[Marxism-Thaxis] Marx relation to morality
[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in c b cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Aug 6 13:20:33 PDT 2009 Previous message: [lbo-talk] you know its bad when... Next message: [lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] Search LBO-Talk Archives Limit search to: Subject Body Subject Author Sort by: Date Rank Author Subject Reverse Sort Marx is also an amoralist for the following reason: morality concerns judging action that impacts that interests of _other_ people not the self-interests of the actor. Marx is trying to get the working class, working class individuals, to take action in their own self-interest. Marx does not appeal to the working class to revolt against the immorality of the ruling class, but to act in its own self-interest , which is an amoral motive. In my opinion, Marx does hold that the ruling class exploitation and oppression of the ruled class are wicked ,lbecause they have a bad impact on the ruled class' individuals' interests. But he does not try to get the working class to act because of this ruling class wickedness. He appeals to a non-moral motive: self-interest. Charles ___ 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] Marx and morality
[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in c b cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Aug 7 07:25:16 PDT 2009 Marv Gandall Shane M. writes: On Aug 6, 2009, at 4:20 PM, c b wrote: Marx is also an amoralist for the following reason: morality concerns judging action that impacts that interests of _other_ people not the self-interests of the actor. Marx is trying to get the working class, working class individuals, to take action in their own self-interest. Marx does not appeal to the working class to revolt against the immorality of the ruling class, but to act in its own self-interest , which is an amoral motive. But the self-interest of the proletariat, as Marx conceives it, has nothing to do with interest (economic advantage) as conceived by individuals, including individual proletarians, in bourgeois society. The self-interest of the proletariat as a class *fur sich* consists of its *abolition as a class == But it is only when individual workers identify their own economic self-interest with the interest of all who work for wages and salaries that they combine for collective action in the workplace and in politics - that which presents them with the possibility of transcending their status as workers, ie. the abolition of the working class. This newly awakened social consciousness is conceived of as the highest expression of morality in contradistinction to bourgeois morality which exalts the individual, but it follows rather than precedes the development of class consciousness arising out of the realm of production. ^^ c b wrote: Marx is also an amoralist for the following reason: morality concerns judging action that impacts the interests of _other_ people not the self-interests of the actor. Hard to see how someone could affect their own self interest without impacting others. ie?? martin ^ CB: No doubt. In general, in these times, an individual worker can seek to fulfill her own self-intetest by helping to make socialism while impacting others' self-interests positively, no ? So, no moral dilemma in following Marx's suggestions. Marxism is selfish and moral at the same time. The original win-win approach. By the way, there's nothing immoral about impacting the rich's overinflated, ballooned even, wealth by deflating it. Rich individuals can satisfy their self-interests with much less wealth than they have now.. Matthias Wasser Individual self-interest doesn't get you there, though. As far as any one individual is concerned, your material-reward-to-effort ratio is going to be a lot higher trying to get into the ruling class than overthrowing them. You can push out the boundaries of the self to include the community, of course, but that encroaches on the territory of - gasp! - morality. ^^^ CB: So far, yes. So far it hasn't gotten us there, but the struggle continues; victory is certain. ^ ^ Shane Mage : But the self-interest of the proletariat, as Marx conceives it, has nothing to do with interest (economic advantage) as conceived by individuals, including individual proletarians, in bourgeois society. The self-interest of the proletariat as a class *fur sich* consists of its *abolition as a class*. This is an entirely moral, not amoral, motive because it grounds communism in a concrete teleology--the planetary historical mission of human consciousness as the embodiment of what Hegel called objective spirit. ^ CB: Yes, I think as it has turned out historically, the failure to achieve socialist reovolutions, especially in the Western, big power nations, means that there is an ironic convergence of Marxism with the Christian trope of pie-in-the-sky-in-the-bye-and-bye or ,individual Marxists and workers sacrificing their immediate