Malcolm X and building a Black Tammany Hall

Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us
Fri Jan 8 10:04:24 PST 1999


The conflictual aspect of the whole is not the "whole" of a dialectical and Marxist approach. The whole is a struggle (conflict) AND UNITY of opposites. My concept of community would follow this approach. To see something as only conflictual is as unMarxist as to see it as only a unity.

Just to get something from that horse, Marx's, mouth, in the Chapter entitled "Commodities" in Vol. I of Capital (page 79 of my International edition) Karl refers to "primitive communities" and "primitive tribal communities" . Just flipping through the text, on the previous page, he refers to "the labour-power of the community." and says " the total product of the community is a social product." On page 89, (chapter entitled "Exchange" he says, "The exchange of commodities, therefore, first begins on the boundaries of such communities, at their points of contact with other similar communities, or with members of the latter. So soon, howeve, as products once become commodities in the external relations of a community, they also, by reaction, become so in its internal intercourse." This latter is, of course, a famous passage and concept. Commodity exchange began at the borders of communites.

I kid you not. Take a look.

Maybe Marx really wasn't a Marxist, like he said. Whaddaya think ?

Cholly the Moor


>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 01/07 4:41 PM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>Maybe use of "people" ,
>or "oppressed national or
>racial group" instead of
>"community" will clarify this for
>you. But these are "technical"
>terms, like "exploitation" , so
>it is good to have popular
>terms in that we want to
>speak to millions. "Community"
>is a popular term for these.
>
>What are the specifics of your
>Marxist analysis of this contra
>above ? What are the specifics
>of your claim that these phrases
>obscure more than reveal , etc. ?
>I am not familiar with the
>critique of the concept of
>"community".

I suspect that this whole linguistic fashion of naming a ____ community came from the American habit of euphemism - people who found monosyllables like "blacks" and "Jews" too harsh thought that "the black community" and "the Jewish community" was more euphonious and less potentially offensive.

The reason I object to the formulation is that, as I said the first time around, "community" is a word that creates an artificial unity, something more organicist than conflictual. I'd have thought that it's a word that Amatai Etzioni would throw around, not a Marxist like yourself, who'd be inclined to see stratification and conflict where others might see a whole. And, as the man said, the whole is the false.

Doug



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