An explanation of Antagonism as contradiction
Introduction
(Please skip the Introduction if you have an aversion to ideology and go to Presentation)
The concept of antagonism in contradictions remains perhaps the most difficult of Marx and Engels conception of social development and process evolution. My personal introduction to materialist dialectic was through the writings of Frederick Engels beginning with Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical Germany Philosophy and later his "Anti-Durhing." The first book by Marx I ever read was "Poverty of Philosophy" at perhaps age 19 - 30 years ago.
The best exposition on materialist dialectics - for beginners, I have every read is Stalin's presentation although I am extremely familiar with Chairman Mao's Four Essays On Philosophy and as a young man had committed "On Practice" and "On Contradiction" to memory while working on the assembly line in auto (it helped pass the time away).
Stalin's exposition is contained in History of the Communist Party Soviet Union (Bolshevik) Short course, 1939, beginning on page 105. What makes it the best basic exposition is his generous usage of material as quotes from Marx, Engels and Lenin's various writings on contradiction within - not between, things as process development.
Engels wrote that, "materialism must change its form with every epoch making discovery." The time in which we live out our activity is one of epoch making discovery in the sciences - on all fronts. Thus all "old" expositions on materialist dialectics are dated and the forms of presentations appear more and more absurd - inverted, because of the advance in science and general human understanding of process development. I am incapable of advancing the nexus on the basic of the current advances in science. It is obvious that where Marxist once spoke of understanding the world and processes in their interconnection, this form of exposition is obsolete. The world today is to be understood in its interactivity, flux and morphing from one thing into another of the basis of internal compulsion.
This internal compulsion proceeds on the basis of the unity and strife of the basic component in which a given process embraces.
Capital has evolved on the basis of the human connection through exchange of the products of social labor on the part of private scattered producers; to a system of production connected on the basis of a growing infrastructure; to an interconnected world system whose further development led to a strong interconnection between various imperial centers and imperial centers and colonies; to an interactive system of productive laboring. At each successive stage - boundary, and phase (transition within a given boundary) the form - external mode, peculiar to a given stage and phase was cast off - sublated (or transformed), as the process development that allows for growth.
Our understanding and presentation of materialist dialectics can only be advanced as exposition on the basis of the development of science or what is the same - the productive forces. In this regard Lenin's "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" - a wonderful exposition, needs to be sublated, as does Stalin's brilliant exposition for beginners. Comrade Mao expositions are historically spent, although his singular role in history is forever. "Long live the spirit of the Chairman."
It is - in my opinion, the question of antagonism as a form of process development and emergence of a new qualitative feature - definition, which distinguishes why one form of exposition is historically spent and the other is in need of sublation.
Presentation
I believe that Scott captured the point of delineation in antagonism by pinpointing the word hostility and going beyond the standard definition of the word.
Antagonism is understood in the English language to mean violence and we experience violence in our everyday lives on various levels of being. Antagonism most certainly embraces a violent resolution in process development but this does not explain the "mechanics" (I admitted being "obsolete" and "mechanics" is most certainly in need of sublation) of how the resolution takes place. It is exactly the question of "how a resolution takes place" that distinguishes an antagonistic contradiction from a non-antagonistic contradiction.
"How a resolution takes place" gives definition to the words violent resolution. Contradiction as movement fundamentally means the unity and strife within the totality of a process and not between "things" as such.
Those contradictions (carefully distinguished by Marx and Engels in their analysis of the complex forms of development of class society) are antagonistic, in which the struggle of indissolubly connected and interactive opposites proceed in the form of their external collisions, which are directed on the part of the dominant opposite so as to preserve the subordination of its opposite - to the destruction of the dominant opposite and of the contradiction itself as well.
The contradiction of any process is resolved, not by some external force, but by the development of the contradiction itself. This is true also in regard to antagonistic contradictions. But in the course of development of an antagonistic contradiction at its different stages, only the premise for its resolution is prepared and ripens. The contradiction itself at every new stage becomes ever more intensified. An antagonistic contradiction does not pass beyond the stages of its partial resolution.
Thus the periodic crises of capitalism are a violent form in which the contradictions of a given cycle of capitalist reproduction find their resolution; but in relations to the contradiction of the capitalist means of production as a whole, these crises emerge only as landmarks of the further intensification of these contradictions and of the ripening of the forces making for the violent overthrow of capitalism.
Antagonistic contradictions are resolved by the kind of leap, in which the internal opposites emerge as relatively independent opposites, external to each other, by a leap that leads to the abolition of the formerly dominant opposite and to the establishment of a new contradiction. In this contradiction the subordinate opposite of the previous contradiction now becomes the dominate opposite, preserving a number of its peculiarities and determining by itself the form of the new contradiction, especially at the first stages of its development.
