>>> "Michael Keaney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 06/11/99 06:24AM >>> Charles Brown wrote: > >Charles: I don't know if you meant this, but Marxism does not pose an >uncrossable demarcation between intellectuals and the masses. Engels, Marx, >Lenin and Mao were all intellectuals connecting with the masses . I didn't mean this at all. I am concerned, however, with a tendency among some to denigrate intellectuals per se, as if getting one's hands dirty is proof of one's moral superiority. (((((((((( Charles: This is an old and even common sense dynamic. We all recognize that in the long term of history education has been associated with elitism. By and large, in the long term there was little book learning among the working masses ( mostly peasants in the long run). Certainly Marxist revolution aims to democratize education, but that is a long process (as you say below, sometimes painfully slow) and meanwhile, it is good if we intellectuals are sensitive to the elitism that has been associated with predominantly mental labor through the ages. This is one of the big, longterm revolutions that Marxism aims for: ending the antagonism between predominantly mental and predominantly physical labor. (((((((((((( >In general, Marxism notes the ancient antagonism between predominantly >mental labor and predominantly physical labor which arose with class >society and seeks to reduce and resolve this antagonism. The goal of >working class and mass socialist consciousness is exactly redistributing >mental or intellectual labor more equally. How much of this is derived from the mind/body dualism demarcated by Descartes and subsequently the mainstream of Western thought? Charles: I would say the mind/body dualism reflects this anatagonism, but the antagonism arises about 7000 years ago with the origin of classes and the state etc. The division of labor between predominantly physical (peasansts and the like) and predominantly mental labor (priests and the like) is reflected in the more recent philosophical theoretical division of mind and body. This is also reflected in idealism and materialism in philosophy. Engels calls the latter the main question of philosophy. >Does a division of labor require that there be rulers and ruled ? Doesn't >Marxism seek to retain the division of labor in communism while abolishing >ruling classes ? There remains the problem of coordination of labour in problem-solving, be that the eradication of poverty, the development of eco-friendly technologies and their application, or responses to natural disasters. Especially in the case of the latter, responses need to be rapid, which will not facilitate a full and inclusive discussion of all possible courses of action. Thus trust will need to be placed in those whose expertise is most suited to coordinating efforts at relief. What remains essential in this, and in any like situation, is that those doing the coordinating are accountable to everyone for their decisions, directions, and actions. ((((((((((((( Charles: Agree with this. The eradication of poverty in the basic sense is very doable today. No one need starve or be deprived of fundamentals. That is one thing capitalist production has given us. Galbraith's affluently producing society AND with redistribution of the wealth. The division of labor in communism will include specialization including coordinator specialization. The coordinator function can rotate and need not include ruling class power as in class society. Seems that individuals would learn a wide variety of jobs to overcome the monotony. This variety would include jobs of different specialty and generality, including overview, or supervisory (literally overseeing) functions. Someone who looks at the "big picture" of things. This remains a specialty , but not the exlcusive or permanent ownership of an elite. As Lenin says, the average person will do management functions. ((((((((((((((((( None of this will happen overnight, of course, as there will have to be a long period of transition. As Lenin recognised, this is as much a cultural process as it is material. Daniel Singer's "Whose Millenium?" charts these problems extensively in the closing chapters. The process is further complicated by capitalism's vested interests who see no gain in reconstituting society, some of whom going to great lengths to frustrate and sabotage any such transition. This poses tremendous problems for the democratically-minded who do not make a similar division between means and ends analogous to that of mind and body. For how is democratic discourse preserved and nurtured in a climate such as that faced by the Bolsheviks and Mao? Charles: Indeed. (((((((((( My own view is that class conflict is a war of attrition, a slow, sometimes painfully slow, process of struggle and change. I am not convinced that revolution is the answer, for it obscures important continuities between pre-and post-revolutionary society, and does not allow for the necessary enculturation and education of the masses, especially if a vanguard sees the opportunity to seize power (like the Bolsheviks) without prior preparation of the masses whose sovereignty they are supposedly instating. Then there is also the enculturation and education of the leadership, which depends upon their connectedness to the masses. Again, this is an aspect of the Bolsheviks' situation which mitigated against them, and perhaps even set the scene for the later demonization and extermination of sections of the masses (e.g. "kulaks") by Stalin. I'm not sure if any of this answers your questions above, but I appreciate the opportunity to work some of these things out. (((((((((((((((( Charles: I agree this is a long term or epochal or multigenerational transition. And the length of it is not set. It has objective factors, but the final conflict will come when the working masses get conscious as you have discussed. This is a trial and error process , based on practice in the real world guided by theory. The Russian Revolutionary experience teaches us both negative (error; what not to do) and positive lessons. To ignore the positive lessons because of the horror of the negative lessons is the danger of overly dismissing Soviet history. The Russian Revolution already started "the slow, sometimes painfully slow, process" you describe above. We don't start from scratch the next time. Charles Brown
