[Marxism-Thaxis] Forward from Erwin Marquit
You already list several articles of mine on your web site. As a physicist, my primary field is conceptual foundations of physics so that I have put on my university web site a collection of some of my published articles on dialectical materialism and the philosophy of the nature sciences most of which you probably do not have. You may wish to cross list them. The URL is http://tc.umn.edu/~marqu002 Erwin Marquit Professor Emeritus of Physics University of Minnesota Click for online loan, fast no lender fee, approval today http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTIpd4uli2MQ0mh3o5C9ACum9C7H8MGqQ68AQnhyCozh2eARRtJcH2/ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Forward from Rosa Lichtenstein
Jim, Essay Thirteen Part Three has finally been published -- on 'Mind', Language and 'Cognition'. It has been delayed many months since it is exceedingly long. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page_13_03.htm Apart from Essay Twelve Part One, it is my most Wittgensteinian essay. Among other things, it debunks Voloshinov and Marcuse. Regards, Rosa! Need cash? Click to get a cash advance. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTFRJ8wNls6O8GrKp6JENqjNNEiVlyEW7ILedaQT4hMrZbXqLMpyhi/ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Did the Soviet state whither away ?
Ralph Dumain Total idiocy, delusional nonsense, senseless gibberish, from first word to last. CB: This is wishful and lazy thinking a childish , whining critique, because you can't make a good argument. You are stumped, trumped and checkmated. Pitiful really. You should be embarassed. ^^ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Forward from Rosa Lichtenstein
Interesting that Rosa should mention Lamarckianism in this context, as I have argued that culture and language give humans a Lamarckian-like adaptive mechanism. Culture and language , symboling, allow inheritance of acquired, extra-somatic , characteristics. CB The 'Lamarckian' Origin Of Speech On a related topic, despite the fact that most of what Parrington and Holborow say undermines the role that language plays in communication -- reinforcing the view that language serves to 'represent' things to us in our heads (even if this process is filtered through our own idiosyncrasies, social situations, prevailing ideologies, etc., etc.) --, they appear to believe that human beings developed language because of a need to communicate. This is how Holborow puts it: The genesis of language is in human labour…. Communication is not therefore just one of the functions of language; on the contrary, language presupposes both logically and de facto the interaction among people. Language only arises from the need to communicate with other humans. It is quintessentially social. [Holborow (1999), p.20.] Parrington clearly concurs: Crucially labour…developed within a co-operative and social context. It was this that led, through the need to communicate while engaging in co-operative labour, to the rise of the second specifically human attribute -- language. [Parrington (1997), p.122.]88 While I do not wish to question the role that co-operative labour has played in the development of language and thought (quite the opposite, in fact), several other aspects of the above quotations seem highly dubious, especially the idea that human beings invented language because of a need to communicate. To be sure, we use language to communicate, but the claim that this arose because of a specific need to do so is highly questionable -- except, that is, for Lamarckians. Of course, the word need is ambiguous itself. We use it in a variety of different ways. Consider just a few of these: N1: That cake needs more sugar. N2: This strike needs widening. N3: Car owners need to put oil in their engines. N4: We need a pay rise. N5: The giraffe needs a long neck to browse tall trees. N6: That drunk needs to go home. N7: Plants need water. N8: The state needs to be smashed and the ruling class needs overthrowing. N9: Tony Blair and George W Bush need prosecuting as war criminals. N10: Comrades need to shout louder on paper sales.89 Precisely which of the above senses of need these two comrades were using is unclear -- several of them relate to what can only be called felt needs, or conscious needs (e.g., N4, and possibly N2), expressed perhaps as part of an agent's aims, goals or intentions. Others refer to the causal concomitants or prerequisites of a flourishing organism, successful revolution, strike, comeuppance for Bush and Blair, paper sales or well-run engines -- all of which are largely, if not totally, unfelt. Some of course, cannot be felt. Nevertheless, it is patently obvious that human beings could not have invented language as a result of a felt need to communicate (unless, that is, we assume they could think before they had developed language -- which would naturally imply that thought is not a social phenomenon, dependent on collective labour), since such a need would presuppose the very thing it was aimed at explaining. The idea that this type of necessity mothered that sort of invention would imply that the first human beings to talk had earlier formed the thought: I/We need to communicate (or something equivalent in their proto-language). Clearly, such a felt need to communicate could only be expressed if language already existed. On the other hand, if the thought (or its equivalent) that supposedly motivated the need to communicate was not in fact linguistic, then little content can be given to the notion that human beings once possessed such a need without being able to give voice to it. Indeed, how would it be possible to form the thought We need to communicate if the individual or individuals concerned had no idea (yet) what communication was. That would be like saying that we can (now) form the thought We need to schmunicate when none of has a clue what schmunicate means. [In fact, it is worse, since we are already sophisticated language users.] It could be objected to this that such a need could be a biological one (analogous to that expressed, say, in N5). However, there are two problems with this response. First, reference to the biological needs of organisms to explain the origin of adaptation is Lamarckian, not Darwinian. Secondly, and far worse, this alternative in fact completely undermines the view that language is a social phenomenon.89a ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Did the Soviet state whither away ?
