Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Unity of theory and practice

[Waistline2]

X-INFO: INVALID TO LINE
WL :The focus of revolutionary activity - politics, is a very different
subject 
matter and doctrine than political economy, which arose during the 
manufacturing period as a theoretical science.



CB: For Marx there is unity of theory and practice on this. _Capital_ is to
be read as a guide to revolutionary activity, as the same subject matter.
That's why it's _political_economy, not economics.



WL: Fair enough. 

Give one example how Capital can be applied to the social struggle or how you 
have applied it or anyone else over the course of say the past 30 years. 

Capital as a guide to revolutionary activity . . . does this not mean first 
defining what is meant by revolutionary activity. It is not possible to apply 
Capital to the last great strike we waged against say Chrysler Corp., which 
took place when I was employed there. That is at Local 51 UAW. And it was the 
lengthiest strike to hit the corporation in over 30 years and we got our 
natural 
asses kicked by Eaton and company. 

Nor could we apply Capital to the African American Peoples Movement for 
rights. A guide by definition means it is not a doctrine of combat. The unity 
of 
theory and practice does not mean a unity between any theory and any practice. 

What is your meaning of revolutionary activity? 

Waistline 

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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] HISTORICAL TENDENCY OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION

[Waistline2]

CB: Even the form of the fettering thing is a _metaphor_.   The forces of 
production that are not human can't act as subjects. The non-human forces of 
production do not develop themselves. The instruments of production can't burst 
asunder the relations between people. It has to be people who invent new 
instrument of production doing the bursting asunder. 

* 

WL: I understand the word metaphor to mean the use and application of a 
word or phrase to an object or concept which it does not literally denote in 
order to illustrate. Say for instead the saying God is a mighty fortress. God 
is 
of course not a building or fort or fortress literally, and then there is the 
unpleasant issue of the existence of God for hundreds of millions of people. 

Marx use of the concept of fettering is not metaphor as he uses it in the 
Communist Manifesto and his Preface to A Critique, where the material factors 
of 
production are under discussion. 

Even Marx description of the fettering thing in Chapter 32 of Capital is 
not a metaphor but an abstraction of process logic of the material factors of 
actual species activity in production. 

Judge for yourself: 

From that moment new forces and new passions spring up in the bosom of 
society; but the old social organization fetters them and keeps them down. It 
must 
be annihilated; it is annihilated. Its annihilation, the transformation of the 
individualized and scattered means of production into socially concentrated 
ones, of the pigmy property of the many into the huge property of the few, the 
expropriation of the great mass of the people from the soil, from the means of 
subsistence, and from the means of labor, this fearful and painful 
expropriation of the mass of the people forms the prelude to the history of 
capital. It 
comprises a series of forcible methods, of which we have passed in review only 
those that have been epoch-making as methods of the primitive accumulation of 
capital.  http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm 

How is this a metaphor? Because he speaks of the bosom of society? Where is 
the metaphor in stating the old social organization fetters . . . new forces 
and new passions? 

I understand the word annihilation to mean the act of annihilating and 
annihilate means to reduce to ruin or utterly destroy. Because Marx connects 
annihlating with tranformation (Its annihilation, the transformation of the 
individualized and scattered means of production) I derived a concept of 
sublating or the process by which one qualitative definition emerges from the 
womb of 
that in which it was birthed. :-) 

I think I just used a little metaphor. 

Can be following be called Marx using his meaning of fettering as metaphor 
because he uses the word pigmy - meaning small, 

. . . the transformation of the individualized and scattered means of 
production into socially concentrated ones, of the pigmy property of the many 
into 
the huge property of the few, the expropriation of the great mass of the people 
from the soil, from the means of subsistence, and from the means of labor, 
this fearful and painful expropriation of the mass of the people forms the 
prelude to the history of capital. 

