[Marxism-Thaxis] James Petras' critique of the Communist Manifesto
James Petras' critique of the Communist Manifesto * To: pe...@xxx, marxism-internatio...@xx, cm15...@xxx * Subject: James Petras' critique of the Communist Manifesto * From: Louis Proyect l...@ * Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 09:57:28 -0500 The sequence of capitalist expansion, destruction of traditional bonds and global integration was, according to Marx, the process of creating a unified working class, conscious of its class interests and linked across national boundaries. His chain of reasoning lacks a clear understanding of the importance traditions and social bonds preceding capitalism played in creating social solidarity for confronting capitalism and sustaining class consciousness. When Marx describes the bourgeoisie as reducing human relations to the cash nexus as a prelude to the development of class consciousness, he is essentially describing the condition of the U.S. working class--probably the least willing and able to identify its source of exploitation let alone struggle against it. The stripping of older beliefs--what Marx and Engels unfortunately called philistine sentimentalism--includes the sense of community and not necessarily belief in a natural superior. Thus the assumption that the everlasting insecurity and agitation that the Manifesto's authors associate with capital's revolutionizing of the means of production does not necessarily compel [man] to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life and his relations with his kind. In fact, economic processes are having the opposite effects in deepening reaction, atomizing labor, stimulating ethnic warfare and undermining a vast swath of economic production throughout Latin America, Africa, the ex-USSR and elsewhere. Thus the centrality of tradition and culture and community in defining the formation of class consciousness is lost before Marx and Engels' sweeping and uncritical celebration of the revolutionary potential of the development of the forces of production. Similarly, the savaging of the Third World labor force occurring under the aegis of the internationalization of capital has not led to greater class consciousness or civilized behavior. One look at free trade zones should dissuade anyone of that notion. Instead, it has broken class ties and fostered greater deference and servility. Bourgeois globalization has not created a world in its own image as Marx and Engels argued. Today these are the sentimental pieties printed out in World Bank public relations handouts trumpeting the modernization of the Third World. [And LM TV documentaries, I might add.] Their lack of a sense of class consciousness directly related to the producers and not derived from the capitalist process of production explains the difficulties many Marxists have in creating an alternative to capitalism. Today capitalists don't call into existence the men who will wield the weapons to deal a death blow to capitalism. They create millions of frightened, uncertain, temporary workers, tied to the cash nexus. To become a Marxist in the sense of realizing the goals of the Manifesto, one must reject Marx and Engels' false assumptions about the revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie. To move toward working class action, their conception of the transformation of workers into a revolutionary class must be subjected to the harshest criticism. Where Marx and Engels say that man's consciousness changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life the changes that capitalism has wrought have undermined the construction of a revolutionary consciousness at every point. The notion that the bourgeoisie revolutionizes production through competition and in the course forces workers to confront their conditions and subsequently join together is false on all counts. The most important change is not the revolutionizing of production, but the transformation of political and social relations throughout the world in a fashion that undermines the possibility of material recognition of proletarians. To speak of the Manifesto today, one must move from the brilliant economic analysis to the revolutionary conclusions by constructing a new theory of revolutionary action. The passage above appears in James Petras' article The Manifesto's Strength and Flaws, which is part of a symposium on the relevance of Marxism on the 150th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto published in the latest New Politics, Winter 1998. I highly recommend this issue. For ordering information, check www.wilpaterson.edu/~newpol. Louis proyect ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month 2009 Change and continuity 6/end
In a message dated 2/28/2009 1:26:49 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, waistli...@aol.com writes: Obama as a uniter is an interesting Marxist approach. Perhaps if all of us was raised by a white parent and white grandparents, we too would be uniters. Why not just read his book - Dreams from my father? And then describe how being raised, during his formative years, where he was raised mirror the life of blacks in American Northern or Southern cities and country side. I do not write Obama is an immigrant. His story - meaning the story that he tells, and to a large degree the live he has lived, is that of the story of the immigrant and their first generation offspring. If you disagree with an interpretation why not simply state something to the effect that my interpretation is unless you are saying what Obama means is I was raised by one white parent and white grandparents and therefore I am a uniter, with the small physiological disposition of the descendants of Southern slavery. Without question he is African American, but that does not really tell much. Uniter! Trust me on the following: Obama is CEO for the capitalist class. WL. Barack Obama wonderful book, Dreams from My Father, is the immigrant story, a black immigrant, rather than the history of the Negro People, and his acute awareness of this living history accounts for his unique and