CB: Why use the term bourgeois if it wasn't form of capitalism ? ^^ It ceased to be a degenerated workers state when the possibility of a democratic opposition to Stalin within the CPSU based on Trotskyists/Bukharinists expired (1930). Comment Sometime around 1976, I purchased my first Collected Works of Lenin, all 45 volumes. I gave several Collected Works away to comrades with low wages. At any rate this afforded me to read Lenin as a totality and after a few years the history of the Russian - Soviet, Revolution played in my mind like a major motion picture. The point is that Lenin wrote voluminously on why one should not confuse a). the form of democracy and b). the existence of opposition groups in c). the party system . . . existing vertically and horizontally within the d). framework of the dictatorship of the proletariat . . . as systematic function and essence of e). the state. I never fear looking at reality for what it is and most certainly not Soviet History and the role of Stalin the individual and then the Stalin Regime. Comrade allow themselves to be guided by ideology and their most private individualized conception of democracy and refuse confronting things as simple as the difference between government and the state. The Stalin era evokes animal passions in some comrades, who if asked what is bureaucracy become confused and abandon Marxism all together, by first jettisoning the materialist conception of history. The above means democratic opposition . . .(as) possibility (transform) workers state. That is to say one can effect a qualitative change in the class essence of the state by changing its form of Constitutional rights. What this in reality means is that the property relations of a society can be changed by changing the form of Constitutional Rights but this explanation is far to generous, because the above does not ascend to the level of Constitutional regimes. Rather the above says that changing the rules governing the essence of opposition group WITHIN THE PARTY . . . . NOT THE STATE, changes the property relations, the law of value and the planning mechanism that blocks the law of anarchy of production: the hallmark of private capital. The Soviet state stopped being a worker state with bureaucratic distortion = degenerate, because party rules were changed. I do not mean to ever talk down to anyone and have struggled over the years to evolve a flat writing style that compresses complex concepts. What I am saying is that it is impossible to effect a qualitative change in any process without altering - injecting quantitatively, a NEW qualitative ingredient into that which is fundamental to the entire process. Then . . . then! everything dependent as interactivity, on that which is fundamental to the process, must in turn change. Not all at one time, but incrementally and change it must. Because democracy is not a defining trait of class essence IT IS NOT POSSIBLE to change democracy and change the state qualitatively with the qualitative being defined as the fundamentality being property form and its meaning in the daily life of everyone. Stated another way, the POLITICAL FORM of democracy . . .;-) defines the Constitutional regime. Even this is not saying enough because England and the US are both bourgeois democratic regimes with huge differences, that in the last instance boil down to the role of common law in England and its absence in America. This is due to the absence of feudal relations. That is no concept of noble obligation which was legalized as mediator of social relations between ruled and rulers. CB, you a damn lawyer, why do I have to write this and continuously explain the most elementary understanding of the Marxist approach to the state!!! (QUESTION: Is the US Constitution, as the law of the land, + the Senate and the House of Representative the government? No! It is the constitutional regime. The party is not the meaning of the Constitutional regime. The Supreme Soviet . . . what's the use. Why not read what Lenin says in addition to Trotsky? Straight off the block I can recall several articles where Lenin deal with this exact issue exhaustingly. Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg diverged on the exact same question a decade before the October Revolution. There is of course a reason why Lenin won and his name is attached to a highly evolved political doctrine. I thought we would at least get a chance to describe the formation of the gulag; the extra legal terrorists organization of the DOP; the role of Beria . . .. :-( WL. **Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your neighborhood today. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filingncid=emlcntusyelp0004) ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
[Marxism-Thaxis] Did the Soviet state whither away ?