Consider the following: 

As soon as this process of transformation has sufficiently decomposed the 
old society from top to bottom, as soon as the laborers are turned into 
proletarians, their means of labor into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode 
of 
production stands on its own feet, then the further socialization of labor and 
further transformation of the land and other means of production into socially 
exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as well as the further 
expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new form.  
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm 

Where is the metaphor? 

Here is more: 

Hand in hand with this centralization, or this expropriation of many 
capitalists by few, develop, on an ever-extending scale, the co-operative form 
of the 
labor-process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical 
cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labor into 
instruments of labor only usable in common, the economizing of all means of 
production by their use as means of production of combined, socialized labor, 
the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and with this, 
the international character of the capitalistic regime. Along with the 
constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and 
monopolize all 
advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, 
oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the 
revolt 
of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, 
united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production 
itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the 

[Marxism-Thaxis] Marx applied method and Capital - damn! then there is politics of the new era

[Waistline2]

In manufacture, the revolution in the mode of production begins with the 
labour-power, in modern industry it begins with the instruments of labour. Our 
first inquiry then is, how the instruments of labour are converted from tools 
into machines, or what is the difference between a machine and the implements 
of 
a handicraft? We are only concerned here with striking and general 
characteristics; for epochs in the history of society are no more separated 
from each 
other by hard and fast lines of demarcation, than are geological epochs. 

Mathematicians and mechanicians, and in this they are followed by a few 
English economists, call a tool a simple machine, and a machine a complex tool. 
They see no essential difference between them, and even give the name of 
machine 
to the simple mechanical powers, the lever, the inclined plane, the screw, the 
wedge, c. [2] As a matter of fact, every machine is a combination of those 
simple powers, no matter how they may be disguised. From the economic 
standpoint this explanation is worth nothing, because the historical element is 
wanting. Another explanation of the difference between tool and machine is that 
in 
the case of a tool, man is the motive power, while the motive power of a 
machine 
is something different from man, as, for instance, an animal, water, wind, 
and so on.[3] According to this, a plough drawn by oxen, which is a contrivance 
common to the most different epochs, would be a machine, while Claussen's 
circular loom, which, worked by a single labourer, weaves 96,000 picks per 
minute, 
would be a mere tool. Nay, this very loom, though a tool when worked by hand, 
would, if worked by steam, be a machine. And since the application of animal 
power is one of man's earliest inventions, production by machinery would have 
preceded production by handicrafts. When in 1735, John Wyatt brought out his 
spinning machine, and began the industrial revolution of the 18th century, not 
a word did he say about an ass driving it instead of a man, and yet this part 
fell to the ass. He described it as a machine to spin without fingers. [4] 

All fully developed machinery consists of three essentially different parts, 
the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism, and finally the tool or 
working machine. The motor mechanism is that which puts the whole in motion. It 
either generates its own motive power, like the steam-engine, the caloric 
engine, 
the electromagnetic machine, c., or it receives its impulse from some 
already existing natural force, like the water-wheel from a head of water, the 
wind-mill from wind, c. The transmitting mechanism, composed of fly-wheels, 
shafting, toothed wheels, pullies, straps, ropes, bands, pinions, and gearing 
of the 
most varied kinds, regulates the motion, changes its form. where necessary, 
as for instance, from linear to circular, and divides and distributes it among 
the working machines. These two first parts of the whole mechanism are there, 
solely for putting the working machines in motion, by means of which motion 
the subject of labour is seized upon and modified as desired. The tool or 
working machine is that part of the machinery with which the industrial 
revolution 
of the 18th century started. And to this day it constantly serves as such a 
starting-point, whenever a handicraft, or a manufacture, is turned into an 
industry carried on by machinery. 
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm

note: 

1). When in 1735, John Wyatt brought out his spinning machine, and began the 
industrial revolution of the 18th century, 

2). In manufacture, the revolution in the mode of production begins with the 
labour-power, 

3). modern industry it begins with the instruments of labour.

