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I really don't want to waste my daily allotment on Nestor's drivel, but.... wishes aren't horses, and horses don't have wings. There are serious issues in the discussion of the [popularly identified] Franco-Prussian War. Nestor is apparently unwilling to or incapable of grappling with those issues, preferring instead to link himself with a non-existent tradition, withdraw from serious discussion, and drop in now and then for purposes of self-glorification. It's one thing for Bismarck to think he's Napoleon. It's quite another thing for Nestor to imagine Bismarck as Napoleon [and himself as Bismarck?]. And it's something else completely to imagine Marx as a Bismarckist, or should that be Bismarckite? Some of these issues are the meaning and content of "progressive" and "developmental." We hear quite a bit about progress and progressive, and hear about it all the time ahistorically, assigned to an individual as a representive of a class, an event, a struggle, without analyzing the struggle itself. Hell, we even hear about it now regarding Obama, and the progressive nature of allying with progressive Democrats. Some argue that the war led by Prussia was "progressive," because it unified the German nation, because it cleared the field for the emergence of German capitalism, the German bourgeoisie. And we are told that in this Prussia played the role the US North played in the US civil war. What we don't hear, what we don't get, is the analysis of what makes something "progressive." Instead of Marx's analysis of necessity and negation, we get the listing of the positive contributions of capitalism-- development of the NATION [the national market] first and foremost, followed closely by development of the means of production. I think we can explore the distinctions concerning "progress" in Marx's class analysis and Nestor's supra-class "national project" by looking precisely at the differences between the US Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, and the differences in Marx's support of the US North, and his very restrained defense of the Prussian-led side of the conflict vs. his enthusiastic, repeatedly enthusiastic endorsements of Lincoln and the Union. So what's the difference? Just this-- the social relations of production. Did Marx espouse the Union cause because the Union victory would develop the productive forces of capitalism? Would unleash US capitalism from sea to sea? Because the Union victory would create a strong, unified nation capable of "standing up to" [competing with] Britain? Not from what I've read. The consistent issue for Marx, one that runs all the way through from his correspondence with Engels in 1860 where he writes "In my opinion, the biggest things that are happening in the world to-day are on the one hand the movement of slaves, started by the death of John Brown, and on the other the movement of the serfs in Russia....Thus the "social" movement has started in the West and in the East..." TO the address of the IWMA to Andrew Johnson in 1865-- is slavery. This issue is simply that the enslavement of labor in the South precludes, not national development, not national independence, not a national market-- all those issues so critical to the bourgeoies, but slavery precludes the organization of labor for emancipation from its condition as wage-labor. The "progress" is and is solely in the destruction of the slave relations of labor, the slave property. For Marxism, the development of a "nation," of a "national unity," of a national market, of a national bourgeoisie, is not immaterial, but not CRITICAL, not necessary or sufficient, to the emancipation of labor. Destruction of slavery is. The obvious question presents itself-- what social relations of production, what enslavement of labor in any form was breached, and destroyed in the Prussian-led Franco-Prussian war? I would urge everyone to take some time out from Nestor's portrayal of "tradition," to look back at Marx's Declaration to the Editor of the Social-Demokrat of 18 February, 1865 in which he specifically breaks with that publicaton over its endorsement of "A Prussian government, which, in the second half of the 19th century begins to annex German land, a Prussian government which....resumes the 'policy of Frederick the Great'...cannot stand still after a small victory....it must move forward if necessary with 'blood and iron'..." Marx broke with the publication over this article, written BTW by Schweitzer, over this enthusiastic, uncritical, endorsement of the unification of Germany. Look further at Engels' letter to Marx, of 25 July, 1866 regarding Bismarck's success, he concludes after describing the "good side" of the process ["it makes the revolution easier by doing away with the brawls between the petty capitals and will in any case hasten development] with, "In my opinion, therefore, all we can do is simply to accept the fact, without justifying it, and to use, so far as we possibly can, the greater facilities for national organization and unification of the German proletariat which must now at any rate offer themselves." Does this sound like whole-hearted endorsement of the "national project," of national unity? Acceptance, use-- yes, but not endorsement, not justification. There's the difference between the US Civil War, and the Prussian led Franco-Prussian war; there's the difference between endorsement and acceptance, there's the difference between the tradition of Marx, and Engels, and the tradition Nestor would like us to believe existed, a tradition of distortion he reverse telescopes into the present. There's the difference in the tradition of Marx and yes, Rosa, and that of Gorojovsky. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
