CB: Note the last question is in recognition of the issue we are debating
here,usage of "mode of production". And , yes, I know that Marx is ambiguous in
that usage. However, he does use it to refer to especially property relations
in one of those double usages, and that is the usage connected to feudalism ==>
capitalism ==>socialism. The division of labor/ organization of
technology/technological regime goes through revolutions "all the time", or at
least the
bourgeoisie are constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production.<<
Reply
WL: The issue was never if Marx did or did not use property or property
relations in his description of the mode of production. I merely stated several
time that the mode of production does not mean a set of property relations in
my
reading of Marx. But rather a historically specific state of development of
the material power of production - productive forces with a definable
technological regime, with the property relations within.
I of course disagree with "the Marxists" that infer that Karl Marx use the
concept mode of production to mean a set of property relations as it is
connected to feudalism ==> capitalism ==>socialism - specifically. I do not see
the
"feudalism ==> capitalism ==>socialism" implication (inference) in Karl Marx
writings.
Marx describes a given state of development of the material power of
production with the property relations within. I call this "given state of
development
of the material power of production with the property relations within" the
mode of production and there is a political and theory reason to this
formulation.
Now "The General" - Engels popularized the concept of socialism ("feudalism
==> capitalism ==>socialism") as the first stage of communism for some very
specific reasons, but let not get ahead of ourselves.
Karl Marx speaks of "a communistic mode of producing and appropriating" - in
this language, in the Communist Manifesto. A whole section is devoted to
Communist and Socialist literature and the difference between the two.
The reason Marx speaks of communistic mode of producing and appropriating (my
opinion in as much as I continue to speak for myself exclusively) is because
he presents the question of mode of production on the basis of primitive
communism then the emergence of private property and its negation or the
negation
of the negation as communism in the broad historical sense. Marx does not
outline the historical process - in my opinion, "as feudalism ==> capitalism
==>socialism - specifically" but rather primitive communism --> class society -
>
abolition of classes, bringing with it the end of the prehistory of man.
Property relations emerge after the instruments and tools + human labor and
energy source combines to create the mode of production. Property relations
does not mean a system of cultural inheritance of private possession of things.
Property relations means the rights and ability of a section of society to
compel another section to labor for it and the institutional means to
appropriate
all or a part of the social product. Property is transitory. The mode of
production in material life is not transitory. Hence, it is not blasphemy to
speak
of the mode of production in material life with the property relations within.
The destruction of primitive communism was not possible until new means of
production - a development of the material power of production, or a
qualitative
change in the mode of production, making private property possible, and more
than that having an excess of material things to appropriate or making private
appropriation possible. The underlying theory issue has a philosophic side.
One can of course make any change a "negation" or "negation of the negation"
but socialism is not a qualitative change in property. Socialism is a change
in the form of property and at best a transition to a negation. Socialism and
Soviet Industrial socialism was not even a qualitative change in property
relations. What quality of property changed? Property relations and private
property means the right of a part of society to appropriate the social
product. This
right was not destroyed uner Soviet socialism nor was it possible.
The change in the form of property was to prepare that way for its
dissolution. Two things in my opinion prove this: the state was the
acknowledged
property holder and secondly the Soviet Union was a value producing society.
In other words I reject the concept that socialism is a negation of
capitalism or bourgeois property because negating the bourgeoisie still leaves
the
property or what is the same a rejection that socialism is a negation of the
negation when view from the standpoint of feudalism. Such a view is an
inference
and misunderstanding of Marx approach in my opinion. If socialism was in fact a
qualitative different mode of production, which it is not and cannot be by
definition, then it would be a negation of a negation of a previous negation of
the negation.
If socialism is a negation of a negation, which it must be if it is in fact a
a qualitatively different mode of production (the end result of viewing the
mode of production as primarily a set of property relations) . . . because it
(socialism) is a set of property relations, and negates capitalism, what is
capitalism the negation of the negation . . . of? The answer is obvious . . .
primitive communism.
For instance the logic is that feudalism negates slavery which negated
primitive communism and capitalism negates feudalism and then socialism negates
capitalism and then we magically leap to communistic mode of producing and
appropriation, which is a negation of what - all appropriation based on
property?