***
We are undergoing a revolution in the mode of production that alters and 
changes classes in society. This social revolution has been traced and outlined 
beginning in 1970 with the book Future Shock and then in 1980 with the book 
The Third Wave and in 1990 with Powershift and in 1998 with War and 
Anti-War all by Alvin and Heidi Toffler.

The working class of which the past generation of Marxists and communists 
spoke is giving wave to a new layer of society emerging from the working class 
and this new class is not the same as the refuge thrown off by the decay of 
feudalism or the lumpen proletariat. Nor is this an army of unemployed as 
described by Engels. 

Revolution comes about as a result of the development of the means of 
production. What I have determined as my experience is that the current 
transformation of the means of production, of which we are living in the 
opening era, 
qualitatively reconfigures industrial society unlike anything we have 
experienced 
during the past era of Soviet Power. 

My entire life activity has taken place in a context that is fastly shifting. 
In the past the struggle between the workers and capitalist - of which I took 
part in on various 

[Marxism-Thaxis] Unity of theory and practice: Production of Relative Surplus Value

[Charles Brown]

WL: Fair enough. 

Give one example how Capital can be applied to the social struggle or how
you have applied it or anyone else over the course of say the past 30 years.



^

CB: You apply _Capital_ in practice when you propagandize the industrial
workers that part of the loss of total number of jobs is due to greater
efficiency of instruments of production due to CAD/CAM, robotics,
computerization.

This is practice united with the theory in:

Part IV: Production of Relative Surplus Value

Ch. 12: The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value 
Ch. 13: Co-operation 
Ch. 14: Division of Labour and Manufacture 
Ch. 15: Machinery and Modern Industry 



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[Marxism-Thaxis] fetter means chain, literally

[Charles Brown]

Fettering is a metaphor based on the definition below to tie someone to a
place by putting chains around their ankles or a pair of chains which were
tied round the legs of prisoners to prevent them from escaping. 

Fetters are literally chains. The metaphor Marx uses is chaining.

The forces of production are not literally tied up like someone . They are
not literally chained.  Marx applies fetter as an analogy from this usage.
(Analogy is another word for metaphor). The forces of production do not
literally burst asunder some chains.

You know, Workers of the World , Unite ! You have nothing to lose but your
chains.  


CB

^^^

http://www.freesearch.co.uk/dictionary/fettering

definition

fetter 

verb {T} 

1 LITERARY 

to keep someone within limits or stop their advance:

- He felt fettered by a nine-to-five office existence.


2 to tie someone to a place by putting chains around their ankles

fetters 

plural noun 

1 OLD USE 

a pair of chains which were tied round the legs of prisoners to prevent them
from escaping


2 LITERARY 

something which severely limits you:

- the fetters of motherhood



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[Marxism-Thaxis] Supporting Hillary

[Charles Brown]

Published on Sunday, October 16, 2005 by CommonDreams.org 

Supporting Hillary 

by Cindy Sheehan 

  I would love to support Hillary for President if she would come out
against the travesty in Iraq. But I don't think she can speak out
against the occupation, because she supports it. 

I will not make the mistake of supporting another pro-war Democrat for
president again: As I won't support a pro-war Republican. 

This country wants this occupation to end. The world wants the
occupation to end. People in Iraq want this occupation to end. 

Senator Clinton: taking the peace road would not prove you are weak.
Instead, it would prove that you are the strongest and wisest candidate.
As a mom, as an American, as a patriot: I implore you to have the
strength and courage to lead the fight for peace. 

I want to support you, I want to work for you, but like many American
moms, I will resist your candidacy with every bit of my power and
strength unless you show us the wisdom it takes to be a truly great
leader. 

Prove that you are passionate and reflect our nations' values and
refusal to support imperialism, greed and torture. 

Senator Clinton: come out against this occupation of Iraq. Not because
it is the politically expedient thing to do but because it is the humane
thing to do. If you want to make Casey's sacrifice count, bring the rest
of his buddies home alive. 

