TODD: "Greg said:"
">Comic book Marxism, has been a joke for some time, but recently it has
> >become an
>intellectual embarrassment."
"What do you consider "comic book Marxism"?"
GREG: It is probably not the best expression but it has a ring to it. Most of all I referrring to Marxism without any understanding of the Hegelian dialectic, but this is a bit over-intellectual. Marxism without movement, a picture composed of phrases and a structure which is ahistoric and consists of nothing but recipes and formulations.
Like a comic-book where the bubble and picture are a frame and then this is followed by another frame in sequence, it is formal and linea without anything organic (and very two dimensional and in starkly contrasting colours).
The Marxist version is reductionist, usually resting on an immortal phrase and supported by a battery of facts (facts are funny things they rarely if ever directly and unambigiously support a formula but are used as if they did).
Riefictation is the other aspect of this Marxism, when an idea or set of ideas are taken as the thing, and reality is forced to fit its limitations.
It is the Marxism of sects and utopians, it is the simplified version which in the past was sufficient because reality seemed to fit it for so long. In essence it was crafted in the 1930's and never quite escaped its birthplace, maintaining the polemical style and the conceptions which even then were out-of-kilter with developing capitalism, but this was not so obvious at the time. By the 60's and 70's was in serious crisis. Now three decades later the absurdities of recieved Marxism which still dominates the what is left of the Left, has reduced us to the political periphery.
If the Marxism of the Second International was baby-book, the Marxism of the Third (which I especially include the so-called Fourth International and use loosely to define our collective heritage) was for early teenagers - hence a Comic-book. The Baby-book was sufficient for classic capitalism, the comic-book likewise for the era of classic Imperialism, however the next stage in capital's development demands much more of us collectively - hopefully we will get to the level where a much more sophistocated understanding prevails.
When Carrol said we need to relook at our heritage I agree wholeheartedly. It is not a matter of updating Marxism in the sense of adopting "foriegn" theory, or opportunistic revisions (we have had too much of this already), nor getting back to basics in the sense of an even simplier approach - but a return to essence of classics.
In the current debate, those that defend Lenin's Imperialism simply pass over its transitory nature, miss all-together its dynamic of growing socialisation and skip the parts which intimate what Imperialism would turn into. Ironically by so defending Lenin they kill his meaning - at least Negri-Hardt (in one section at least) paid Lenin his due homage by recognising the Historical nature of his orginal conception - hence my annoyance at disposing of them via the weakness of their arguments IN ORDER TO AVOID ADDRESSING THE STRENGTH WITHIN THEIR WORK!
Sorry Todd, this was not directed at you.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
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