There is a theory issue involved and I believe it is correct to call the
conception of the working class overthrowing capitalism political syndicalism
in
our history. I maintain and all of world history proves that the working class
has not and cannot overthrow the bourgeois property relations as such. This is
not the process in theory and most certainly not what is taking place in
front of us. No one can overthrow a mode of production because it is a category
of
history as opposed to politics. "Category of history" defines itself as Marx
describes things in his letter of December 28, 1846. (Everything is "in
history" but such an understanding get us nowhere, which is why we deploy
concepts
such as "fundamentality," "the basis of all social structures," "the ultimate
cause," "in the last instance" and so on.) Thus history defines itself - in its
fundamentality or in the last instance, on the basis of the development of
the material power of production and then later, with the property relations
within.
*******************
>>CB: Is fundamentality a Marxist concept? <<
Reply
WL: Marx letter of December 28, 1846, to P.V. Annenkov makes pretty clear his
use of what is fundamental in the creation of history. What is fundamental is
not the human being because we presuppose that history cannot exist without
people, whose agency (human agency) is interactive with the world in which they
inhabit.
Social revolution is the results of changes in the material power of
production. That is what is fundamental as history creation. Revolution comes
about as
a result of the development of the means of production, which creates new
forms of property relations and the corresponding political forms of new
classes.
An antagonism develops between the new emerging economic relations and the
old static relations within the superstructure or the old political forms. What
is different today and in world history is that the new class of proletarians
have no avenue by which to enter, as a class, the productivity infrastructure
of bourgeois society. They cannot engage the value system in a way not only to
meet their subsistence needs, but more importantly in a way that allows them
to further evolved as a class and consume without working.
Society is being slowly compelled to leap to a new political basis and
construct a set of laws that make it a sovereign birth right to consume outside
the
buying and selling of labor power. "Political basis" means the fight against
bourgeois property, the last form of property based on the private
appropriation of the social product.
The fight for socialism was historically transitory and was a rallying point
during the rising curve of industrial development. Today I am talking about
the communism of Marx. When Engels put forward the concept that socialism was
the first stage of communism wherein the law of value still operated and where
society had to build up the economic foundation for communism, he was observing
societies long before the advent of electronics and advanced robotics.
Looking back from March 4, 2005 it is understandable that no matter how it
was organized, the industrial society or mode of producing, could not lead to
communism. Of course we fight for power and our ideas because that is what we
do, even when our ideas cannot be realized. Now the problem was not the
industrial machinery as an abstraction but the manual laboring processes
throughout
agriculture and industry itself. Communism is not attainable on an industrial
basis and the secondary aspect of this is property or politics. Today we do not
need the state to be the property owner to develop the means of production -
at least in the American Union. We need a government that regulates things not
people - labor.
The law of value cannot be abolished by a decree or by outlawing money. It is
not like the Soviets could abolish money if they wanted to. Changing the
medium of exchange or its form cannot abolish exchange. Communism - not
socialism,
is impossible unless one has the economic legs to stand on or a revolution in
the mode of production (not simply the property relations) that destroys
value by qualitatively reconfiguring the labor process where the great mass of
humanity's labor is not needed in the production process.
Here is where the concept of the mode of production in material life as a set
of property relations runs into political economy, the law of value and
social relations as also production relations. The idea of society as a great
big
factory is not my idea of communism.
******
>>CB: And now I ask you are you interested in these property relations
because they are not part of the mode of production?<<
Reply
WL: I really do not understand the question since you quoted me several times
using the term/concept "the mode of production with the property relations
within." Since I have never written - to my knowledge in the past 35 years that
property relations are not a part of the mode of production your question is
very confusing. I do not believe I inferred such, but then again everyone
understand what they understand as they understand it. This is why I am not
part of
"the Marxists." :-)
I have in the past - on Pen-L and the A-List written several articles on how
the bourgeois property relations is expressed as a heck of a lot more than
simply private appropriation of the social product; something most "the
Marxists"
never talk about. The shape of automotive production in our country and why
it became the center piece in our industrial development expressed the
bourgeois property relations as a mediating force or more actually a social
force of
mediation. (I hate the word "mediation') because "the Marxist" invariably end
up on abstract labor and never give the workers something they can sink their
teeth into.
It is our specific bourgeois property relations and the demands of the
military that accounts for our interstate highway system and how it is
configured.
