Re: [Marxism] Do you agree or disagree with the following proposition

["Ian Pace" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Do you agree or disagree with the following proposition:
>
> Production and economic classes are the starting point of Marxist analysis
> of human society, including in the Manifesto, because human life, like all
> plant and animal life must fulfill biological needs to exist as life at
> all.
> Marx and Engels are looking for _necessity_  to put historical materialism
> on a scientific basis. In human biology there is necessity, things that
> must
> be done.
In essence, yes, whilst wishing to rewrite the first phrase as 'Production
and economic relations between human beings are the starting point of
Marxist analysis of human society'. 'Class' is a category that Marxists use
to explain the division of people according to their economic positions, in
various ways. To make it an a priori norm risks fetishisation, making class
somehow about immutable identity and the like (and thus to hopeless
romanticisations of those things perceived to be most 'proletarian' in
nature, on the basis of empirical observation). Class in capitalism is a
by-product of an unequal and exploitative economic system; the division of
society into economic classes is something that socialists wish to abolish.

Solidarity,
Ian



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