individual ability to cross the color line. When Obama writes, My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn’t, couldn’t, end there, what is meant is that my identity is not defined on the basis of the color factor in American history. The words of Obama reveals why no self respecting Marxist, born and reared as part of the baby boomers, can deploy the concept race, other than the petty bourgeois intellectuals unable to fully digest dialectics without opportunist sauce. ^ CB: Obama's words don't mean that. Unlike most Black people he was raised by White parents and grandparents. This gave him an unusual ability to understand both aspects of his Duboisian double consciousness. It allows him to be a uniter, not a divider. Obama is not an immigrant. He had little contact with his immigrant father. He was raised by US natives **Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your neighborhood today. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filingnci d=emlcntusyelp0004) ___ 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 **Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your neighborhood today. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filingncid=emlcntusyelp0004) ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month 2009 Change and continuity 6/end
Trust me on the following: Obama is CEO for the capitalist class. WL. ^^ CB: So were Lincoln and FDR. From my observations, that's dogmatic ,formulaic thinking ,and in this situation, there keep arising more indications that something new is going on here. Need to try to think dialectically on this one. Again the first indicator is getting all those White people to vote for him. That's breaking a quantitative barrier. Then his first month as Pres is realistic , but making some changes that are possible in this context , despite all the left haters say. I could list the actions , but I'm not going to exert myself for the haters. Fuck em. The big crisis/problem is Afghanistan, and ,of course Palestine He's going to have to be Houdini on that. I can't see how he'll do it. Unless he just pretty soon , after this assessment he can get something like broker both a treaty with Hamas and a treaty with the Taliban et al not to facilitate, and to hinder any attack on the US by the bin Laden group. I don't know how he gets out of the obligation to capture bin Laden, *** Reply To begin a presentation - (the six part series for Black History Month, and the follow up dialogue) with class, class struggles and class antagonism, and then point out that Obama is the CEO of the capitalist class may very well be dogmatic ,formulaic thinking , or a refusal to try to think dialectically. But, there is no way to see how one thinks other than as it is expressed in exposition. For me this means class intersection and where the communist must push for the concessions made possible on the basis of temporary fields of relative unity. For instance health care has emerged as one of these fields and not because the workers need health care. This field emerges as a manifestation of intersection because private industry large and small, is being crushed by health care cost, along with insurance companies indirectly paying for the cost or medical plans. Further, the cost of Medicare can be more rationalized and driven downward by its reorganization around our new technological regime and the cost of prescription drugs can also be driven down through regulation. Class intersection of interest, rather than Obama as the uniter must inform our view of the art of the possible. Another such field exist in the agricultural sector, as the expansion of welfare and food stamps. Most certainly this business sector is screaming through its lobbyists that the people are hunger and need food; our food. Through this intersection of interest arising the demand to increase the consumption capacity of the masses, which also intersects with a huge area of the economy driven by consumer demand. Here is the basis upon which Obama emerges as uniter. This is not a bad thing, but a thing that must lend itself to a Marxist unraveling in its class dimensions. This is not to suggest being opposed to excursions into anthropology. This clamoring about white people is unsettling because 58 million, primarily whites voted in the historically fascist political block anchored in the Southern political establishment. We really need to find the means to propagandize class and popularize its meaning for America. I am of the opinion that the great polarity to be stuck and fought for in American society is between fascists and non fascist. There are material reasons for this opinion bound up with this stage of decay of capital. In the pre and post WWII era it was possible for a section of world politics to be anti-fascism and anti-communism because capitalism itself had not reached its historical barriers and the anti-communist/anti-fascists axis still had a task of sweeping the last institutions of feudalism from earth. Further, the era of the national colonial revolutions had not been completed and allowed for a unique class intersection of forces that emerged as the politics of the Third World movement. It mattered little that we communists screamed at the top of our lungs that there is no such thing as a Third Way, because the world still had to complete its historical process bound up with the destruction of direct colonialism and establishing the world hegemony of finance capital. Today, the world class alignment is such that the world bourgeoisie and world proletariat faces each other along lines spoken of in the Communist Manifesto. Further, a section of the world bourgeoisie and world proletariat has been effectively cast outside of bourgeois production and face each other in external collision. Without the connecting bond - tissue, that is the unity of productive forces and social relations of production there is no basis for unity with these extreme manifestation of the capital relations. If you do not have a job or the prospect of getting one, you exist in external collision with capital.