and short-term self-interests for the cause of the interests of others to be fulfilled in the longer run in the planetary mission. The Party bookstore in Highland Park 10 -15 years ago was Longview Bookstore. However, Marx seemed to seek to help make revolution in his lifetime, not to say that he opposed it in the long run. And each generation of Marxists should look for a way to make revolution within their lifetime, even if as with Sisyphus, the revolutionary rock has rolled some ways back down the hill again. Note that Marx -and Engels, Lenin , Angela Davis, et al, (most LBOers ) - not being in the working class were thoroughly morally motivated, I.e. they could have met their own individual self-interests much easier or at all, in the case of Marx and Lenin, by working for the rich rather than the poor. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Well on Marxmail I had posted the following in response to another poster, who had drawn a comparison between Cohen and Althusser. --- I suspect that Jerry Cohen would not have minded if people took note of his passing by debating the merits of his works. Actually, I find his reading of Marx to have been closer to the readings that were provided by such Second International Marxists like Kautsky and Plekhanov. I believe that somewhere in KMTH he makes such an acknowledgement. But yet he did seem to have to come to such a reading by way of Althusser, even though he rejected Althusserianism. G.A. Cohen discussed Althusser in his foreword to KMTH. There, after detailing some of the positive contributions of the Althusserians to Marxism (which for Cohen included the re-emphasis on Marx's more mature writings like *Capital* rather than the earlier writings like the *1844 Manuscripts* and the attention that Althusser and his followers paid to historical materialism) then proceeded to note what he regarded as some of their more negative attributes. Writing thus: Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement, to be one, must be hard to comprehend. Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his mother's milk, having been born and raised within the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the problem laid with historical materialism in general rather than with the specific variety of historical materialism that he had embraced. Jim Farmelant -- Original Message -- From: jksc...@yahoo.com To: marxist philosophy marxistphiloso...@yahoogroups.com Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 + Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first a founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to liberal egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants here. But IMHO he was one of the most influential and important Marxist thinkers of the latter half of the 20th century, and his legacy requires comment. Not much time here but I will note a few thoughts; - In the context of a sharp decline in the quantity and quality of Marxist theory, Cohen and the AMs stood for the disconnection of theory from practice, the entrenchment of Marxism as another academic exercise. In some ways this was not their fault giving the collapse of Marxism as a movement and a force in the world. - Cohen helped bring a level of rigor and precision in Marxist thinking that had been sorely lacking for a very long time. If it's complained that his work lacked popular accessibility, what are we to say about Adorno, a favorite here who gets wide discussion? - Cohen's major work on Karl Marx's Theory Of History is very valuable, but went down the wrong track in reviving a stagist, mechanical, primacy of the productive forces 2d Internat'l conception of historical materialism. (Possibly due in part to his roots in the Canadian CP.) True, Marx gave that view a lot of space, but Cohen almost totally neglected Marx's alternative class struggle view, which I think is more true and valuable and gets no less, arguably more, space. Brenner is far better on this (and no less rigorous). - Cohen's turn to traditional style moral philosophy as important, first as a complement to his idea of historical materialism, then as a replacement for Marxism and materialist analysis, was a major retrogression. No doubt there is more ethics in Marx and Marxism than Marx cared to admit, but Marx pointed the way in integrating these into materialist analysis. Cohen's own positive ethical views were, moreover, disappointingly primitive and underdeveloped. See his awful Egalitarianism book, but also earlier papers on exploitation and his paper critiquing value theory -- a real train wreck. And I don't accept value theory myself! I haven't carefully read the last book in Rawls. Btw in that book Cohen lists as the big three books on political philosophy Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Plato's Republic. Marx's Capital doesn't make his cut. Given Cohen's a priori turn to liberal
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Detroit Election: notes.
