Re: [Marxism] re: The Duality of Marxism: is capitalism totalizing or inhibiting?

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 6/22/06, M. Junaid Alam <alam1@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> More modern problems for socialists stem from basically the same
> problem. Do we accept that Marx's dialectical conclusions, or
> teleological approach to history, are wrong? Or does it only apply over
> the really long-term? Depending on the answer, for instance, you could
> look at Islamism as that movement which exists as a nationalist movement
> for a part of the world where the strongest bond of identity isn't
> nationhood, but religion. You could then view it as a necessary
> formative ideology that will give Arabs political independence, prepare
> them for 'normal' capitalist development, and homogenization into
> integrated capitalism, which will be the starting point for a united
> proletariat. Or, you could say the whole concept of a homogenized
> proletariat is pure fantasy, and therefore Islamism represents a kind of
> Marxism that exists in the real world, a fragmented and distorted
> 'socialism' for a world fragmented and distorted by non-class divisions.
> Or, you could say capitalism has 'exhausted all progressive
> possibilities', therefore any non-socialist movement represents a
> retreat into barbarism, particularly one that involves beheading people
> and shrouding women. People who call themselves Marxists have taken any
> of these positions. All based on how they conceptualize the
> sustainability and positive potential of capitalism.

To understand what's happening in predominantly Muslim countries, we
can't start with any Hegelian teleology, nor can we start with an
abstract concept called "Islamism" and apply it to them.  The way to
go is to look at the class content of each social movement, whether it
is largely religious or irreligious: which classes or class segments
does it represent?  What social and economic agenda does it promote?
What's the quality of its leadership?  What alliances does it make?
What does it do for women?  And so on.  You don't use the philosophy
of history Marx and Engels used in The Communist Manifesto in doing
so; instead, you might look to Marx's The Class Struggles in France,
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, etc. and Engels' The
Peasant War in Germany for inspiration.  Among modern scholars who
have actually looked at societies in the Middle East, I'd recommend
the work of Hanna Batatu (about Iraq and Syria), Ervand Abrahamian
(about Iran), Valentine Moghadam (about Iran and Afghanistan), Joel
Beinin (about Egypt), Rashid Khalidi (about Palestine), and so on.

--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>

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