It is not that Engels misunderstood Marx. Marx unfolded a new law system. Marx ame first. Engels agreed to the best of his ability. To continue.
>MIYACHI TATSUO >PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT >KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL >KOMAKI CITY >AICHI Pre. >JAPAN [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>Below is from "Capital" >>"The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of >direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it >grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a >determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of >the economic community which grows up out of the production relations >themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always >the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the >direct producers -- a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite >stage in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social >productivity -- which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the >entire social structure and with it the political form of the relation of >sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding specific form of the >state. This does not prevent the same economic basis" >>Brenner's reductionism is clear. He only analyze market, finance, or credit. >This tendency can ascend to Stalin's formula that economic process is >natural and to proceed without people's will. Certainly capitalist system is >reversed world in which Sachen (commodity, money and capital=== In any >English translation of " Capital" there is no distinction between Sachen and >Ding, but the two are different category, Sachen means occupying property, >and Ding is mere physical matter, and identifying Sachen with Ding, we can >not distinguish Versacherling and Verdinging, which is important to >understand Marx's critique of fetishism) rule people, and people >unconsciously and collectively produce Sachen which produce self-destructive >power for people. >>And finally Marx described >>"In capital -- profit, or still better capital -- interest, land -- rent, >abour -- wages, in this economic trinity represented as the connection >between the component parts of value and wealth in general and its sources, >we have the complete mystification of the capitalist mode of production, the >conversion of social relations into things, the direct coalescence of the >material production relations with their historical and social >determination. It is an enchanted, perverted, topsy-turvy world, in which >Monsieur le Capital and Madame la Terre do their ghost-walking as social >characters and at the same time directly as mere things. It is the great >merit of classical economy to have destroyed this false appearance and >illusion, this mutual independence and ossification of the various social >elements of wealth, this personification of things and conversion of >production relations into entities, this religion of everyday life. It did >so by reducing interest to a portion of profit, and rent to the surplus >above average profit, so that both of them converge in surplus-value; and by >representing the process of circulation as a mere metamorphosis of forms, >and finally reducing value and surplus-value of commodities to labour in the >direct production process" >>We works with will, although its result is self-alienated. It is clear. But >Stalin neglect this fundamental fact. >"Crisis theory" was produced from experience of Marx, and Lenin. Marx >firstly expected economic panic as condition of revolution, but in Capital, >>"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. That >which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for >himself, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers. This expropriation is >accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production >itself, by the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. >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 mode of >production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. >Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last >reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist >integument. Thus integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist >private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated. >>The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of >production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation >of individual private property, as founded on the labor of the proprietor. >But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, >its own negation. It is the negation of negation. This does not reestablish >private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based >on the acquisition of the capitalist era: i.e., on cooperation and the >possession in common of the land and of the means of production. >>The transformation of scattered private property, arising from individual >labor, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a process, >incomparably more protracted, violent, and difficult, than the >transformation of capitalistic private property, already practically resting >on socialized production, into socialized property. In the former case, we >had the expropriation of the mass of the people by a few usurpers; in the >latter, we have the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of the >people. [2]" >>So he modified his "crisis expectation" into expectation of growing social >movement which of course include people's will to resist, survive, and >destroy. >In other hand, Lenin expected revolution from economic and political crisis. >So he insisted "let imperial war into civil war." Once he could gain >political power-Soviet— he failed social revolution, which require to >abolish money. As this historical result, Stalin completes his "crisis >theory." So It is not surprising that