Re: Stan Goff's statement

[Ted Winslow <egwinslow@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Angelus Novus quoted from http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/ 
howtothink.html:

> According to Marx, the social contradiction which can
> only be resolved by revolution is that between the
> forces of production and the relations of production.
> The most common Marxist interpretation of this
> assertion is that forces of production means capital
> (sometimes our latter‑day Marxists implicitly
> limit this to technology, so that the "full
> development of the forces of production" is
> interpreted solely as the presence of advanced, highly
> productive machinery) while relations of production
> means the system of production, appropriation, and
> exchange.
>
> In reality, Marx meant something quite different.
> Forces of production includes both capital and labor,
> while relations of production includes capitalists and
> workers. Thus the proletariat is an essential of both
> sides of the antagonism—on one side as the creator of
> use value, on the other as wage laborer. The
> contradiction is therefore internal and essential to
> the working class itself, and cannot be resolved
> externally."

Marx takes "forces of production" to be an index of the development  
of human capabilities; they are "the power of knowledge, objectified".

"Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric  
telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These are products of human  
industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will  
over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of  
the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge,  
objectified. The development of fixed capital indicates to what  
degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of  
production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process  
of social life itself have come under the control of the general  
intellect and been transformed in accordance with it. To what degree  
the powers of social production have been produced, not only in the  
form of knowledge, but also as immediate organs of social practice,  
of the real life process."  (Grundrisse pp. 705-6)

Fully developed human capabilities are the prerequisite for the  
actualization of "the true realm of freedom" (which also objectifies  
knowledge, namely, knowledge of the ideal).  They are, for instance,  
a prerequisite for ideal relations of mutual recognition, an idea  
that sublates Aristotle's idea of "friendship" as elaborated in Books  
VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics.

"Relations of production" are treated as the crucible within which  
human capabilities develop.  The model for this is Hegel's account of  
the master/slave relation in the Phenomenology.  Hegel makes forced  
labour under conditions of deferred desire developmental of mind, a  
development expressed by the development of the "forces of  
production" - tools - which objectify it.  Tools involve  
consciousness of future and deferment of desire because they mediate  
between desire and its satisfaction.  Such consciousness is a  
necessary prerequisite for the defining feature of human labour, i.e.  
"what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that  
the architect builds the cell in his mind before he constructs it in  
wax."

The historical forms of relations of production are incompatible with  
ideal relations.  For this reason they are undermined by the  
development of mind they facilitate.  They also all ultimately  
"fetter" rather than facilitate this development.  For these reasons  
each form ultimately gives way to a new form more compatible with  
development until finally the "subjective and objective conditions"  
required for and expressive of the full development of human  
capabilities become practicable and "really free working" - "a  
complete and no longer restricted self-activity" - itself becomes  
practicable.

That the revolutionary "appropriation" of developed forces of  
production requires and makes possible the full development of the  
capabilities of the appropriators is made clear in the following  
passage from the German Ideology.

"Thus things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must  
appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to  
achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to safeguard their very  
existence. This appropriation is first determined by the object to be  
appropriated, the productive forces, which have been developed to a  
totality and which only exist within a universal intercourse. From  
this aspect alone, therefore, this appropriation must have a  
universal character corresponding to the productive forces and the  
intercourse.
       "The appropriation of these forces is itself nothing more than the  
development of the individual capacities corresponding to the  
material instruments of production. The appropriation of a totality  
of instruments of production is, for this very reason, the  
development of a totality of capacities in the individuals themselves.
       "This appropriation [of the forces of production developed in  
capitalism] is further determined by the persons appropriating. Only  
the proletarians of the present day, who are completely shut off from  
all self-activity, are in a position to achieve a complete and no  
longer restricted self-activity, which consists in the appropriation  
of a totality of productive forces and in the thus postulated  
development of a totality of capacities. All earlier revolutionary  
appropriations were restricted; individuals, whose self-activity was  
restricted by a crude instrument of production and a limited  
intercourse, appropriated this crude instrument of production, and  
hence merely achieved a new state of limitation. Their instrument of  
production became their property, but they themselves remained  
subordinate to the division of labour and their own instrument of  
production. In all expropriations up to now, a mass of individuals  
remained subservient to a single instrument of production; in the  
appropriation by the proletarians, a mass of instruments of  
production must be made subject to each individual, and property to  
all. Modern universal intercourse can be controlled by individuals,  
therefore, only when controlled by all.
       "This appropriation is further determined by the manner in  
which it must be effected. It can only be effected through a union,  
which by the character of the proletariat itself can again only be a  
universal one, and through a revolution, in which, on the one hand,  
the power of the earlier mode of production and intercourse and  
social organisation is overthrown, and, on the other hand, there  
develops the universal character and the energy of the proletariat,  
without which the revolution cannot be accomplished; and in which,  
further, the proletariat rids itself of everything that still clings  
to it from its previous position in society."  http:// 
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01d.htm

Ted