Re: Productive Forces

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Re: Productive Forces
by miychi
02 March 2002 00:11 UTC

On 2002.03.02 01:25 AM, "Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> Productive Forces
>
>
> Another thing that might be said about the interpenetration of physics'
> forces, work, power and energy, and the forces of production of a mode of
> production is regarding the role of physics' force in the the mode of
> destruction and war. Between Marx and Engels, Engels did extensive study on
> the history of force as in war.
>
> The critical issue with force in the physics sense is that it is critical and
> decisive in the mode of _destruction_. So to the extent that human history
> develops based on war and the state repressive dominance of one group by
> another, the group with more force or energy capture used in technology as
> weapons perpetuates its legacy.
>
>
>
>
>
> Charles wrote:
>> . . . actually the productive _forces_ can be measured to a
>> certain extent using the physics concept of "force", in that
>> there is at least in the period from European feudalism to
>> capitalism a leap in the amount of energy capture and ability to
>> do "work" ( in the physics sense of work = force x distance) with
>> technology .
>
> Eric Nilsson
> I think I disagree about being able to use "force"--as defined by
> physics--to quantify the amount of the productive forces.
>
> But Charles' point raises an idea I've not thought of before--which likely
> has been well-discussed by those more knowledgeable than me: to what extent
> did Karl M. get his ideas about productive forces from the ideas of physics
> then current in Europe? The notion of "force" (as used in physics) certainly
> existed in Europe by the early 1700s. 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?
>
> Eric
>
> &&&&&&&&&
>
> CB: He was certainly aware of these physics basics, but I am sure he did not
> reduce his "productive forces" to physical forces. Marx was not a vulgar
> Marxist. However, I think his concept of productive forces includes and
> transcends the concepts in physics. Don't forget. Physics has "work" too.
>
>


MIYACHI TATSUO said:
Productive forces certainly belong to physics. Because human-being are a
part of nature, as such they metabolise  between nature through labor.



Charles: Yes, we might say productive forces, products and their consumption belong , in part, to physics, chemistry and biology. They also belong to human history.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm

"Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature's productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labour-power to market for sale as a commodity, from that state in which human labour was still in its first instinctive stage. We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively h!
uman. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman's will be steadily in consonance with his purpose. This means close attention. The less he is attracted by the nature of the work, and the mode in which it is carried on, and the less, therefore, he!
 enjoys it as something which gives play to his bodily and mental powe
is forced to be. "