"The form of the new contradiction" is the initial mode of expression of a new law system, which allows a new qualitative configuration to further develop on it's own basis.
Contradictions that are not antagonistic proceed on the basis of a different logic; on the basis of what in English we would call a merging and synthesis within a process producing a new qualitative "substance" or definition.
In contradictions that do not have an antagonistic character, the development of the contradiction signifies not only the growth of the forces making for its final resolution, but each new step in the development of the contradiction is at the same time also its partial resolution. In other words at each new stage of development a new law system is partially developed in order to pass to the next stage of development. In contradictions that are antagonistic there is not partial resolution during the stages of its development but an intensification of the crisis of development. In other words during the stages of development of antagonism as contradiction a new law system cannot and does not emerge.
During the successive stages in the development of capitalism the proletariat still remains the proletariat and does not merge into the bourgeoisie as the basis of synthesis. The proletariat as a class undergoes changes - based on the development of the productive forces and yes, the mode of accumulation and literally begins a developmental process where it must emerge relatively external to the active process of capitalist production itself. Homelessness and the entrenched poverty of a sector of the world proletariat is the most obvious feature. This sector of the proletariat has emerged relatively external to the active system of the production of value and consequently surplus value and the realization of profits. Look at Argentina.
Not all contradictions are antagonistic. Thus the relationship of the proletariat and the peasantry under Soviet socialism was not of an antagonistic character - in both classes we find a number of common interests. On the one had the peasantry as a whole were workers. They were workers and private producers owning property in the form of their own private plots, cattle, small instruments of producing. Then there was the Kulak who is not a worker or working peasant. Hence the meaning of "the destruction" of the Kulak as a class and the antagonistic character of the social struggle in the old USSR.
Resolving the contradiction with the general peasantry as private producers was not antagonistic and required the collectivization of agriculture and the placing of agriculture on the basis of on industrial infrastructure and modern science. In as much as the Kulak wanted to survive as a non-worker who realized his meaning - standard of living, through exchange, they represented a striving to preserve private property relations or spontaneous forms of capital.
In a class society the contradictions of the basic classes are antagonistic and are resolved in the antagonistic form. This is not reducible to military means or simply violence, but means the bourgeoisie as a class is deprived of its private property and begins decaying and passing out of existence as a class. The bourgeoisie does not become the proletariat, but as a class pass from history. The proletariat does not become the new bourgeoisie, but a ruling class and private property relations are abolished and the proletariat as proletariat passes from history also.
The logic is that one cannot sell themselves something they already "own." The proletariat as ruling class will create public property relations and "owning" is not abolished but transformed from owning private property to personal possessions. Ruler-ship is transformed into Guardianship. This is not possible until the previously dominant pole - bourgeoisie is abolished as a class of property owners - not human beings.
Under feudal social and economic conditions society moved in antagonism. Feudal social and economic conditions did not morph into capitalist production relations. The bourgeoisie and proletariat emerged from within the womb of feudal society as a part of feudal society but developing external to feudal production relations and demanding a different law system for further development. Political revolution emerged on the basis of the social revolution - revolution in production and exchange, and the feudal social and political structures were abolished.
An antagonistic contradiction exhibits a peculiar feature that distinguish it from a non-antagonistic contradiction, especially as it applies to class society and class antagonism. The subordinate pole cannot further evolve on the basis of the previous law system and it decays or leap forward. The previous subordinate pole must create and evolve on the basis of a new law system that allows it to pass through its distinct stages of development.
This is the theoretical basis for Marx conception of social revolution.
"At a certain stage . . . from forms of development . . . fetters . . . conflict . . . leap and transition to a new law system."
Class developed in human history is based on - riveted, to property relations. Here is the source of antagonism. In developed communist society - a society of associated producers, there will be no class struggle, no class antagonism; only social contradictions that are resolvable without the destruction of classes because class development as such will cease and stratification in society will not embrace property relations as ownership, but a division of labor based o the ever present human need for the administration of things. The law of value will cease to operate and its residual impact will exist only I certain areas of administration. A lot of social conflict will be ego driven so to speak. Contradictions are forever so to speak.
"It is only in an order of things," says Marx, "in which there will be no more classes and class antagonism, that social evolutions will cease to be political revolution." (The Poverty of Philosophy.)
Finally, "the logic of things" or the previous conception of logic was more than less a vision of mechanical movement or formal logic. The word "logic" may stay the same - a mode of speaking, but will be imbued with a different essence that embraces interactivity as process movement.