CB, you a damn lawyer, why do I have to write this and continuously explain the most elementary understanding of the Marxist approach to the state!!! ^^^ Waistline, I'm willing to discuss this with you but , you know, _on the surface_ at least, your discussion doesn't have the appearance of a clear understanding of what you are explaining. I'm willing to give you the benefit of a doubt , that you have some significant understanding from your many years of study and direct experience with capitalism from the standpoint of a socialist conscious proletarian. But you've got to give some consideration to my many years of experience as a predominantly mental laborer, writer, etc. Yea, I am a lawyer, and a long time student of materialism, so that means I got some good understanding of the state from Marx, Engels and Lenin's point of view. Lenin's fundamental discussion of the state relies especially upon Engels' anthropological book _The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_. I'm a lawyer, and a student of anthropology and Marxist political economy and materialism. It was _The State and Revolution_ that was important in bringing me to Marxism. Lenin was a lawyer, etc., etc. So, what is it that you want to explain to me about the state ? And remember. You better come correct. Perhaps we should serialize _The State and Revolution_. Actually, I'm thinking these days the issues Lenin emphasizes in that book, non-electoral path to socialism are significantly turned into their opposite in our concrete circumstance. We might study _The State and Revolution_ to negate its thesis. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is not the path for the U.S. It is _Imperialism_ and _Leftwing Communism_ that are most pertinent to our right here, right now The US state is too loaded for bear, including nukes, and the US population is too stupified with anti-Communism from the Cold War travesty/tragedy to build toward insurrection or a direct assault to take the state power. The US cannot be confronted into socialism. It will take a backdoor , bourgeois self-negating route. The capitalists will have to be allowed (as if we had a choice, and can stop them , smile) to take capitalism to such an extreme such that it turns into its opposite, on its own. In other words, the super dictatorship of the bourgeoisie/finance capitalists ( and it is important always to discuss the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie when discussing the dictatorship of the proletariat) will self-negate, turn into its opposite. Rather than the capitalists selling us the rope with which we hang them, we give them enough rope to hand themselves. We are seeing that now, as super imperialism is imploding. Amazingly, it is bourgeois and capitalist journalists , economist intellectuals and high bureaucrats who see we are all socialists now, want nationalization of the financial monopolies, see Marx as rising from the dead and call on him to save themselves from themselves, redbait themselves, almost begging for socialism. The bourgeois bureaucracy is in a mood for suicide, expropriating itself. Marx in The Historical Tendency of the Capitalist Mode of Production chapter of _Capital_ , and _Imperialism_ note how the monopoly-centralization-one capitalist kills many of capitalism is preparation for socialism. Emphaisis on discussion of the government function of the state is part of the anti-thesis of that of _The State and Revolution_. Rather than elections only being a measure of the maturity of the working class, they are where its at for, including going into the Democratic Party, that most despised proposition on the childish Left. That's a main lesson of the Obama tactic. More later ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Did the Soviet state whither away ?
Phil Walden: It was a bourgeois state because it was part of a world system of bourgeois relations - all states extracting a surplus from their populations. Thus the Soviet Union could not have been some form of workers state. But it wasn't capitalist because the surplus extracted in the Soviet Union was not surplus value. CB: Why use the term bourgeois if it wasn't form of capitalism ? -Original Message- From: marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Charles Brown Sent: 23 February 2009 14:06 To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Did the Soviet state whither away ? Phil Walden I would agree with Jim F that present day Russia is some form of state capitalism. On the nature of the former Soviet Union I think it was none of the alternatives offered by Jim (and by Trotskyism in the post-war period). It was a bureaucratic bourgeois state in which a surplus was extracted from the peasantry and workers but not surplus value (so it could not have been a form of capitalism). It ceased to be a degenerated workers state when the possibility of a democratic opposition to Stalin within the CPSU based on Trotskyists/Bukharinists expired (1930). I had been thinking of doing work on globalisation since the 1970s because none of the Trotskyist groups seems to understand what has happened or its significance. But then I realized that I have to go even further back to the Cold War, because post-war Trotskyism tried to impose its own schemas onto it and unfortunately no group built a developed understanding of the Cold War. Adam Westoby's COMMUNISM SINCE WORLD WAR TWO is however a good start, despite faults. Phil Walden ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Did the Soviet state whither away ?
