Angelus Novus quoted from http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/
howtothink.html:
According to Marx, the social contradiction which can
only be resolved by revolution is that between the
forces of production and the relations of production.
The most common Marxist interpretation of this
assertion is that forces of production means capital
(sometimes our latter‑day Marxists implicitly
limit this to technology, so that the "full
development of the forces of production" is
interpreted solely as the presence of advanced, highly
productive machinery) while relations of production
means the system of production, appropriation, and
exchange.
In reality, Marx meant something quite different.
Forces of production includes both capital and labor,
while relations of production includes capitalists and
workers. Thus the proletariat is an essential of both
sides of the antagonism—on one side as the creator of
use value, on the other as wage laborer. The
contradiction is therefore internal and essential to
the working class itself, and cannot be resolved
externally."
Marx takes "forces of production" to be an index of the development
of human capabilities; they are "the power of knowledge, objectified".
"Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric
telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These are products of human
industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will
over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of
the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge,
objectified. The development of fixed capital indicates to what
degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of
production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process
of social life itself have come under the control of the general
intellect and been transformed in accordance with it. To what degree
the powers of social production have been produced, not only in the
form of knowledge, but also as immediate organs of social practice,
of the real life process." (Grundrisse pp. 705-6)
Fully developed human capabilities are the prerequisite for the
actualization of "the true realm of freedom" (which also objectifies
knowledge, namely, knowledge of the ideal). They are, for instance,
a prerequisite for ideal relations of mutual recognition, an idea
that sublates Aristotle's idea of "friendship" as elaborated in Books
VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics.
"Relations of production" are treated as the crucible within which
human capabilities develop. The model for this is Hegel's account of
the master/slave relation in the Phenomenology. Hegel makes forced
labour under conditions of deferred desire developmental of mind, a
development expressed by the development of the "forces of
production" - tools - which objectify it. Tools involve
consciousness of future and deferment of desire because they mediate
between desire and its satisfaction. Such consciousness is a
necessary prerequisite for the defining feature of human labour, i.e.
"what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that
the architect builds the cell in his mind before he constructs it in
wax."
The historical forms of relations of production are incompatible with
ideal relations. For this reason they are undermined by the
development of mind they facilitate. They also all ultimately
"fetter" rather than facilitate this development. For these reasons
each form ultimately gives way to a new form more compatible with
development until finally the "subjective and objective conditions"
required for and expressive of the full development of human
capabilities become practicable and "really free working" - "a
complete and no longer restricted self-activity" - itself becomes
practicable.
That the revolutionary "appropriation" of developed forces of
production requires and makes possible the full development of the
capabilities of the appropriators is made clear in the following
passage from the German Ideology.
"Thus things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must
appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to
achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to safeguard their very
existence. This appropriation is first determined by the object to be
appropriated, the productive forces, which have been developed to a
totality and which only exist within a universal intercourse. From
this aspect alone, therefore, this appropriation must have a
universal character corresponding to the productive forces and the
intercourse.
"The appropriation of these forces is itself nothing more than the
development of the individual capacities corresponding to the
material instruments of production. The appropriation of a totality
of instruments of production is, for this very reason, the
development of a totality of capacities in the individuals themselves.
"This appropriation [of the forces of production developed in
capitalism] is further determined by the persons appropriating. Only
the proletarians of the present day, who are completely shut off from
all self-activity, are in a position to achieve a complete and no
longer restricted self-activity, which consists in the appropriation
of a totality of productive forces and in the thus postulated
development of a totality of capacities. All earlier revolutionary
appropriations were restricted; individuals, whose self-activity was
restricted by a crude instrument of production and a limited
intercourse, appropriated this crude instrument of production, and
hence merely achieved a new state of limitation. Their instrument of
production became their property, but they themselves remained
subordinate to the division of labour and their own instrument of
production. In all expropriations up to now, a mass of individuals
remained subservient to a single instrument of production; in the
appropriation by the proletarians, a mass of instruments of
production must be made subject to each individual, and property to
all. Modern universal intercourse can be controlled by individuals,
therefore, only when controlled by all.
"This appropriation is further determined by the manner in
which it must be effected. It can only be effected through a union,
which by the character of the proletariat itself can again only be a
universal one, and through a revolution, in which, on the one hand,
the power of the earlier mode of production and intercourse and
social organisation is overthrown, and, on the other hand, there
develops the universal character and the energy of the proletariat,
without which the revolution cannot be accomplished; and in which,
further, the proletariat rids itself of everything that still clings
to it from its previous position in society." http://
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01d.htm
Ted
