From: Ted Winslow <[email protected]> "Socialism" will be a product of "human" labour, the defining characteristics of which are elaborated by Marx as follows:
"what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman’s will be steadily in consonance with his purpose." ^^^^^ This is the exact passage from Marx that I was about to pull up and bring to bear on whether Marx thought that socialism should be planned, but Ted got there first. We can be sure that Marx was also aware of the wisdom of Robert Burn's poem "To a Mouse" when it says "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray". ( Evidently, mice plan. smile) Marx did cheer the Paris Commune while saying it was doomed to fail, folly of despair or some such. Materialism means trial and error; theory (plan)- and practice- new theory (new plan). Practice is experimentation and industry. We shouldn't be afraid to plan nor to modify the plan based on experience with it. Also, revolutionary practice changed the capitalist "object", system. The Russian Revolution and the decades long existence of the Soviet Union and world socialist system, changed capitalism in many ways. Capitalism adapted to socialist revoloution and defeated the first historical effort to build it. Marxists must ( and have ) develop a modified thoory and practice to deal with the modified world capitalist system. "Deal with" means both overthrow and what socialism will be. Can we write a new Chapter 32 of _Capital_ on the "Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation" ? Charles _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