III. The Detroit Election. Detroit is a freaking mess. A full report is warranted but I just have not made the time to do such and do not know if such report is appropriate for this open list. An election is extremely complex. Those sections of the proletariat needing the most vote the less. This means ones message has to be tailored to those who actually vote. Those who actually vote tend to be the better situated sections of the working class. Because Detroit is so black real living issues are polarized to the extreme as class with very little to zero racially charged literature. Can't blame white people for shit . . . here. The meaning of society moving in class antagonism, rather than just “the class struggle” is visible to everyone as composition of the various neighborhoods. In Detroit the class struggle means the struggle against ones employer and government. Class antagonism means the spontaneous movement of a huge section of the population outside the employer-employee relationship. Those outside the employer-employee relationship do not give a fuck about property taxes, housing value, and the other trappings of bourgeois society. They are not going to never have a job above McDonald money and home ownership is not even a remote possibility. The auto workers are being pushed down with starting wages to be reduced by 50% from today’s level. During the election a polarization emerged over privatizations of City jobs. Those running for Mayor are exclusively the business type and even the better paid workers have had enough of “running government like a business.” “Running government like a business.” Like General Motor’s, Chrysler or “Bing Steel?” Bing Steel is named after the basketball player Dave Bing. Dave Bing is Mayor. Bing Steel went bankrupt but this was kept out of the newspapers and off the airwaves so that he could win in a special election. Although a compassionate man - (when it comes to those with money or his poverty stricken fellow NBA players), Bing is an old school industrialist thinker. I have an ideological hate for guys like this. That Bing is black is wonderful because all the class stuff comes forth with remarkable clarity. Much of the support for Dave Bing took shape as a reaction to the flamboyant stupidity of the “hip Hop Mayor” whose was run out of office. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, would hold festive party’s where dead girls would pop up. “Kwame Malik Kilpatrick (born June 8, 1970) is the former mayor of Detroit, Michigan. When elected at the age of 31, he was the youngest mayor in the history of Detroit. Kilpatrick's tenure as mayor, from 2002 until 2008, was plagued with controversies which included allegations (not all against Kilpatrick himself) of marital infidelity, conspiracy, perjury, corruption and murder. Kilpatrick is the only mayor in the history of Detroit to be charged with a felony while in office.[2] On September 4, 2008, Kilpatrick announced his resignation as mayor, which became effective on September 18,[3] as part of a plea bargain where he also pled guilty to two felonies for obstruction of justice.” _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Kilpatrick_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Kilpatrick) The Kilpatrick family is part of the state’s political machine, a fact to be understood with the youthfulness of the Mayor. Who sends text message and makes phone call with “criminal intent” and implications other than an arrogant fool? Thus, old man Dave Bing seemed to be a break from youthful stupidity, with his class polices sweep under the rug of embarrassment. Tragic. Detroit elects an Industrialist. Who ran on a program of cutting city services! This is real tragic. These bourgeois industrialist mentality types all demand to known where the money will come from for an expanded public sector. The answer is simply: the same place all money comes from: the feds and money markets. IV. The migration into Detroit is still overshadowed by flight. The upper strata of the working class drove the first wave of flight during the late 1950’ and 1960’s. The upper strata of the workers were white and thus this flight was called “white flight.” “Flight,” without exception is driven by economic expansion and contraction as the workers flee to the most robust area of labor market activity. Flight from one area is migration to another. Today the flight from Detroit is 90% black and the migration into Detroit is 90% white. In yesteryear it was the exact reverse. The flight into Detroit as an international dimension, with a small community of “European intellectuals” establishing residency in the Downtown area and around Wayne State University. Proletarian whites - walk aways’ from high mortgages, are giving the neighborhoods a new healthy feeling. Ten years out Detroit could very well be 30% white and still
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Henry Louis Gates Jr.arrest and things: notes.
