Optical_Illusion
Banned
William, I think there's a distinction between what you may think I'm arguing - that certain ideas will be discovered regardless of whether any intellectual precursor ideas are discovered or not - and more the idea I'm actually advocating - that there are some ideas that will eventually come to arise whatever the case, because they describe reality in an accurate and an essential way, and others which do not, because they're arbitrary and the product of very specific social and intellectual currents, not anything actually true in the world, or human society.
Also, re class and capital, but is Marxism really meaningfully simply reducible to the idea that "capital" and "class" exist, and did Marx even originate, or at formalize, the idea that they exist, and do his defining contributions follow from that?
The idea that a group of people came to prominence in Europe, outside of the idealized feudal structure and a titled and feudal aristocracy that existed in practice, who were able to concentrate wealth through the the development of new financial institutions, and that this was, in part, essential to the rise of modern economic growth first in Europe, that seems unavoidable. Because it happened. So it would be fair to say, inevitable! The idea that this is then associated to the highly specific forms of "class analysis", where there is a historical schema of a transitions between "modes of production", where almost all events in each society's history are characterized and best understood by analyzing them as a means of the continuation of a conflict between productive and exploitative classes in the economic system, and assigning a sort of moralized role ("oppressed", "oppressive") to these different class actors, that's very much de novo to Marx, and fairly historically arbitrary. As are others of the big ideas original to Marx and integral to Marxism; Marx's specific version of the Labour Theory of Value, and the "exploitation" of "surplus value" - again, both not particularly self evidently true or even necessarily meaningful or coherent in practice.
So perhaps this is a distinction on where we'd each place something as sufficiently close to Marxism in an alternative intellectual history to call it the same thing.
In terms of faith in a large centralized bureaucracy organized by a single state authority, clarify I wouldn't argue that is found in Marx as I've never heard the claim and the usual comment is that Marx gives no real clue about what would replace capitalism. But in actually implemented Marxist movements (we're talking about both here, a bit), it tends without exception to be there as a substitute for any other means to organize an industrial society. There almost isn't an alternative. Marxist thought places universal suffrage representative democracy between apparently different political parties as merely a fig-leaf for the continuation of an exploitative society. Places the masses as being easily manipulated and consoled ("Opiate of the Masses"). Whatever Marxist movements says about democracy is clearly almost totally unconnected to ideas of mass political participation by all of society. The concentration and private use of any significant capital outside central management by a workers' state (supposedly for their ultimate benefit) is exploitative.
So in that circumstance what will you get other than a large centrally planned bureaucracy in which participation is strongly restricted by one-party membership, and position determined by party connections, and position determines how resources are actually controlled and managed in society, and who really benefits from their use? Hence I'd make the argument that for actually existing Marxist movements to happen in society, you need people to believe those specific forms of extremes of centralized bureaucratic organisation will work, and will be more efficient, which requires a high tide of faith in modernizing bureaucracy that was pretty historically specific.
Also, re class and capital, but is Marxism really meaningfully simply reducible to the idea that "capital" and "class" exist, and did Marx even originate, or at formalize, the idea that they exist, and do his defining contributions follow from that?
The idea that a group of people came to prominence in Europe, outside of the idealized feudal structure and a titled and feudal aristocracy that existed in practice, who were able to concentrate wealth through the the development of new financial institutions, and that this was, in part, essential to the rise of modern economic growth first in Europe, that seems unavoidable. Because it happened. So it would be fair to say, inevitable! The idea that this is then associated to the highly specific forms of "class analysis", where there is a historical schema of a transitions between "modes of production", where almost all events in each society's history are characterized and best understood by analyzing them as a means of the continuation of a conflict between productive and exploitative classes in the economic system, and assigning a sort of moralized role ("oppressed", "oppressive") to these different class actors, that's very much de novo to Marx, and fairly historically arbitrary. As are others of the big ideas original to Marx and integral to Marxism; Marx's specific version of the Labour Theory of Value, and the "exploitation" of "surplus value" - again, both not particularly self evidently true or even necessarily meaningful or coherent in practice.
So perhaps this is a distinction on where we'd each place something as sufficiently close to Marxism in an alternative intellectual history to call it the same thing.
In terms of faith in a large centralized bureaucracy organized by a single state authority, clarify I wouldn't argue that is found in Marx as I've never heard the claim and the usual comment is that Marx gives no real clue about what would replace capitalism. But in actually implemented Marxist movements (we're talking about both here, a bit), it tends without exception to be there as a substitute for any other means to organize an industrial society. There almost isn't an alternative. Marxist thought places universal suffrage representative democracy between apparently different political parties as merely a fig-leaf for the continuation of an exploitative society. Places the masses as being easily manipulated and consoled ("Opiate of the Masses"). Whatever Marxist movements says about democracy is clearly almost totally unconnected to ideas of mass political participation by all of society. The concentration and private use of any significant capital outside central management by a workers' state (supposedly for their ultimate benefit) is exploitative.
So in that circumstance what will you get other than a large centrally planned bureaucracy in which participation is strongly restricted by one-party membership, and position determined by party connections, and position determines how resources are actually controlled and managed in society, and who really benefits from their use? Hence I'd make the argument that for actually existing Marxist movements to happen in society, you need people to believe those specific forms of extremes of centralized bureaucratic organisation will work, and will be more efficient, which requires a high tide of faith in modernizing bureaucracy that was pretty historically specific.
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