  *** 

I did meet with Sen. Clinton, along with Sen. Harry Reid, on September
22, 2005. No one has asked me how it went with Sen. Reid, but I've been
asked about my meeting with Sen. Clinton many times. A few days earlier
in Brooklyn, I had referred to her as waiting for a politically
expedient moment to speak out against the war in Iraq. I, of course,
think that this tactic is wrong, because politics has nothing to do with
the slaughter going on in Iraq. No one asked the almost 2000 Americans
and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis who have been killed what
political party they were rooting for. When a mother receives the news
that her son or daughter has been killed for lies she never thinks Oh
no, how could this have happened? I am a Democrat(Republican)!!! 

Playing politics with our soldiers' lives is despicable. 

I thought the meeting with Sen. Clinton went well. I thought she
listened and heard what we had to say. I went with another Gold Star
Mother, Lynn Braddach, and my sister, Dede Miller. After Sen. Reid left,
Mrs. Clinton stayed for a few more moments and she told us that she had
met with the other Gold Star Mothers who had a different view from ours.
I said it didn't really matter, because our view is right. Lynn, Dede,
and I don't want our loved ones to be used as political pawns to justify
the killing spree in Iraq. I can't believe any mother who has had her
heart and soul torn out would wish that on another mother. How often do
the lies have to be exposed before every American (elected official,
media representative, average citizen) wakes up and says, enough
killing is enough! 

I thought Mrs. Clinton listened, but apparently she didn't because
immediately afterwards she said the following to Sarah Ferguson of the
Village Voice: 

My bottom line is that I don't want their sons to die in vain... I
don't believe it's smart to set a date for withdrawal... I don't think
it's the right time to withdraw. 

That quote sounds exactly like what the few Republicans I talked to that
week said. Making sure that our children did not die in vain sounds
exactly like something George Bush says. A date for withdrawal? That
sounds like Rush Limbaugh to me. That doesn't sound like an opposition
party leader speaking to me. What Sen. Clinton said after our meeting
sounds exactly like the Republican Party talking points I heard from
Senators Dole and McCain. 

Sen. Clinton is in California today to raise money for her political
campaigns. An invitation to one star-studded gala reads: 

We must stand with Senator Clinton as she stands up for what we believe
in. Hillary is and always has been our champion in the White House and
the Senate. And she's one of the strongest, most passionate and
intelligent Democrats. 

I didn't get an invitation to any of the events, but maybe it's because
she doesn't stand up for what I believe in. I don't believe in
continuing this occupation of Iraq and I don't believe in killing more
of our soldiers because my son has already been needlessly and
tragically killed. I don't believe she is passionate. I think she is a
political animal who believes she has to be a war hawk to keep up with
the big boys. She is intelligent, there's no doubt about that. However,
I believe that the intelligent thing for Democrats to do for 2006 and
2008 would be to come out strongly and correctly against the botched,
bungled, illegal, and immoral occupation of Iraq. 

62% of Americans now believe that this war is based on lies and
betrayals and want our troops to start coming home. 53% of Americans
want our 

[Marxism-Thaxis] Useful new edition og the Manifesto with commentary

[andie nachgeborenen]

Phil Gasper's an old friend of mind, very smart. This
is worth buying. jks

New from Haymarket Books
http://haymarketbooks.org/


THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
A Road Map to History's Most Important Political
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by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Unity of theory and practice: Production of Relative Sur...

[Waistline2]

CB: You apply _Capital_ in practice when you propagandize the industrial
workers that part of the loss of total number of jobs is due to greater
efficiency of instruments of production due to CAD/CAM, robotics,
computerization.


WL: Interesting concept. I of course am not a trade unionists but a 
communist. What I did and for a living was as a union rep and speed up and 
rationalization is part of my job description. Explaining in different terms 
what workers 
already experience have never been my idea of communist practice, but trade 
union politics. 

Actually, our workers already understand the expereince of bourgeois 
production. 

Waistline

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