Racism discriminates against people on the grounds of race. Just like it says on the packet. It can be as arbitrary in its choice of victim as it is systemic in its execution. And while it never works alone (but rather in cahoots with class, gender and a host of other rogue characters), it has political license to operate independently. It's a basic lesson at relatively low cost. And yet the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, suggests we are doomed to keep repeating the lesson. Barack Obama was right when he referred to the arrest as a teachable moment, but given the brouhaha that has followed, it seems that even a moment involving the nation's most prominent black intellectual teaches us nothing. Comment There’s a old saying where I grew up. “There’s two kind of creatures that don’t live long in America. Dogs that chase cars and niggas fucking with the police.” I don’t chase cars or fuck with the police. Gates damn near got an “ outdate.” Outdates are widely celebrated in Detroit and areas in America where the poorest of America’s proletarians are concentrated in large numbers. Outdate is the date you got out of jail. In America its easier to catch a case than a cold. Such is the circumstance of the most destitute and politically oppressed sections of our proletariat. Let’s examine what happened. A prominent professor - “public intellectual,” gets arrested and has charges against him dropped. The incident is sparked by a neighbor calling the police. The police - the laws, arrived to discover the individual in question is “breaking into their own home” because of a jammed door or lost keys. The professor produces identity papers establishing residency and a verbal squabble ensues. The professor demands badge numbers from the police and apparently puts forth his personal ideology concerning the nature of policing in America and ends up arrested on a flexible charge of battery. Let’s make the professor WHITE. See where this is going? Now this white professor happens to be married to a black women. Did the police notice the pictures of the white professor and his black wife sitting on the mantle? What’s actually happening inside the home was not just the professor establishing his residency, but the residency establishing that the professor resided their through pictures of husband, wife and children. Testosterone levels rise and the complex body language between individuals undergo subtle shift. The professor understands the soundless communication of body language; the shifting of weight that is the agitation before attack mode. The intimidation is palpable. Professor with glasses shifts body weight and so does the police. “You guys got what you want get the fuck out of my house.” “There’s nothing to look at here.” The laws pivot on their feet and lock eyes with professor glasses. Professor is 5’7 and the laws are all 6’ and above. “Take it easy professor. We’re just doing our job and don’t have to put up with your crap.” The laws grin sensing fear in the intellectual eyes of professor. In a nervous impulse professor wipes his glasses with his shirt. His heart rate increases with a deafening noise. The laws hear this accelerated heart beat and lovin it. Professor going to jail. The charge: he used a bad word. II. One cannot speak of the color factor as American history in a rational manner. Insanity cannot be understood or articulated on the basis of sanity. Every social problem cannot be resolved. Some things are dissolved by history, like the peasant question and the fate of the small producer. Historical feces cannot be fixed by politics. White supremacy cannot be resolved, only dissolved. History dissolves as resolution. Historical questions and issues are dissolved by human beings fighting for resolution. Liberal intellectuals deeply feel that politics and intellectual-political fiat and/or class outlook or correct political line, can resolve issues. Bullshit. Talk about faulty logic. Once social - human, phenomenon is set in motion it has to run its course. Social phenomenon as systematic class relations and economic systems, are subject to human assault and physical reshaping at two junctures; when leaping between a quantitative boundary and/or a qualitative reformulation. When something fundamental to a process change, or begins changing, then everything dependent upon that which is fundamental must in turn change. Not all at one time, but change must take place. Its that simple. The evolution of the color factor in our history has passed through quantitative and qualitative boundaries. The color factor in history begins with primitive accumulation of capital. Reaches America as Indian slaughter and leaps to a new juncture with the invention of Eli Whitney. Class
[Marxism-Thaxis] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
farmela...@juno.com Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement, to be one, must be hard to comprehend. Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his mother's milk, having been born and raised within the milieu of the Canadian CP. CB: Seems likely that the Canadian CP's materialism was dialectical, not mechanical. Stages of history or mode of production analysis denigratingly labelled stagist seems to be a Trotskyist theoretical shortcoming. Also, history in the Soviet Union and China seem to lend support to a more stagist interpretation of the world movement to socialism. Perhaps this means Cohen's work is supported by these real history , real world developments. ^^^ Cohen, himself, years later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the problem laid with historical materialism in general rather than with the specific variety of historical materialism that he had embraced. ^ CB: Real history is looking more stagist , actually. Jim Farmelant -- Original Message -- From: jksc...@yahoo.com To: marxist philosophy marxistphiloso...