[Pen-l] What are these lists for?

["Charles Brown" <charlesb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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From: Carrol Cox  

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Ted Winslow wrote:
> 
> 
> The object to be revealed, in this case the "intrinsic
> interconnection" constitutive of capitalism in general and of the "law
> of value" operative in it in particular, is knowable by "really
> comprehending thinking".  Such thinking, however, requires "maturity"
> of "mind".  This is itself the product of "intrinsic interconnection"
> and develops with it, i.e. human history understood in terms of these
> ideas is an internally related set of "educational" "stages in the
> development of the human mind".

Two different things. (1) Capitalism, a unique  social order, which
constitutes (in _tendency_*) a totality, and hence must be understood in
terms of its "internal connections." (2) Humanb history as a whole,
which does NOT, so far as we know, constitute such a toatality, and
cannot be understood in terms of such "internal relations."


^^^
CB: Do you disagree with the proposition that history is a history of class struggles ? 

Why is history history of class struggles, if it is ? Because in the history of class divided society, necessaries are provided conditionally upon the production of surpluses by the exploited classes. No surpluses, no needs met for the producers. Their food, shelter, air, water, or other physiological necessaries are withheld or denied to them by the state power if they do not produce surpluses. This gives rise to a struggle to change or maintain the status quo of the structure ( as in Levi-Straussian "structuralism", the system of ideas) of society, the superstructure and infrastructure.  Every once in a great while , rarely, this class struggle changes the superstructure fundamentally.

Given this quality in history, Marx and Engels project that capitalism is not a permanent structure of society , and it will transform fundamentally. For an assessment of the fundamentals of the specific historical transition from capitalism to socialism , how class struggle changes capitalism into socialism,

See: Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm

^^^^

 For
example,the relations between two feudal entitities, or between two
_oikoi_ in the Odyssey, are strictly external. Changes in one such
entity (e.g., improvements in productivity in growing rye) have no
necessary effect on an adjacent feudal domain. In capitalism, however,
changes in productivity in (say) Argentine acultivation wheat can
transform the very meaning of the labor of an auto mechanic in Kansas.
It is those connections that Marx attempts to explain through surplus
value (which is not intended to 'prove' exploitation: On that topic Marx
has nothing to add that was not already quite clear to hesiod.)

Incidentally, I don't believe you can cite Marx in support of Whitehead
in his disagreement with Russel you have mentioned. I think Marx's
response would be that, at a cosmic level, it is and will probably
remain undknown whether relations are internal or merely atomistic.

^^^^^
CB: Why do you believe that ? On the basis of what in Marx's writing ?

Carrol





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