--- On Mon, 2/23/09, Phil Walden Date: Monday, February 23, 2009, 7:26 PM Phil Walden: It was a bourgeois state because it was part of a world system of bourgeois relations - all states extracting a surplus from their populations. Thus the Soviet Union could not have been some form of workers state. But it wasn't capitalist because the surplus extracted in the Soviet Union was not surplus value. ^^^ CB: Extracting surplus use-values ? I don't know if you are analyzing this based on the Marxist classics, but I believe that they contemplate that there are still surpluses generated during socialism, but that these are used to provide for social welfare funds for the eldersly, children, childcare, sick,intellectual workers, soldiers, etc. ^ CB: Why use the term bourgeois if it wasn't form of capitalism ? -Original Message- From: marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Charles Brown Sent: 23 February 2009 14:06 To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Did the Soviet state whither away ? Phil Walden I would agree with Jim F that present day Russia is some form of state capitalism. On the nature of the former Soviet Union I think it was none of the alternatives offered by Jim (and by Trotskyism in the post-war period). It was a bureaucratic bourgeois state in which a surplus was extracted from the peasantry and workers but not surplus value (so it could not have been a form of capitalism). It ceased to be a degenerated workers state when the possibility of a democratic opposition to Stalin within the CPSU based on Trotskyists/Bukharinists expired (1930). I had been thinking of doing work on globalisation since the 1970s because none of the Trotskyist groups seems to understand what has happened or its significance. But then I realized that I have to go even further back to the Cold War, because post-war Trotskyism tried to impose its own schemas onto it and unfortunately no group built a developed understanding of the Cold War. Adam Westoby's COMMUNISM SINCE WORLD WAR TWO is however a good start, despite faults. Phil Walden ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Did the Soviet state whither away ?
Phil Walden: It was a bourgeois state because it was part of a world system of bourgeois relations - all states extracting a surplus from their populations. Thus the Soviet Union could not have been some form of workers state. But it wasn't capitalist because the surplus extracted in the Soviet Union was not surplus value. CB: Why use the term bourgeois if it wasn't form of capitalism ? Comment Here in a nutshell is the political and ideological divergence. Anyone truly revolutionary self appointed task is organize the workers to overthrow the bourgeois state. Since the Soviet state was an organization of violence in the hands of the bourgeoisie, it was the task of those who viewed the Soviet State as bourgeois, to overthrow it. Therefore, the functionaries making manifest the organization of the proletarian state; that did not think it was the organization of violence protecting the value relationship and anarchy of production, hunted down those who sought to overthrow the state and restore . . . exactly what? Such is how the functionaries of the state - not the state as such, thought things out. I do agree that the Soviet state was not a worker state. The workers state is an abstraction, according to Lenin. I would prefer Lenin's language on this matter. It was a proletarian state, learning on the peasants. The worker-peasant alliance. (Leaning on the peasants is Trotsky precise formulation). The task of the proletarian state as state is to protect the proletarian property relations. The role of the government which sits upon the proletarian state - as a superstructure, is to implement the economic and political agenda in conformity with the property relations. And in the Soviet Union this included hunting down the counterrevolution, whose stated aim was the overthrow of the state, rather than changing the government. . WL. Post S. Extracting a surplus does not define the property relations in as much as every society on earth, outside of the initial communist organization of society, extracts a surplus. What was the surplus extracted in the Soviet Union? What was this surplus material physical appearance? Surplus product? If by change some of these things that are the surplus, . . . was food stuff, . . . . then this thing . . .had a use-value and exchange-value, or a commodity form; because of the nature of small scale agricultural production, and the law of commodity exchange. Wheat was sold as a commodity in the Soviet Union. However, commodity production predates capitalism, which is to say, all commodity production does not = capitalist commodity production. The surplus extracted was perhaps a . . . . surplus product? Money? That is to say one runs backwards into the theory of value. The bourgeoisie appropriates the SURPLUS PRODUCT, which CONTAINS the value manifestation, over and above, the value equivalent in wages, paid to the total laborers. That is to say, the workers create a total mass of commodities and the bourgeoisie pays them a value well below the value in the total commodities they create. Hence surplus value. There is no other way to extract surplus value outside the surplus product, (that I am aware of) as the act of bourgeoisie production, distribution and circulation of commodities. WL **Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your neighborhood today. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filingncid=emlcntusyelp0004) ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
