[Marxism] Re: If Marxism is a Science ...

["Tony Lawless" <lifesunquietdream@xxxxxxx>]

I wrote:   "Moreover, there is no reason why this cannot be extended to
society, provided the observer has a very active understanding of the
dialectic of the observer and the observed; and that the observer does not
try to suppress the idea that social being determines consciousness,
including the observer's own consciousness; and that ideologies are  broadly
linked to classes; and that this affects and can be seen more clearly in the
programmatic orientation of parties or political  groups, particularly over
the long haul; and that the ruling ideas of the epoch are the ideas of the
ruling class and so on."

To which Nestor replied:     "Don't all these caveats deprive the whole idea
that history/politics can be "predictive" in the sense of, say, astronomy of
any practical sense? While planet Mars won't change its own behavior because
someone on Earth understands the way it moves, planet Marx will, because
"someone on Earth" is at the same time the observer and part of the
observed.  It is as if "planet Mars" learnt about her/himself."


The analogy with the predictive quality of astronomy has its definite limits
and was something I originally introduced only to counter Mark's suggestion
that ordinary science was not predictive but rather chaotic. I think it has
served its purpose quite well. No one is now challenging the idea that many
of the natural sciences have a strong predictive dimension to them.

But if we continue the metaphor, we will run into problems. This is because
by suggesting that the problem is outside the earth as you do Nestor, you
run the risk of introducing notions of Martian scientists looking down on us
who would correspond to our so-called objective scientists looking down on
their chemistry experiment on earth. The analogy would then dictate the
logic of the debate. And all that we would show is that the natural and
social sciences must be the same because they would look the same from Mars.
In other words, you would have suppressed the dialectic of the observer and
the observed in favour of a simpler notion subject and object, in which the
object does not look back.

The issue is rather: these two sciences have to look different on the earth.

And it is for this reason -- because I believe the logics of the natural and
the social sciences are different -- that I do not see these conditions as
"caveats". I see them as the necessary prerequisites for any theory of
dialectical truth in the study of science. The science of society, if it is
possible, has to be qualitatively different from the natural sciences --
hence all these preconditions, a majority of which I see as the specific
contribution of the Marxists to the study of society.

(That said, one upshot of this insistence on the dialectic is worth noting:
one of the major problems with the practice of the natural sciences here on
earth is precisely their lack of dialectical finesse -- or to put it
somewhat differently, their lack of accounting for feedback processes in
their
experimentation and manipulation of the object being investigated. The
science equations that everybody did in school where we noted C02 and H20 as
our "end product" -- and then promptly forgot about! The notion of equation
"end product" is a non-dialectical concept whose deleterious effects can be
seen in the current levels of global pollution.)


At any rate, one way of continuing this discussion is by asking interested
comrades what they think the status is of the piece that follows.

Tony


1. The theory of the permanent revolution now demands the greatest attention
from every Marxist, for the course of the class and ideological struggle has
fully and finally raised this question from the realm of reminiscences over
old differences of opinion among Russian Marxists, and converted it into a
question of the character, the inner connexions and methods of the
international revolution in general.

2. With regard to countries with a belated bourgeois development, especially
the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the theory of the permanent
revolution signifies that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks
of achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through
the dictatorship of the proletariat as the leader of the subjugated nation,
above all of its peasant masses.

3. Not only the agrarian, but also the national question assigns to the
peasantry?the overwhelming majority of the population in backward
countries?an exceptional place in the democratic revolution. Without an
alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry the tasks of the democratic
revolution cannot be solved, nor even seriously posed. But the alliance of
these two classes can be realized in no other way than through an
irreconcilable struggle against the influence of the national-liberal
bourgeoisie.

4. No matter what the first episodic stages of the revolution may be in the
individual countries, the realization of the revolutionary alliance between
the proletariat and the peasantry is conceivable only under the political
leadership of the proletariat vanguard, organized in the Communist Party.
This in turn means that the victory of the democratic revolution is
conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat which bases
itself upon the alliance with the peasantry and solves first of all the
tasks of the democratic revolution.


etc etc

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