@yahoogroups.com Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 + Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first a founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to liberal egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants here. But IMHO he was one of the most influential and important Marxist thinkers of the latter half of the 20th century, and his legacy requires comment. Not much time here but I will note a few thoughts; - In the context of a sharp decline in the quantity and quality of Marxist theory, Cohen and the AMs stood for the disconnection of theory from practice, the entrenchment of Marxism as another academic exercise. In some ways this was not their fault giving the collapse of Marxism as a movement and a force in the world. - Cohen helped bring a level of rigor and precision in Marxist thinking that had been sorely lacking for a very long time. If it's complained that his work lacked popular accessibility, what are we to say about Adorno, a favorite here who gets wide discussion? - Cohen's major work on Karl Marx's Theory Of History is very valuable, but went down the wrong track in reviving a stagist, mechanical, primacy of the productive forces 2d Internat'l conception of historical materialism. (Possibly due in part to his roots in the Canadian CP.) True, Marx gave that view a lot of space, but Cohen almost totally neglected Marx's alternative class struggle view, which I think is more true and valuable and gets no less, arguably more, space. Brenner is far better on this (and no less rigorous). - Cohen's turn to traditional style moral philosophy as important, first as a complement to his idea of historical materialism, then as a replacement for Marxism and materialist analysis, was a major retrogression. No doubt there is more ethics in Marx and Marxism than Marx cared to admit, but Marx pointed the way in integrating these into materialist analysis. Cohen's own positive ethical views were, moreover, disappointingly primitive and underdeveloped. See his awful Egalitarianism book, but also earlier papers on exploitation and his paper critiquing value theory -- a real train wreck. And I don't accept value theory myself! I haven't carefully read the last book in Rawls. Btw in that book Cohen lists as the big three books on political philosophy Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Plato's Republic. Marx's Capital doesn't make his cut. Given Cohen's a priori turn to liberal morality, Marx might be happy to be left out. - Cohen was nonetheless a major influence, one of the few really original thinkers in late 20th century Marxism, along with perhaps Althusser -- who, it might argued, paralleled him in a French sort of way. The people we tend to discuss, Marx, the Western Marxists, all had their roots and did much or all of their important work before 1950. It says something about the state of Marxism that Cohen and Althusser are among the giants of postwar Marxism. More later. Justin
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Detroit Election: notes. part 1 2
Thanks for the report. It is interesting it comes on the heels of a discussion of German fascism . “We communist are a drop in a bucket” Lenin would remind comrades whose sense of proportions outran reality. Not a drop in a coffee cup, but a damn bucket. At this meeting you were the drop. Your safety is very important and it is good that you declined to engage in a shouting match. The only thing communists have to prove is our ability to make contacts, recruitments, create literature distribution networks and bringing together small circles of combatants to protect ones neighborhoods and popularize issues. Your report quoted from a fascist newspaper: II. From a newspaper distributed tonight I found this bit of strategic vision from the organizers: Target: A self-serving, self- perpetuating political class that no longer represents the will of the people. Comment The fascist are pretty clear and leveling their attack mode against the political middle. The political middle is an economic/political formation. Specifically, this economic/political formation sits at the base of the Obama victory. More exactly, a layer of the working class swung to Obama is being targeted. The intersection of class interest is being targeted to be shattered, as the key to a fascist transition. As surely as a section of conservative workers were swung to Obama they can be swung to the fascist. How we cope with this is the stuff of the real class struggle. The ideological attack was indicated in your report. When I told her I had served during two eras of war and was eligible for comprehensive government paid health care through the VA she told me that socialism was okay for veterans. Comment Socialism - the government footing the bill for healthcare rather than the individual or their employer, is alright for the military but not the lowest section of the proletariat. The “aged” get Medicare and a narrow section of the proletariat outside the labor market - primarily women and children, get Medicaid. In my opinion the reason literature today is “racially” tinged - rather than outright white chauvinism, is the evolution of the color factor and America 40 years into desegregation. Racially tinged means isolating the most poverty stricken of the proletariat, without openly speaking of blacks and browns “as the problem” because a huge majority section of this poverty stricken mass are white. I am of the opinion - (at this writing and it is subject to change because I do not know enough), that we should under no conditions engage the “ ultra-right” or level our attack against them. Our approach has to be defense of the most poverty stricken of the proletarian masses and their needs. The middle will speak for itself and take care of themselves. A little over six months ago the “political middle” - (expressed in the union bureaucracy and the “political class“) at the rally in Lansing Michigan, was attacking our ass because we dared to speak of health care outside the bounds of the Obama administration. Apparently, the subtle shift was allowing us to openly distribute our literature so as to pull us into a direct confrontation with the “ultra right.” The road to Rome is through the political middle, carrying the voice and demands of the most poverty stricken and not attacking the “ultra right, because the political middle stands in our way and are the political and social prop of capital. The fringe groups are fighting to capture the loyalty of the political middle by attacking its leaders. My thinking at this time is to treat the politically middle and better situated workers the same way Lenin looked at the peasants as a class: to swing them to the side of the real proletariat, rather than viewing the best paid workers in unions as the vanguard of the social revolution of the proletariat. This is not to say we ignore these workers. Rather, we have to face things in their concreteness. For instance the majority of the UAW is retired workers! We face a hell of a new fight as majority shut out of production. We are compelled to gyrate in harmony with the lowest section of the proletariat shut out of production. No way could I see this coming or fore tell such an alignment three years ago, much less a decade or two ago. A huge struggle within the union by retired workers is brewing. I do not have a clue what is going to happen because this struggle is outside the traditional bound of employer-employee. I do know the company is going to try and detach us from it as legacy cost. A new era is wide open. The best and most effective way to respond is to begin building our forces and distributing communist literature to individuals. Again I use Rally Comrades and the People's Tribune because they are devoid of all that ideological crap. III. The Detroit Election.