most Marxists believe in "crisis >>theory." But in current global critical practice, its theory will decline. REPLY Melvin P. "Men" make their own history and this most certainly includes "men" as willful beings subject to "accidental phenomenon," "laws of chance and Synchronicity," the cultural heritage that shapes the ideas and assertion of will. Chance and the accidental can be studied as occurring under definite conditions of social life. In my estimate, this reply was not historically ordained or set into motion thousands of years ago waiting for fulfillment. People dream and their individual and collective dreams shape and give force to our social reality. Dream are not determined or rather originate in the "mold of production," neither are expectations, although mode of production can give a "certain" symbolic representation - form to dreams and proscribe the framework of limitation for the realization of expectation. Dreams and expectations predate "society" and mode of production as such, yet they currently occur under specific conditions and much of these specific conditions are the product of dreams and expectations materialized. In retrospect, the expectations of Marx and Engels concerning the prospect of social revolution reveal themselves to be the willful and wishful thinking of young men who had a powerful dream - vision, of the future rooted in their particular conceptions of "the possible." It is precisely "the possible" that engages the individual and collective mind. Nevertheless, on the basis or rather within the context of "European development" and intellectual tradition Marx and Engels articulated a vision of a future embracing their understanding of mans developmental processes. The framework of their collective thinking states: "that production and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of every social order; that in every society that has appeared in history, the distribution of wealth and with it the division of society into classes or estates are dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. According, the ultimate causes of all social change and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in their growing insight into eternal truths and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange." (Anti-Duhring, Theoretical) It has often happened that the words "ultimate causes" are elevated or misunderstood and the mode of production of material life is treated as a mechanical relationship instead of an interactive relation wherein living human beings are the decisive actors creating what is called society. Nevertheless, Marx and Engels defined "the possible" as a conception riveted to "ultimate causes." Abolishing money - "the possible" operates within the construct of "ultimate causes" and therefore is an interactive element given force within a specific mode of production and its development. Abolishing money is riveted to Marx approach to the theory of value as a mediating force in the affairs of humanity, or rather abolishing money as a form of commodity transaction and vehicle of not simply capital but wealth accumulation is subject to all the laws governing the production of commodities, no matter what the mode of production. Roughly eighty-five years after the October Revolution it seems that abolishing money was a historical impossibility from the standpoint of the development of commodity production and its technological basis. That is to say, abolishing a mediator of social transactions - exchange of commodities, presupposes a technological development that renders exchange obsolete and with it a mediator of exchange. Are the facts of exchange more fundamental to the existence of exchange as a fact or the vehicles of exchange, although one cannot exist without the other? The emergence of a technological development that renders exchange obsolete would be called the "ultimate causes" governing the realization of "expectation" in the framework thus presented. Even within this framework, determining what constitutes the "ultimate causes" requires an assessment of "a certain technological development" that drives "historical inevitability" - a term that I actually dislike but use because it is convenient. Actually, the word combinations that articulate my particular conception would be the "historical consequence" instead of "inevitability" because of the role of "will" within a particular social formation. In a similar fashion the concept implied in the terms "objective reality" versus "subjective reality" - the life of the mind, are used because they are convenient and a part of the cultural heritage that surrounds me on all sides. I do not dispute the existence of matter outside by individual biological formation - that houses my cognitive functioning, however "authenticity of objective reality" is more powerful. Wherein resides the authenticity of asserting the abolition of money was desirable or within the realm of "the possible" fifty years ago? Everyone who has studied Marx and Engels, their individual and collective conception of dialectics, come to this study by various routes and cultures. My particular route was Engels "Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy," which I read at age seventeen more than thirty years ago. Thus, I tend to gravitate towards the Marx dialectic from the standpoint of Engels prophetic vision of value and many will disagree with the use of the word "prophetic" and Engels formulation of the trajectory of value, and this formulation was the basis for collaboration with Marx. Nevertheless, wherein consists the authenticity of the conclusion, which states that the abolition of money was desirable or possible prior to the emergence of a specific technological development that renders human labor increasing superfluous in the production of commodities; polarizes exchange value and use-values on the basis of