By proletariat Marx does not mean "The working class" and he makes
this clear in the Communist Manifesto. Marx use of the term proletariat
means the lowest strata of society. He describes the entire process with the
clarity of
genius.

The master has to be quoted.

"The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society,
except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby
also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their
own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous
securities
for, and insurances of, individual property.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the
interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious,
independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense
majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot
stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole super incumbent strata of
official
society being sprung into the air."

Marx cannot be any clearer: "The proletariat, the LOWEST STRATUM of our
present society . . ."
What by chance is the LOWEST STRATUM of our present society?

Marx describes the process in detail and we are living it today in real
time.

Yet comrades speak in categories from a previous stage of history.

"Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on
the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress
a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at
least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom,
raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois,
under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a
bourgeois. The modern

laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry,
sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class.
He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and
wealth.

And here it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be
the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon
society as an overriding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent
to assure
an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting
him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by
him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its
existence is no longer compatible with society."

The process Marx speaks of above began - in an absolute sense, during the
Reagan years and was incorrectly called Reaganomics and the underclass, when
in fact the real proletariat was being crystallized in front of our eyes.
The new class is the real proletarait that Marx speaks of and not the
concept

"working class" from the previous period of history. This new proletariat is
profoundly female and every one conceives the real proletariat as either
black or welfare bums, bitches and lumpen proletarians.

Well, the fact of the matter is that society is slowly being compelled to
leap to a new political basis to satisfy this real proletariat and not the
autoworkers. This process has the bourgeoisie screaming about population
control, sustainability, the carrying capacity of the earth, renewable
energy sources
because we have entered an era where bourgeois property will be swept from
the face of the earth and property abolished.

Marx continues:

"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."

Marxism in America has had a very hard time. "Revolutionary combination due
to association" was articulated as meaning trade unions in America and the

Comintern doctrine of fighting amongst the lowest strata of the proletariat
was rejected, in favor of Populism and Anarcho syndicalism.

The "other guys" claim that the Marxist movement in America has bounced
between social democracy and Stalinism, when in fact the bounce has been
between

Populism and Anarcho syndicalism from day one.

Comrade, we Marxists and communist workers were defeated in America for a
solid 100 years the hands, as every segment of the Marxist movement claimed
the industrial proletariat was the engine of history. Our momentary
breakthroughs were on the basis of the African American peoples movement,
which caused a reawakening to revolutionary Marxism.

Today, we can take the anarcho-syndicalist to the mat. Not because of
theoretical brilliance but because the industrial sector has been and is
being transformed and the dirty lie of Marxism in America is open for the
world to see. The fact of our history is that the industrial classes and the
industrial

working class in the North was formed from European immigrants - whites, and
the

focus of the anracho-syndicalist remained on this segment of the working
class.

In plain English this historical error smelled of chauvinism and white

chauvinism.

Marx wrote for the world's workers: "The proletariat, the lowest stratum of
our present society," and history in America - our actual curve of
development played a very cruel joke on us. Indigenousness Marxism in
America had to construct itself on the basis of the national question - "the
proletariat, the

lowest stratum of our present society," and the African American National
Factor

in particular, because our path was blocked.

Marx describes our line of march using the concept "line of march" or what
communists call determining where to throw the strategic blow.

"The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand practically, the most
advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country,
that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand,
theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the
advantage of clearly
understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general
results of the proletarian movement."

The theory of the bounce between Social democracy and Stalinism is a radical
misunderstanding of our history and lines of march. In fact one who uses the
concept of "line of march" is called a Stalinist. These are people who had
not understood the Communist Manifesto, much less the Bible of the Working
Class - Capital.
There is a need to discard the many terms and concepts inherited from the
previous generation.

Melvin P.



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