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month 2009 Change and continuity 6/end
Insofar as I understand what Waistline is saying here, I agree with all of it. -Original Message- From: waistli...@aol.com Sent: Mar 1, 2009 11:15 AM To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month 2009 Change and continuity 6/end Reply To begin a presentation - (the six part series for Black History Month, and the follow up dialogue) with class, class struggles and class antagonism, and then point out that Obama is the CEO of the capitalist class may very well be dogmatic ,formulaic thinking , or a refusal to try to think dialectically. But, there is no way to see how one thinks other than as it is expressed in exposition. For me this means class intersection and where the communist must push for the concessions made possible on the basis of temporary fields of relative unity. For instance health care has emerged as one of these fields and not because the workers need health care. ___ 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] Obama: The brother form another planet
In a message dated 2/28/2009 5:50:26 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, _cdb1...@prodigy.net_ (mailto:cdb1...@prodigy.net) writes: Waistline2 Obama as a uniter is an interesting Marxist approach. ^ CB: Marxist as in Workers of all nations and races , unite ! ^ Perhaps if all of us was raised by a white parent and white grandparents, we too would be uniters. ^ CB: Makes sense. It would engender need for unity on a personal level for peace of mind. His mother seems to have taught him Black history type respect for Black people. He seems to have somewhat consciously constructed a Black identity of high integrity. Going to the hood to live, like an anthropologist joining his own culture. Now he's an interesting character. To coin a phrase, he seems to be in the Presidential world , but not of it. Somehow he comes across as confident in the sense of not worried, in the face of an extraordinary mess but not arrogant and not aloof. Engaged with horrific crises, but not scared and not in the bliss of ignorance. I'm like more power to ya, Barry. So far, so good. Comment/Reply I tend to prefer a Marxist approach rather than psychological speculation and race theory. To conceive Obama personality traits as a call for Workers of all nations and races , unite ! is an interesting proposition. Further, I reject the concept that humanity is divided into races. I am convince with every fiber of my being that those who cling to race and its usage will inevitably fail to approach issues from a class point of view, because a false theory of biology cannot be reconciled with a science of class and economic relations. Obama does not unite back and white people, devoid of any class conception of society. Pardon, but whites in America are not united amongst themselves because class - economic interest, stratification, status and perception of class, divides them and have always divided them, along with a morality of what is right and wrong about our society ills. Barack's personal qualities, which I most certainly have never ignored, which cast him a uniter, is a class thing also: to unite or maintain the polarizing unity that is the productive forces and social relations of American society. That is his J.O.B. Obama's personal cool has more in common with Frank Sinatra rather than Miles Davis with the latter expressing a contempt and demeanor characteristic of the black middle class militant profoundly aware of the structural barriers of Jim Crow. Personal qualities are important but should not overshadowed class; and in Obama case, his set of polices designed to protect the unity of the productive forces and social relations. The race to the bottom, has nothing to do with biological race, and will not stopped or be halted by any of Obama's polices. The character of who hits bottom first, from the standpoint of the color factor, is rooted in slavery and its aftermath. It is interesting to state that Obama went to live in the hood, when most Negroes in America were born in the hood. The point being that this anthropologist joining his own culture, is why the story of the American Dream is shaped a certain why in Obama's hands. Me think we both agree and are saying the same thing, from different directions in respect to the personality of Obama. The stark different in our direction is that I tend to try and write specifically from the standpoint of class; class intersection, classes amongst whites and blacks and how in this intersection communist fight the daily battles of the proletarian masses. Class and communism are words generously used in everything I write. Our J.O.B., regardless to who is President is to fight for the victory of the workers, or whatever section of them are in motion, in the current struggle; in the daily battle for concession and to acquire socially necessary means of life in all their dimensions. All the while we remain true to Marx approach to class. The reason why is to establish an economic communist polarity that demands socially necessary means of life as a birth right. Socially necessary means of life as a birth right. This is the path that is easiest to walk. The only way for people without money, or little money, to secure these socially necessary means of life is for, the government to give such to them. There is simply no other way. If you work and still cannot pay your bills or care for your family, what is one to do? Put on a ski mask and hide behind a tree waiting on some other proletarian with the same problems? Stick up a bank? To the degree that Obama's legislative mandates intersect with this demand is the degree to which his concessions and possible reforms are to be welcomed. This does not require communists to be torn from our line of march and preaching the gospel of class and economic communism.