In closing there is what Marxist call the dialectic of the leap or the process of resolution of contradiction. Since society moves in class antagonism, during each stage of the development of the productive forces as the movement of capital, the communist stepped forward attempting to rally the workers to take power in society. The reason why is that an antagonistic contradiction cannot pass beyond the stage of its partial resolution. Capitalism cannot evolve into communism so the communist - of the Leninist tradition, fought to rally the workers to take control of society at each stage in the general crisis of capital, even when communism was not possible due to the development of the productive forces.
This activity was not a misunderstanding of the various stages of the development of the productive forces, but an acute understanding of antagonism. This was not confusion about the nature of capital or a misunderstanding of the crisis of overproduction but an acute understanding that the conflict in society organized as capital could not pass beyond a partial resolution without establishing public property, even if it meant the communist had to ensure the stages of development of the productive forces.
The October Revolution was an authentic social revolution of the proletariat under a previous stage of development of the productive forces and those who believed that one should "wait" for a higher development of production renounce social revolution and have noting to do with the standpoint of Marx and Engels on this matter.
Melvin P.
In a message dated 7/7/02 7:14:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Jim wrote:
> However, I think it's a mistake to assert that "Everything in the world
(and
> also in human society and in human thought) is composed of dialectical
> contradictions." In view of the idea that dialectical thinking is more of a
> set of questions than a set of pre-digested answers, we should instead look
> for contradictions in empirical reality to see if they exist.
>
What most of us Marxist-Leninists call the laws of dialectics are neither "a
set of questions" nor "a set of pre-digested answers" (depending upon what
that phrase might actually be meant to mean). Instead, like scientific laws
in general, they are abstractions and generalizations from nature, society,
and human thought. That is, it seems to us that virtually everywhere we look,
we see particular illustrations of these laws.
Strictly speaking, however, what we have here are massive inductions of a
sort. It is like seeing lots and lots of black crows and concluding that "all
crows are black". Since there might be a few albino crows, this may actually
be a slight exaggeration. On the other hand, it seems like a damned good rule
of thumb about the color of crows.
I don't think anyone can possibly PROVE that "every single thing" in the
world has within it an array of dialectical contradictions, but after being
trained to look at things this way, and always finding such contradictions
when I look for them, I think it is reasonable to conclude that this too is a
damned good rule of thumb. I suppose the laws of dialectics, and maybe even a
lot of less general scientific laws, are just that--damned good rules of
thumb. But good abstract and generalized rules of thumb are hard to find, and
when you do find them it is wise to make good use of them.
The usual problem with dialectical laws, like all scientific laws, is knowing
precisely how to apply them. Does the dialectical law that change happens
through qualitative leaps mean that there is no such thing as gradual
evolution, for example? Not necessarily! (But I'll avoid slipping back into a
discussion of evolution and punc-e for now.) This may have been what you were
getting at when you remarked that "we should instead look for contradictions
in empirical reality to see if they exist". But the way I would put it here
is: Don't jump to simple-minded conclusions! The world is more complicated
than you imagine. There are indeed contradictions in (virtually) everything,
but they might not be precisely the ones that you first postulate!
So at least as a close first approximation, I stick to the claim that there
are dialectical contradictions in everything.
> Alternatively, we could follow Mao (not one of my favorites) to distinguish
> between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. The kind that
> Scott sees everywhere seem to be mostly the latter. The former would be
> class contradictions and the like.
Mao's "On Contradiction" is indeed a good place to start in trying to
understand dialectics and the dialectical method. Probably the very best
place to start.
However I said nothing about antagonistic and non-antagonistic
contradictions. I was only talking about contradictions in general.
The meaning of the word 'antagonism' in discussions of dialectical
contradictions is often somewhat unclear. Mao, for example, does not define
'antagonism' so you have to deduce his meaning from his examples of
when we talk about antagonism in dialectics.
What I think we are often trying to get at when we use the word 'antagonism'
in dialectic logic is the fact that in those cases there is a fight to the
finish going on, i.e., that one pole or aspect of the contradiction must
ultimately overpower the other. But this won't quite do either, since for
contradictions among the people (for example) we want to say that the
proletarian viewpoint will eventually overpower that of other allied classes
(such as the peasantry in China)--but that there STILL is no necessary
antagonism involved. This suggests that antagonism is not about what happens
in the end, but rather the manner in which the end is achieved.
So we are back to hostility or something like it. It is hard to find a
completely satisfactory gloss for the word 'antagonism' in this sense. I
guess you have to just come to appreciate that it is a technical word that
you have to learn to understand by seeing it in many contexts. (Like so many
words.)
I don't see dialectical antagonism EVERYWHERE, but I do see it as being very
widespread. Often it is hidden for long periods, but push has a way of
eventually coming to shove.
--Scott