antagonism under private property relations - as a primary tendency in human laboring activity? If in fact value is the socially necessary amount of labor in the production of commodities, then it is valid to ascertain the qualitative developments in society that impacts and tends to render labor increasing superfluous in the total world production as a ratio embracing all human being on earth. Engels of course is responsible for the publication of Volume 2 and 3 of Capital; all three volumes of Theories of Surplus Value; the preservation of the bulk of what is known as the "classics" in the science of society. The basis of the "crisis theory" resides in the dimensions of capitalist commodity production as a specific development of commodity production and expresses itself as the antagonistic movement of use-value and exchange value. Please locate when Marx or Engels altered this formulation as oppose to altering their expectation of social revolution based on the formulation. The epidemic of overproduction is the crowning theory of value under capitalist production relations. The negation of the negation as a theoretical postulate in the hand of Marx, when applied to the science of society is a broad historical movement that abolishes all property as such and this includes public property. In my interpretation of "crisis theory" which I understand to correspond to the words used by Marx and Engels, "the epidemic of overproduction," was most certainly experience of crisis that led to the unfolding of the law system that governed the basis components of the crisis. The unfolding of the law system of capital in basic crisis was articulated on the basis of philosophic concepts. These philosophic concepts are generally referred to at the Marx dialectic. Money cannot be abolished as a mediator of exchange. It has not been that long ago when a carton of Marlboro cigarette could function as "money" in the process of exchange. It is only when a new qualitative feature has been introduced into a process and the process beings metamorphosis toward concrete negation that one can make a determination of the various stages of the process and its boundaries in transition. Here the will of man is decisive. If everyone thought like Marx 150 years ago, the world in which we live would be different. Everyone cannot think like Marx because of the authenticity of the individual experience. In other words the subjective factor - an expression that do not arise out of my culture but are suitable frameworks of reference at this time, determines much or the will of man, but this will cannot supersede a concrete social formation and its quantitative stages of competition and then assume an institutional form of transition. Money could not have been abolished because the quantitative completion of the various stages of growth of the capitalist mode of production - on a planetary scale, had not been completed. The accumulation of the sum total of forces that prepares the ground to realize the expectation of the leap - the broad negation of the negation, that leads to the new had not been completed in the time of Marx and Engels. Marx and Engels argued for social revolutionaries to "guild" the transition period as opposed to capitalist. This is not the case today. A new qualitative ingredient is present in our current mode of production that did not exist during the time of Marx. Marx and Engels did not "modify" their view concerning the crisis (epidemic) of overproduction but rather "modified" their expectation of what is possible - given the will of man, based on a specific configuration of the quantitative and qualitative factors of capitalist development. These specific quantitative and qualitative features can be delineated because history is in back of us. The collective human eye cannot see transition, only the second stage - emergence. >Once he could gain >political power-Soviet-, he failed social revolution, which require to >abolish money. As this historical result, Stalin completes his " crisis >theory". There is of course failure and "failure." Did the alchemist fail within the framework of their historical limitations? What is the dialectic of "the possible" and "the expectation?" The "leader" the "people" and the social institutions are a complex dynamic. What if it is not possible to abolish money? This of course means that there exist limitations of possibility and a separation between "the possible" and "the expectation." Allow me to approach the question from another realm of science. I am a novice student of everything and this includes the writings of Herman Aihara. I cannot convince any one of the authenticity of Mr. Aihara experience and conclusions. His "Acid and Alkaline" is profound and contains revolutionary conclusions in the context of what is called the science of biological functioning. Mr. Aihara's expectations - verified in empirical research, outrun the expectations of the general culture and audience I am a part of. What is the dialectic of "the possible" and "the expectation?" The "leader" the "people" and the social institutions are a complex dynamic, wherein the will of man often dictates "the possible" as a concrete daily action and interaction. Marx and Engels "never left" the realm of theoretical conclusions, which must not and cannot be merged with "expectations." Value is infinitely more than the various sides it manifest itself in - as a part of use and exchange, and expresses itself through, and contains a trajectory as a force mediating social affairs, no matter what ideological forms its operations produce in the minds of men. Here is the irony: everyone correctly judges the leader harshly until they are in fact the leader. Then a divergence takes place with most leaders judging themselves harsher. Strange but true: I have experienced this and its impact on the mind. How can money be abolished? Melvin P.
