Re: [Marxism] Re: Dialectics

["Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joaquín Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

> I think we should leave that above-the-battle equanimity to the poets and
> philosophers of the 23rd Century, AFTER the withering away of commodity
> production.

I had an email in drafts saved from last night that went along those lines.

Lance Murdoch seems to have a rudimentary understanding of dialectics, and a 
"MLs-as-sectarians" fetish. As with all fetishists the objective becomes 
subjective, and the relationship indeed becomes dialectical.

1) Dialectics are not moral, but a metaphore for the underlying mechanisms 
of nature and history. Its not the "good" thesis against the "bad" 
anti-thesis. Atomic energy reactions, one of the greatest examples of 
dialectics in nature, can be "good" as in the Sun, or "bad" as in nuclear 
weapons. Both are dialectical.

2) Granted MLers of all brands, including in power, sometimes confuse the 
neccesity of political slogans with moral content (ie "Imperialism is bad!") 
and substitute analysis (ie "Imperialism is the higher stage of capitalism") 
with it. Ironically, Mr. Murdoch has exactly the same vulgar reading of 
dialectics when he moralizes on Iraq.

It is tautological to establish that some "good" will spring forth from the 
invasion of Iraq, because some "good" will always spring forth from 
somewhere. Even a cesspool serves a "good" purpose, althought I doubt anyone 
sees a cesspool as something "good".

3) Hence, dialectics cannot be applied narrowly to "just" the case of Iraq, 
but to the current and historical world situation, and furthermore, from the 
humanitarian perspective that should inform marxist analysis.

Is really a democratic bourgeoise revolution, in essence what Mr. Murdoch 
identifies as the "good" side of the invasion, brought from without in the 
service of the economic interests of an imperial entity a positive 
development? Some marxists agree, including the ICP itself. Others disagree 
profoundly, including myself.

The invasion of Iraq has developed nothing "good" because all that is 
"good" in appeareance is anti-dialectical. It didn't spring forth from a 
self-liberating, self-determining movement of the Iraqi people, but as an 
artificial development from without.

It is a Potemkin village.

Not only is the "good" aspects of the invasion a Potemkin village, but it 
has also reversed the trend of secularization started under the Baath 
regime. The elections have ushered in not a wave of democracy but exactlly 
its opposite.

The USA invasion, by breaking the dialectic, has actually become a "bad" 
thing in totality.

Even its "good" aspects are dialectically made moot because they were born 
out of a dialectic external to the Iraqi process.

Instead of an Hugo Chavez emerging in the struggle against Saddam, as could 
have been possible, now we get a mix of Iranian theocracy and Saudi 
oil-fundamentalism, but without the anti-imperialism, and with the Iraqi 
masses subjected to further mystification. A bad thing indeed.

sks 



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