[Marxism-Thaxis] Graeco-Roman heritage of capitalism
With respect to the famous notion that being determines consciousness, the superstructural changes that follow a revolution in the base, a revolution in the relations of production such as the capitalist revolution, need not, in Marx and Engels theory ,be confined to ideas that are new, have never been expressed in history before. Nothing in the historical materialist model claims that old ideas from a previous mode cannot be recycled in a revolution. The bourgeoisie recycled some ideas from the mode prior to feudalism as part of the bourgeois revolution. So, the bourgeoisie superstructure was a new one relative to feudalism. It was determined by the revolution in the relations of production ( the primitive accumulation of capital). But it also went back and picked up elements of the old Graeco-Roman superstructure for its specific content. The determination of the superstructure by the base ( which only occurs especially intermittently, in punctuations admits long equilbria) does not specify all the content of the superstructure. The determination by the base is only that the superstructure fit within certain limits. It is a negative determination, a condtional determination. The base is a necessary cause of the superstructure. It is not a sufficient cause of the superstructure. The new superstructure must meet a certain minimum to meet the new demands and requirements of the new base. But above that minimum, the base does not determine the form of the superstructure. The ruling class can choose the specifics . The ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of its ruling classes, and these ideas are consciously chosen to some extent. Roman law worked fine for early capitalism. Roman society had a market, though it was not the predominant economic form. Caveat Emptor ! Bourgeois law is largely based on Roman law especially early. ( More on this later). We have a Senate, in the U.S. What book do I recall Republic in the title ? etc., etc. Napoleonic Code is based on Roman law. In my father's generation, law students had to take Latin. Why is it that Roman law is more fit for bourgeois society than feudal law ? Because the bourgeois are building an empire: slavery and colonialism ( more than specifically than conquest as I said in previious posts) The new bourgeois ruling class could look at old Rome and Greece and see a sort of precedent on how to rule. The elements of colonialism and slavery were organized with a developed rule system for a market and for slavery at the same time in the Roman system, just the ticket the new capitalist ruling class was looking for. They viewed Classical society as a prior golden age ,before the dark age of feudalism. So capitalism is both a step backward from feudalism to slave society as well as a step forward from feudalism in all the wellknown ways, wage-labor, science and technology. The Spirit of Capitalism is as much pagan as Protestant. This paganism of the bourgeoisie is also a veiled atheism, for the bourgeoisie idealize the Classical humans not their gods. The bourgeoisie needs an atheist outlook to be more class conscious than the working class. It is a very important point that the bourgeoisie consciousness is more atheist than that of the masses. Charles ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] $5.20 per gallon of gasoline.
From the desk of Tobin Smith ChangeWave Investing October 11, 2005 Dear Investor, At ChangeWave Investing, we’re buying energy stocks until the price at the pump hits $5.20 per gallon of gasoline. Gas north of five bucks, Toby? Please tell me you’re kidding! I kid you not. As long as the economy is growing – here and around the world – oil demand will keep accelerating faster than we can rebuild supply. $50 oil didn’t kill growth. Nor $60. We use each barrel much more efficiently today, so real economic hardship comes at a much higher price. It’s a tug of war between supply and demand. And the matrix we run shows oil busting through $70, $80, $90 – all the way to $100 a barrel (and $5.00+ gasoline), before our economy hits a brick wall. So what does this mean? Two things. First, when that you-know-what hits the fan, we’re in for a nasty recession. We’ll be out of most stocks at ChangeWave Investing – owning, instead, high-yielding specialty investments that will rocket ahead as the Fed cuts interest rates to bail out the economy. Second, that means we probably have at least another 18-24 months to make a not-so-small fortune in the energy sector, before that boom leads to economic bust. Billions will be made. I sure hope you’re with us to claim your fair share. Two more years of staggering profits I wish you would have joined me sooner. We’ve already made… …53% in Knightsbridge Tankers …99% in Suncor Energy …21% in Enterra Energy Trust …63% in Williams Coal Seam Gas Royalty Trust …62% in Parallel Petroleum …64% in Petroquest Energy …52% in ATP Oil Gas Corp …158% in Matrix Service Corp …64% in Sasol Ltd …84% in Meridian Resources, among others. All stocks bought and sold – profits banked. Plus we’ve earned dividends of 10%-15% -- 85% of that handsome sum tax-free. But please don’t think that it’s too late, and you’ve missed out. All the evidence clearly and surely points to a worldwide energy crisis that’s gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets better… AND …an ironclad opportunity for savvy investors, like us, to sneer at that crisis; load up on profits; and chuckle all the way to the bank. Make no mistake, this will take its toll on our economy eventually. But in the meantime, someone’s gonna get rich – it might as well be you. We’ve got a huge supply/demand problem It was bad enough when we just had us gas hogs in the U.S. to worry about. But look at the two charts below. China used to be a net exporter of oil. Now their imports are soaring out of sight. And for India – whose population will equal China’s by 2030 – it’s imports all the way. From the desk of Tobin Smith ChangeWave Investing October 11, 2005 Dear Investor, At ChangeWave Investing, we’re buying energy stocks until the price at the pump hits $5.20 per gallon of gasoline. Gas north of five bucks, Toby? Please tell me you’re kidding! I kid you not. As long as the economy is growing – here and around the world – oil demand will keep accelerating faster than we can rebuild supply. $50 oil didn’t kill growth. Nor $60. We use each barrel much more efficiently today, so real economic hardship comes at a much higher price. It’s a tug of war between supply and demand. And the matrix we run