Historical Progres

James Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Tue Feb 1 18:13:54 PST 2000


On Tue, 01 Feb 2000 15:52:28 -0800 Sam Pawlett <rsp at uniserve.com> writes:
>
>
> James Farmelant wrote:
> >
> > I wonder how Justin and Sam would evaluate Alan Carling's
> > formulation of a weakened technological determinism?
>
> Jim, I haven't read enough of Carling to really comment much.
>
> > 1) that human nature is socially located and constrained so
> > its occurrence within particular relations of production imposes
> > a characteristic form of development on each mode of production.
>
> Its human nature amongst other things like social and economic
> structure
> which gives each m of p its essence.
>
> >
> > 2) The question of the origin of a mode of production must
> > be separated out from the question of its subsequent
> > reproduction - which Carling conceives in quasi-Darwinian
> > terms as a matter of its survival and/or expansion in
>
> sounds reasonable.
>
> > competition with rival modes and with nature.
> >
> > 3) That historical change must be explained in selectionist
> > terms.
>
> Why is this? There are many ways to explain historical change most
> of
> which can be combined. No doubt there is selcetionist pressure
> amongst
> other things.

Well, Carling clearly attempts to develop a selectionist interpretation of historicl materialism that is patterned after Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. For Carling the progression of modes of production through history is to be explained in selectionist terms. In his theory class struggle plays a role analogous to that of genetic mutations in Darwinian biology - that is as a source of new variations in the relations of production. Different outcomes in class struggles produce different variations in the relations of production which are then subjected to selection pressures as they compete with other relations of production. In this way Carling attempts to reconcile the explantion of history in terms of class struggle with explantions of history in terms of the forces/relations dialectic - a problem that Justin has been alluding to in his discussions with Charles Brown.


>
> >
> > 4) The Competitve Primacy Thesis (which Carling proposes
> > as a substitute for the Intentional Primacy Thesis that he
> > attributes to Cohen. Competitve Primacy asserts that
> > the mode of production that prevails is the one containing
> > the most highly developed forces of production.
>
> I think histroically this is true but has little to do with
> selection.
> Areas with more developed f of p have by definition more highly
> developed weapons and can thus impose their system on others.

Carling sees the competition between rival modes of production as involving both plain economic competition as well as political-military competition. Also, sometimes countries will adopt a different mode of production because it is perceived as leading to more developed forces of production. One thinks of Japan's decision under the Meiji Restoration to become capitalist in order to avoid cannibalization such as China had suffered.
>
> >
> > 5) That Competitive Primacy implies that the relations
> > attached to superior forces will almost never or at least very
> > rarely lose out to relations attached to inferior forces.
> > This in Carling's view makes history "sticky downwards"
> > to use Olin, Levine & Sobers' phrase. And this is said to give
> > history as a whole a bias (weaker than a direction). At the
> > same time, Carling building upon Brenner's analysis of
> > the feudal-capitalist transition argues that embodies,
> > however, something stronger but historically localized.
> > While agreeing with Levine et al. that history must be
> > seen as embodying a weal directedness, Carling
> > contends that he builds a stronger theoretical case
> > by looking towards the later rather than the earlier
> > Marx with an eye to Darwin rather than to Adam Smith.
>
> One of the problems that Carling might face is an explanation of
> combined and unevan development. For if weaker forces are selected
> out
> by higher forces, why are there feudal relations alongside
> capitalist
> relations and why has this persisted for a long time in some places
> e.g.
> Peru. Charles Bettelheim has theorized that capitalist relations
> become
> parasitic on feudal or other precapitalist relations such that
> capitalism becomes dependant on them. Selection has never been
> complete
> witness the importance of feudal relations in Europe with the
> influence
> of the various royal families, dukes, barons and sultans in the M.E.
> HOwever, selection works over a very long period of time so we will
> see
> i guess.

I think that Carling recognized the possibility of parasitic or other kinds of sybiotic relationships developing between the relations of different modes of production. The logic of his interpretation of historical materialism with its emphasis on Darwinian analogies would seem to imply such a possibility. So the law of combined and uneven development would seem to be compatible with this interpretation of historical materialism

Jim F.


>
> Sam Pawlett

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