--- Leigh Meyers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > No he didn't, the mistake is to interpret what he's > saying as relevant > to any society other than industrial societies, > which by their very > nature are *Never* going to be an ideal social > systems.
A common mistake of Marxism is also assuming that Marx's critique has any application outside of modern industrial commodity-producing societies. The standard point of departure is usually the interpretation of history as "the history of class struggle." So you then have these "Marxist histories of Ancient Greece" or "Marxist histories of Feudalism" or a Marxist account of this or that. In terms of practical politics, assimilating an ecological or feminist or anti-racist critique, you have something that might be termed Modular Marxism. In a desparate attempt to prove how nice and open and non-dogmatic they are, Marxists are willing to accept all kinds of little modular adjustments to the basic Marxist unit, like slapping some extra RAM or a new video card on your PC. The message to queer, environmental, feminist, and anti-fascist and anti-racist activists is: "hey, all you secondary contradictions, there's room for all your modular concerns here on the Marxist CPU." At least with ecology, the critique of a system of accumulation of abstract wealth and its catastrophic implications for the physical world is of direct relevance. But anyone coming from any other social movement or perspective is likely to feel insulted. As far as Stan Goff's departure goes, I think the burden of proof is on the advocates of Marx-ism to make their case for Marx-ism's relevance. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com