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month 2009 - correction
Even during the period of Lincoln the abolitionists movement remained the abolitionists movement, without being torn from its goals. This movement contained its left and right wing with the right wing condemning the left - radical Republicans. Within radical republicanism was it most extreme left expression in the shape and existence of the black abolitionists such as the intellectual and theoretician David Walker. David Walker, author of Walker's Appeal was in his day understood as a left hater. Correction Even during the period of Lincoln the abolitionists movement remained the abolitionists movement, without being torn from its goals. This movement contained its left and right wing with the right wing condemning the left - radical Republicans. Within radical republicanism was it most extreme left expression in the shape and existence of the black abolitionists such as the intellectual and theoretician David Walker. David Walker, author of Walker's Appeal was in his day understood as a left hater, BECAUSE OF HIS EXTREME OPPOSITION TO SLAVERY. **Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your neighborhood today. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filingncid=emlcntusyelp0004) ___ 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] Obama: The brother from another planet
Waistline2 Waistline2 Obama as a uniter is an interesting Marxist approach. ^ CB: Marxist as in Workers of all nations and races , unite ! ^ Perhaps if all of us was raised by a white parent and white grandparents, we too would be uniters. ^ CB: Makes sense. It would engender need for unity on a personal level for peace of mind. His mother seems to have taught him Black history type respect for Black people. He seems to have somewhat consciously constructed a Black identity of high integrity. Going to the hood to live, like an anthropologist joining his own culture. Now he's an interesting character. To coin a phrase, he seems to be in the Presidential world , but not of it. Somehow he comes across as confident in the sense of not worried, in the face of an extraordinary mess but not arrogant and not aloof. Engaged with horrific crises, but not scared and not in the bliss of ignorance. I'm like more power to ya, Barry. So far, so good. Comment/Reply I tend to prefer a Marxist approach rather than psychological speculation and race theory. ^ CB: The Marxist approach to an individual's personality would be a psychological approach too. To conceive Obama personality traits as a call for Workers of all nations and races , unite ! is an interesting proposition. CB: He said he's a uniter not a divider, Given he's Black , and of course that is a prominent feature of the public situation, race unity is strongly suggested. So, it fits with workers uniting. In the US racial unity is an important version of the famous unity slogan. Further, I reject the concept that humanity is divided into races. ^ CB: You are ignoring social and historical actuality. What do you think the Civil Rights movement was directed at ? An illusion ? ^^ I am convince with every fiber of my being that those who cling to race and its usage will inevitably fail to approach issues from a class point of view, because a false theory of biology cannot be reconciled with a science of class and economic relations. CB: Race is an invalid biological concept Unfortunately, it is a real social, political economic and historical category. It inflects class. ^ Obama does not unite back and white people, devoid of any class conception of society. CB: When I mention Workers of the all nations and races unite I am referring to his impact on uniting people in relation to a class conception of society. That should be obvious. ^^^ Pardon, but whites in America are not united amongst themselves because class - economic interest, stratification, status and perception of class, divides them and have always divided them, along with a morality of what is right and wrong about our society ills. ^^^ CB: Yes, but that doesn't mean White and Black workers haven't been divided too. ^^^ Barack's personal qualities, which I most certainly have never ignored, which cast him a uniter, is a class thing also: to unite or maintain the polarizing unity that is the productive forces and social relations of American society. CB: Maybe. We'll see what happens. ^ That is his J.O.B. ^^ CB: So, far the effect of his campaign has not been to do that job. ^^ Obama's personal cool has more in common with Frank Sinatra rather than Miles Davis with the latter expressing a contempt and demeanor characteristic of the black middle class militant profoundly aware of the structural barriers of Jim Crow. Personal qualities are important but should not overshadowed class; and in Obama case, his set of polices designed to protect the unity of the productive forces and social relations. The race to the bottom, has nothing to do with biological race, and will not stopped or be halted by any of Obama's polices. The character of who hits bottom first, from the standpoint of the color factor, is rooted in slavery and its aftermath. CB: You introduced the issue of individual personality by your idea that he has an immigrant personality. I'm not trying to override class with personality. I'm pointing to the impact of his campaign in contributing to more unity between races, including between White, Black and Brown workers, especially. Reduction of racism in the middle strata enhances the racial unity of the working class as well. His mixed racial background logically helps him in leading a movement that unites sections of the social classes. As to whether he does what you say, we shall see. So, far it's not like that His budget proposals to reverse Reaganism and pledge to fight its opponents is the opposite of what you predict. It is fighting for the working class versus the rich. ^ It is interesting to state that Obama went to live in the hood, when most Negroes in America were born in the hood. The point being that this anthropologist joining his own culture,