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
CB wrote: - Seems likely that the Canadian CP's materialism was dialectical, not mechanical. Stages of history or mode of production analysis denigratingly labelled stagist seems to be a Trotskyist theoretical shortcoming. Also, history in the Soviet Union and China seem to lend support to a more stagist interpretation of the world movement to socialism. Perhaps this means Cohen's work is supported by these real history , real world developments. Yes, that was pretty much Jerry Cohen's take on the implications concerning the fall of the Soviet Union. When he issued his revised edition of KMTH in 2000, he appended a chapter on the collapse of the Soviet bloc in which he made the following observations: === What is the significance for Marxists, of the failure of the socialist project in what was the Soviet Union? And what is the significance, for socialists, of the failure of that project? I separate the two questions not merely for the formal reason that 'Marxists' and 'socialists' designate (overlapping but nevertheless) distinct categories, but also for the substantial reason that the significance of the Soviet failure is, in my view, very different for the two cases. For reasons to be explained below, the Soviet failure can be regarded as a triumph for Marxism: a Soviet success might have embarassed key propositions of historical materialism, which is the Marxist theory of history. But no one could think that the Soviet failure represents a triumph for socialism. A SOviet success would have been unambigously good for socialism. I treat, here, the significance of the Soviet failure for Marxism. Now, as I said, had the Soviet Union succeeded in building socialism, that might have embarassed historical materialism. It might, in particular, have posed a serious challenge to the central claims of historical materialism: (1) 'No social formation ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room for it have developed . . .' (2) 'and new higher relations of production never apppear before . . . [they] have matured in the womb of the old society itself.' It follows from the passage on exhibit that a capitalist society does not give way to a socialist one until capitalism is fully developed in that society, and that socialism does not take over from capitalism until the higher relations which characterize socialism have matured within the antecedent capitalist society itself. But what, precisely, is imposed by the requirement that relations constitutive of the future socialist society must mature under capitalism? A complete answer to that question might be difficult to supply, but whatever else is required for such relations to have matured within capitalism, thre surely must exist, for such relations to have matured, a large proletariat within the capitalist society in question: it must be false that the great bulk of 'immediate producers' are peasants, rather than industrial wage-workers. Now against the background of the two exhibited historical materialist theses, I want to discuss a criticism of historical materialism which is often made by anti-Marxists. I draw attention to this criticism because I believe it to be instructively incorrect. The criticism is that, whereas Marx predicted that socialist revolution would first break out in advanced capitalist countries, it in fact occurred first in a relatively backward one, one so backward that one might refuse to call it a capitalist country. And this predictive failure was not just of the man Karl Marx himself, but of historical materialis, because of its commitment to theses (1) and (2) above. For here was a socialist revolution in an incompletely capitalist country in which further development of the productive forces , under a capitalist aegis, was surely possible (so that (1) stands falsified), and in a country which had not generated much of a proletariat (so that (2) also stands falsified). Before indicating why I think that this criticism is misguided, I should address a standard reply to it, in defence of (2), which I think unsound. The standard reply, against the charge that the 1917 revolution occurred without the existence of a developed proletariat, and, therefore, in contradiction of (2) above, is that there was a highly developed and concentrated proletariat in the huge factories of Petrograd itself, where the leading revolutionary events occurred, and where power was seized. But, while an ample local proletariat may help to explain, and may have even been crucial to, Bolshevik political success, theorem (2) is, in my view, supposed to be true not because of the exigencies of politics but because of what a socialist form of economy requires for viability. So this way of protecting (2) against the threat posed to it by the Russian revolution fails. Despite the failure of the 'Petrograd proletariat' gambit, I do not think that the 1917
