>> The emancipatory, "progressive," element in capitalism is not the "dual role" of the bourgeoisie as Marx imagined, and only imagined, it to be in 1848,[ as a careful examination of the struggle against the ancien regime and its remnants shows that the bourgeoisie itself hardly played a revolutionary role, but in fact the actions of the rural and urban poor, the petty bourgeoisie were the revolutionary drivers and the revolution itself only became bourgeois in its defeat], is not and does not exist in "things." It does not exist in the accumulation of the means of production as means of production because in fact no such accumulation exists. The accumulation of the means of production exists only as part of the process of the accumulation of values. The "progress" such as it is exists, and exists only, in the expropriation of the expropriators, in the social act of revolution.<< Comment "We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.
Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune(4): here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable “third estate” of the monarchy (as in France); afterwards, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part." (Communist Manifesto) Private property is set into motion, and attains a self reproducing life cycle with the dissolution of private communism. I am convinced - unshakably, that private property does not arise from the existence of a surplus, or we can forget about the cause of communism. Rather, private property establishes itself on the basis of a surplus. Private property in its genesis is excited to life by a biological driven greed, or biological distortion or metabolic breach - rift, in the human. I have already agreed that it is incorrect to speak of the bourgeoisie as progressive. “Progressive” conveys the wrong concept that is the property form and its evolution. The bourgeoisie is revolutionary in the context of the evolution of the property form as the meaning of class. It is revolutionary in regard to the role in plays in the destruction of a previously existing property relations. The bourgeoisie is not progressive or revolutionary in relationship to proletariat or wage labor or what is the same, the wage form or the property form of labor. . The problem is that the workers consciousness, as wage labor, evolves behind the consciousness of the bourgeoisie, as both face the property restrains of feudalism. These restrains are social, political, economic and military. In this meaning what really broke up feudalism - as an economic order, was the transition in the form of wealth from landed property to gold. What breaks up feudalism from the standpoint of the development of the productive forces is revolution in the machinery of society. What overthrows feudalism in its political aspects is the emergence of bourgeoisie and proletariat as the unity and strife of new classes underlying new form of property or new production relations. II. "progress" such as it is exists, and exists only, in the expropriation of the expropriators, in the social act of revolution.” Agreed, with qualifications. Marx paints a gigantic cycle - evolution, as negation of negation in Capital 1. The “expropriators are expropriated,” as the social act of a historically specific social revolution at a historically specific state of development of the productive forces - with the property relations within. What is established is public property or anti-property or classless society. I understand Marx meaning to imply the bourgeoisie is revolutionary in regard to the past; the proletariat in regard to the future. The social problem is that the proletariat in its early phases of development as a class/property configuration lacks consciousness of itself as part of the historical progression. The proletariat fights the enemy of its enemy. III. Marx describes the general formation of the consciousness of the wage workers. "The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages. At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois. Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie." (Communist Manifesto) Apparently, in your own way, you have stated no more than the last sentence above. Every . . . (Every!!!) victory obtained, in the fight for the future, is a victory for the bourgeoisie when the whole historical movement is concentrated in its hands. It is of course "cool" to at least try and answer concrete questions concrettly. WL. **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222846709x1201493018/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072&hmpgID=115&bcd =JulystepsfooterNO115) ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
