Y wrote:
>The Enlightenment philosophy developed their thoughts on freedom with *a
>double consciousness*: *free labor* and *chattel slavery & colonialism*.
>The idea of freedom born of the Enlightened double consciousness bequeathed
>us two problems.
>
>(1) The freedom of wage labor (that is to say free labor) was reified,
>fetishized, and projected upon 'human nature.' When Hegel, Kant, etc. spoke
>of freedom, they meant freedom in the sense of the spirit of the market:
>"liberty, equality, and Bentham." One may also consult Max Weber and think
>of the relation between the Reformation and the dawn of capitalism. (2) On
>the other hand, the Enlightened philosophers were not unaware of unfreedom
>of the colonized and the enslaved. And that is why, for instance, in the
>Hegelian system Africans had to be defined away from world history: the
>sphere of the Spirit and its realization. First, segments of humanity (e.g.
>women in general, enslaved Africans) were *condemned to unfreedom*, and
>then they were accused of being *incapable of freedom*. Here we find the
>birth of properly modern racism: the justification of racial and gender
>inequality at the same time as (and required by) the proclamation of
>freedom for the (white male bourgeois) individual.
(((((((((((((((
Z:
Wouldn't be more accurate to say that the Enlightenment thinkers (contrary
to their own advertising and that of their adulators) failed to transcend
their own socioeconomic environment, just like the vast majority of other
thinkers? It was this environment, i.e., merchant capital developing into
full-scale capitalism, which (1) created what Marx called "doubly free
labor" (via the process of primitive accumulation described in volume I of
CAPITAL) and (2) slowly unified European countries into nation-states (via
Absolutism and Mercantilism) which spread over the rest of the world,
conquering, looting, and dominating them and imposing European male, and
eventually bourgeois, rule.
((((((((((((((((((
Charles: I don't know if it is more accurate to say it this way. It might be a way of
looking at it from a different angle. But it is not only that the Enlightenment
thinkers failed to transcend their own socioeconomic environment, but that they helped
to provide a rationale for slavery, colonialism and male supremacy. Afterall, after
founding the doctrine of equality of all men (sic), if it was followed consistently,
slavery and colonialism would have been in violation of that principle of equality.
So, the non-humanity of some "men" had to be an amendment to the liberals' conception.
All men are equal, but these darker beings are not people.
By the way, I think if you look at Chapter XXXI_Capital_ Vol. 1, you will find that
the primitive accumulation was in the removal of the peasants from the land ( in the
"doubly free" process) AND it had its "chief momenta" ,as Marx puts it, in slavery
and colonialism. Quoth:
"Chapter XXXI "Genesis of The Industrial Capitalist"
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and
entombment in mines of the aboriginal population , the beginning of the conquest and
looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial
hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.
These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation...Today
industrial supremacy implies commercial supremacy. In the period of manufacture
properly so called, it is, on the other hand, the commercial supremacy that gives
industrial predominance. Hence the preponderant role that the colonial system plays at
that time ..."
As "chief momenta" ("prime movers" ?) and in the preponderant role, the colonial
system and colonial and slave labor were as necessary to the origin and constitution
of capitalism as removing the European peasants from their land and making them
"doubly free" or "free labor" or "wage-labor".
(((((((((((((((
Z:
Like bourgeois society itself, the Enlightenment was a two-edged sword, (1)
breaking with parochialism, feudal hierarchy, scholasticism, and the
obscurantism of the Roman Catholic Church, while (2) leaving unquestioned
and, more often apologizing for, the European conquest of the periphery.
I think this is one of those cases where the materialist conception of
history helps a lot. It opens up the possibility that with the benefit of
hindsight and because we are perceiving and thinking in a different
socioeconomic environment, we might help Enlightenment thinkers transcend
their own socioeconomic environment. That is, instead of rejecting the
Enlightenment one hundred percent, we might clean it up, dumping the
Eurocentric, racist, or sexist aspects the way we should dump the alchemy
and astrology from Newton.
(((((((((((((
Charles: Agree. But what do you think of modifying the materialist conception of
history of the capitalist mode of production by saying that it is not only defined by
wage-labor but by a racist/colonialist division of labor ? Racism and colonialism are
and have always been as fundamental to capitalist relations of production as is
wage-labor. Racism is part of the infrastructure, not just superstructure. It is not
just ideology, but a material practice fundamental and necessary to capitalist
relations of production. As you say above, it is inherent to the socio-economic
environment of the Enlightenment. It does not originate in the thinking of the
Enlightenment thinkers as superstructure. It appears in superstructure, in
Enlightenment thinking , as a reflection of its existence in the infrastructure or
relations of production, which as you say, the Enlightenment thinkers were not able to
transcend. To say the Enlightenment thinkers were not able to transcend it is to say
imp!
!
liedly that it was a s!
ubstantial aspect of that socio economic formation. From the primitive accumulation to
globalism, racism and colonialsim are a necessary condition of capitalism.
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