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
I live in Oxford and clashed with G. A. Cohen at seminars at which I tried to persuade him to take Hegel's dialectics and Marx's dialectics seriously. In particular, Hegel's Science of Logic was a completely closed book to Cohen because for reasons of professional advantage, Cohen adopted the British Professional Philosopher view of Bertrand Russell etc. that Hegel's logic is simply irrational. This was always just stated as an assertion, or with a 'clever' Oxford academic 'joke', without any thought of having a real engagement with Hegel's Logic. My efforts, at least as far as Cohen were concerned, were completely forlorn, I think because his background in the Canadian CP had corroded and fixed his mind and intellect to the extent that he could not grasp Hegel's dialectics or Marx's dialectics, and he took refuge in analytical 'Marxism' and abstract moral 'theory'. His always arrogant dismissal of dialectics did, I think, do some and probably all of his students a lot of damage. He was, of course, rigorous, in an analytical philosophical kind of way, but at the level of imagination he was very limited. Ralph Dumain would have absolutely knocked spots off him, given Ralph's wide reading and relatively undogmatic approach. Look at 'Analytical Marxism' now. It has utterly disintegrated. That is partly because it never had any connection with Marx's thought, although it tried, through linguistic tricks, to claim that it did have something to do with Marx. Ask yourself the question: what are the positive proposals of 'Analytical Marxism' for how society should be in the futurean individualistic 'utopia' in which there is a strategic denial that the fundamental contradiction in human society is that between capital and labour. Phil Walden -Original Message- From: marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of farmela...@juno.com Sent: 07 August 2009 19:14 To: marxistphiloso...@yahoogroups.com Cc: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home Well on Marxmail I had posted the following in response to another poster, who had drawn a comparison between Cohen and Althusser. --- I suspect that Jerry Cohen would not have minded if people took note of his passing by debating the merits of his works. Actually, I find his reading of Marx to have been closer to the readings that were provided by such Second International Marxists like Kautsky and Plekhanov. I believe that somewhere in KMTH he makes such an acknowledgement. But yet he did seem to have to come to such a reading by way of Althusser, even though he rejected Althusserianism. G.A. Cohen discussed Althusser in his foreword to KMTH. There, after detailing some of the positive contributions of the Althusserians to Marxism (which for Cohen included the re-emphasis on Marx's more mature writings like *Capital* rather than the earlier writings like the *1844 Manuscripts* and the attention that Althusser and his followers paid to historical materialism) then proceeded to note what he regarded as some of their more negative attributes. Writing thus: Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement, to be one, must be hard to comprehend. Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his mother's milk, having been born and raised within the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the problem laid with historical materialism in general rather than with the specific variety of historical materialism that he had embraced. Jim Farmelant -- Original Message -- From: jksc...@yahoo.com To: marxist philosophy marxistphiloso...@yahoogroups.com Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 + Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first a founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to liberal egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants here. But IMHO he was one of the most influential and important Marxist thinkers of the latter half of the 20th century, and his legacy requires comment.
