Re: Re: Historical Materialism FAQ

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ken Hanly wrote:

> While this is interesting as far as it goes, I see no indication of the role
> of dialectics within historical materialism in your account. There is a
> dialectical relationship between the forces of production and relations of
> production,

No! There are a scattering of unfortunate passages in Marx that
give an excuse for this technological determinism, but it is utterly
ahistorical. See, for example, Ellen Wood's *Democracy against
Capitalism* for an extensive argument that this supposed dialectic
between forces and relations of production is utterly contrary to
the whole force of Marx's work.

Sam allows for this metaphysics by the physicalism of his definition,
in so far as he fails to see that the material "base" (keeping temporarily
to this awkward base/superstructure metaphor) is primarily *not*
the forces of production but the *social relations* of production.

Carrol