I have written several articles deploying the concept of the bourgeois
property relations as it creates a distinct circuit for the flow of capital and
shapes reproduction. Reproduction of course is an economic concept and in
history
predates the emergence of property. Reproduction on an industrial basis is a
historically specific stage of development of the material power of production
- with the property relations within.
In the Soviet Union the intensive and extensive development of their
industrial infrastructure - reproduction, had a different shape but I will be
damned
if they did not use the same primary tools of all industrial societies -
meaning bourgeois America. America and the Soviet Union were both industrial
societies with different property relations within - not different mode of
production
of material needs. The antagonism between the two was political.
Soviet socialism was not a different mode of production from bourgeois
America or the counterrevolution could not restore capitalism. Socialism is not
and
was not a mode of production but a change in the form of property. A society
that leaps to a new mode of production cannot leap backwards. Such is not
possible. Marx was correct in 1846 when he stated, "Men never relinquish what
they
have won, but this does not mean that they never relinquish the social form in
which they have acquired certain productive forces."
America in 1865 could not leap backwards to a feudal mode of production of
the landed property relations of feudalism and its corresponding form of wealth
if it wanted to. Nor could "Europe" for that matter although one can reach ba
ckwards and use antiquated forms of social life and impose them on a new mode
of production.
The Church is the proof of that. However the Church cannot stop the march of
industry. The mode of production is not a set of property relations. It is
first and foremost a historically definable stage of development of the
material
power of production or the productive forces - with the property relations
within. Modes of production cannot leap backwards or be devolved. They can be
destroyed and the rebuilding is always on the basis of the builders existing
state of development of production.
Soviet industrial socialism is called Soviet industrial socialism because
that it what it was. It was an industrial mode of production with the property
relations within.
Bourgeois property and the property form is an important question.
In respects to "sustainability" and a theory approach to the question I
proceeded from the bourgeois property relations - not simply the state of
development of the material power of production, to outline the role of need
and its
historically specific shape as a bourgeois property relations.
In respects to eating I outlined the property relations as the reason for our
historically specific form of food consumption, its commodity form and went
further than most of "the Marxist" and spoke of the specific character of the
market pattern in the specific set of properties as substances we eat or why we
eat what we eat or as Engels puts it, "to eat everything eatable."
My understanding of property and bourgeois property? To my knowledge I am the
only "non-Marxist" Communist in America to write about obesity as a bourgeois
property relations and over consumption as the culture of bourgeois property
rather than the bourgeois concept of conspicuous consumption.
*******
CB: Anyway, here's a fundamentality of Marxism. The primary goal of
Communists is to abolish private property in the basic means of production.
Reply:
WL: No argument from me. Marx said that property had made us stupid. I
believe he was taking about a development over thousands of years producing a
historically peculiar form - shape, of thinking and conceiving. No matter how
scientific something sounds, if a question is posed correctly half it solution
is
visible or embedded in the question itself. The reason I understood something
like sickle cell anemia is because I approach most things outside philosophy
and that includes what the Marxists call "Marx Philosophy."
In the Holy Family . . . I forget the exact quote, Marx actually speaks about
the proletariat destroying philosophy. The working class cannot destroy
philosophy as such because it is in fact a form of property - bourgeois
property.
The real proletariat is today evolving outside this social relations or
property form as it is fused with its antithetical aspect, the bourgeoisie.
Materialism is not a philosophy or rather the power of observation is not based
in
thinking but biology. What strengthens the spontaneous power of observation is
not
books but conforming to the needs of our biological matrix.
That is to say the materialist conception of history is not a philosophy of
man - my opinion. To say that man has to eat before he can pursue other avenues
of existence is not really a philosophy. Yea . . . I know . . . that is "not
what the Marxists say."
The bourgeoisie got us so screwed up that Marx and Engels works will continue
to produce the equivalent of a spiritual wakening in the enlightened reader
because its materialist conception of history makes sense. Marx could not solve
and unravel the question of eating and metabolism because of the era in which
he labored.
No . . . my approach to food stuff is not Marxists. It is based on a
standpoint Arnold Ehert calls blood pure reasoning or the power of observation.
Some
see mode of production as a set of property relations.
Fine.
That is not what I see.
Waistline.
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