Productive Forces

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Productive Forces
by Carrol Cox
28 February 2002 21:20 UTC



Eric Nilsson wrote:
>
> I guess the equations of mv or mv^2
> also existed. Was Karl M. aware of such things and, if so, did it play a
> part in the development of his theory of history?
>

Are you assuming that Marx _did_ have a theory of (universal) history
based on the development of the productive forces? That (false) concept,
as I understand it, emerged from the "Idea of Progress," which in turn
was but a projection of the arrogance of the capitalists. And while Marx
certainly echoed this assumption in his early work, it is in gross
contradiction to his major works (at least from the _Grundrisse_ on).
The idea of a "universal history" undercuts the fundamental marxists
recognition of the _historical_ contingency of capitalism. It is a
denial of history rather than a theory of history.

Carrol

^^^^^^^^

CB: Not universal history, but _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ makes clear that Engels and Marx's theory is transhistorical with respect to the history of class exploitative history.  Class struggle underlies "all history since the breakup of the ancient communes" as Engels added as a famous addendum to the first sentence of The Manifesto , after anthropological study.