shows oil busting through $70, $80, $90 – all the way to $100 a barrel (and $5.00+ gasoline), before our economy hits a brick wall. So what does this mean? Two things. First, when that you-know-what hits the fan, we’re in for a nasty recession. We’ll be out of most stocks at ChangeWave Investing – owning, instead, high-yielding specialty investments that will rocket ahead as the Fed cuts interest rates to bail out the economy. Second, that means we probably have at least another 18-24 months to make a not-so-small fortune in the energy sector, before that boom leads to economic bust. Billions will be made. I sure hope you’re with us to claim your fair share. Two more years of staggering profits I wish you would have joined me sooner. We’ve already made… …53% in Knightsbridge Tankers …99% in Suncor Energy …21% in Enterra Energy Trust …63% in Williams Coal Seam Gas Royalty Trust …62% in Parallel Petroleum …64% in Petroquest Energy …52% in ATP Oil Gas Corp …158% in Matrix Service Corp …64% in Sasol Ltd …84% in Meridian Resources, among others. All stocks bought and sold – profits banked. Plus we’ve earned dividends of 10%-15% -- 85% of that handsome sum tax-free. But please don’t think that it’s too late, and you’ve missed out. All the evidence clearly and surely points to a worldwide energy crisis that’s gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets better… AND …an ironclad opportunity for savvy investors, like us, to sneer at that crisis; load up on profits; and chuckle all the way to the bank. Make no mistake, this will take its toll on our economy eventually. But in the meantime, someone’s gonna get rich – it might as well be you. We’ve got a huge
[Marxism-Thaxis] theory of the Communists
* V3: I regard the manifesto as a call to arms rather than a serious effort at analysis. It is if anything more dated by the conditions that engendered its production, than are Marx and Engel's theoretical productions. I know this is not a direct or full answer, but it's the best I can give you for the moment. CB: Marx and Engels take the unity of theory and practice very seriously. Theoretical productions must united in a call to arms. Quite a bit of most fundamental analysis in the Manifesto. All the fundamentals of Merxist analysis are there. Later stuff doesn't really change too much from the fundamentals on historical materialism in the CM. One exception is first sentence change, the _written_ history, not just history of society is a history of class struggles. So, with respect to the following: Prefaces to critiques of political economy are casual while political manifestos are serious analytical statements? CB: Yes, definitely. ^^ V2: In fact, both premedieval and medieval/feudal society was much more active than high school history books would have us believe. CB: But not like capitalism. V3: No, not like capitalism. Capitalism, beginning with Watt's steam engine and its accessories, unites the innovative effectiveness of natural science with production. The unity of science and production in Capitalist production in the mid 19th century brought about the movement of creative productive process from the slow, restricted development by creative labour to the hectic and universal development we witness today. CB: In capitalism, we have gone through technological revolutions that would have forced changes in the property relations in previous eras when the pace of technological development was, on average slower. Thus the role of development of productive forces in changing the relations in the sense of property relations ( not so much organization of the plant and equipment, workplace, shop floor(s)) is watered down compared with in long term history. ^^ After all, the so called middle ages witnessed repeated urban and peasant uprisings and efforts to establish utopias e.g. the Hussites of Mt Tabor and the Anabaptist regime of Munster and was a period of impressive advances in manufacturing technology. Remember, that the flowering of the natural sciences and technology of the 16 and 17th centuries preceded Capitalist Industrial society by 300 to 200 years. ^^ CB: Are you saying that there is not qualitative leap in development in capitalism as compared with earlier modes ? V3: This is in my view no longer a good question, because the answer must be ambiguous at best. New forms of production, of relations of production and so on emerge first as individual or singular events. Some of these develop into particularities, i.e. special developments within universal world contexts and even fewer of these eventually replace the universal modes in which they were special developments and become themselves the universal mode. Certainly this is the case with capitalism which begins as commodity exchange, develops into a fairly complex array of interrelated institutions throughout the European middle ages and only becomes the universal mode of production in England in the early 19th century and in Europe in the early to mid 20th century. Is there a qualitative leap here? That depends what you call a qualitative leap. In a sense virtually any creative development, e.g. the development of direct exchange (i.e.barter)the introduction of money, and the replacement of material tokens of value (e.g. cowrie shells, precious metals and what have you) with scrip are all evolutionary developments that are first, qualitative (as singular innovations) and then quantitative (as they are adopted by more individuals and communities) and finally once again qualititative (as they become special and universal practices). Take, for example, the representation of value by scrip. It's as ancient as the commercial practices of Classical Greek and Chinese civilization, develops into the regular practice of a considerable sector of European and Near Eastern medieval society, i.e. urban commercial civilization, but only becomes the universal mode of commercial relations between nation states in the mid 20th century. Even today, scrip is yet to become the absolute universal mode of representing value for all commercial transactions, though thanks to computer tech, we are eventually and probably will see that occur within the next 30 to 40 years. Notice, the Preface to the Introduction to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy or whatever in which the quote occurs WAS NEVER PUBLISHED. Marx didn't put out there for everybody his daydreaming about this. So, don't hold him to it so tightly. It's just a metaphor to sum up what he was thinking. He didn't mean it to be the most important statement he made at all, or else he would