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
On 8/7/09, Phil Walden p...@pwalden.fsnet.co.uk wrote: I live in Oxford and clashed with G. A. Cohen at seminars at which I tried to persuade him to take Hegel's dialectics and Marx's dialectics seriously. In particular, Hegel's Science of Logic was a completely closed book to Cohen because for reasons of professional advantage, Cohen adopted the British Professional Philosopher view of Bertrand Russell etc. that Hegel's logic is simply irrational. This was always just stated as an assertion, or with a 'clever' Oxford academic 'joke', without any thought of having a real engagement with Hegel's Logic. My efforts, at least as far as Cohen were concerned, were completely forlorn, I think because his background in the Canadian CP had corroded and fixed his mind and intellect to the extent that he could not grasp Hegel's dialectics or Marx's dialectics, and he took refuge in analytical 'Marxism' and abstract moral 'theory'. ^ CB: Maybe there's a dialectical contradiction here (smile_, but CP's teach dialectics, Hegelian and Marxist. See for example , Lenin's essay on Karl Marx or Engels' _Ludwig Feuerbach_ or _Anti-Duhring_ very much featured in CP teaching in this area. _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ is informed by dialectics. It seems very unlikely that Cohen'a dismissal of dialectics came from following any example of the Canadian CP ^ His always arrogant dismissal of dialectics did, I think, do some and probably all of his students a lot of damage. He was, of course, rigorous, in an analytical philosophical kind of way, but at the level of imagination he was very limited. Ralph Dumain would have absolutely knocked spots off him, given Ralph's wide reading and relatively undogmatic approach. Look at 'Analytical Marxism' now. It has utterly disintegrated. That is partly because it never had any connection with Marx's thought, although it tried, through linguistic tricks, to claim that it did have something to do with Marx. Ask yourself the question: what are the positive proposals of 'Analytical Marxism' for how society should be in the futurean individualistic 'utopia' in which there is a strategic denial that the fundamental contradiction in human society is that between capital and labour. Phil Walden -Original Message- From: marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of farmela...@juno.com Sent: 07 August 2009 19:14 To: marxistphiloso...@yahoogroups.com Cc: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home Well on Marxmail I had posted the following in response to another poster, who had drawn a comparison between Cohen and Althusser. --- I suspect that Jerry Cohen would not have minded if people took note of his passing by debating the merits of his works. Actually, I find his reading of Marx to have been closer to the readings that were provided by such Second International Marxists like Kautsky and Plekhanov. I believe that somewhere in KMTH he makes such an acknowledgement. But yet he did seem to have to come to such a reading by way of Althusser, even though he rejected Althusserianism. G.A. Cohen discussed Althusser in his foreword to KMTH. There, after detailing some of the positive contributions of the Althusserians to Marxism (which for Cohen included the re-emphasis on Marx's more mature writings like *Capital* rather than the earlier writings like the *1844 Manuscripts* and the attention that Althusser and his followers paid to historical materialism) then proceeded to note what he regarded as some of their more negative attributes. Writing thus: Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement, to be one, must be hard to comprehend. Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his mother's milk, having been born and raised within the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the problem laid with historical materialism in general rather than with the specific variety of historical materialism that he had embraced. Jim Farmelant -- Original Message -- From:
[Marxism-Thaxis] Heidegger and Nazism
Heidegger The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy, in Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935 Emmanuel Faye; Translated by Michael B. Smith; Foreword by Tom Rockmore In the most comprehensive examination to date of Heidegger’s Nazism, Emmanuel Faye draws on previously unavailable materials to paint a damning picture of Nazism’s influence on the philosopher’s thought and politics. In this provocative book, Faye uses excerpts from unpublished seminars to show that Heidegger’s philosophical writings are fatally compromised by an adherence to National Socialist ideas. In other documents, Faye finds expressions of racism and exterminatory anti-Semitism. Faye disputes the view of Heidegger as a naïve, temporarily disoriented academician and instead shows him to have been a self-appointed “spiritual guide” for Nazism whose intentionality was clear. Contrary to what some have written, Heidegger’s Nazism became even more radical after 1935, as Faye demonstrates. He revisits Heidegger’s masterwork, Being and Time, and concludes that in it Heidegger does not present a philosophy of individual existence but rather a doctrine of radical self-sacrifice, where individualization is allowed=2 0only for the purpose of heroism in warfare. Faye’s book was highly controversial when originally published in France in 2005. Now available in Michael B. Smith’s fluid English translation, it is bound to awaken controversy in the English-speaking world. Emmanuel Faye is associate professor at the University Paris Ouest–Nanterre La Défense and an authority on Descartes. He lives in Paris. Michael B. Smith is professor emeritus of French and philosophy at Berry College and the translator of numerous philosophical works into English. He lives in Riverdale, NY. D.Göçmen http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/ ___ 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
