Productive Forces, was Re: reply-part 2

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Productive Forces, was Re: reply-part 2
by Carrol Cox
26 February 2002 18:26 UTC




No. Not true. _Many_ Marxists but by no means all put central emphasis
on the "productive forces." Others argue that this proposition about the
necessary growth of productive forces applies not to all history (and
certainly not to socialism or communism) but only to capitalism. It is
this drive to unleash the productive forces that turns capitalism into a
destructive force. See esp. the works of Ellen Meiksins Wood, Edward
Thompson, Raymond Williams, and Robert Brenner.

Carrol

^^^^^^^^^^

CB: True that, in that the problem of capitalism is to master society's mastery of nature, with one exception: since the working classes are one aspect of the forces of production , communists do aim to unleash the human forces of production from their mastery by the capitalists. Forces of production include both the producers and the means of production.