>>> LeoCasey at aol.com 06/19/01 02:52PM >>>
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For the Marxian tradition, it is only in reference to capitalism as a system, with its dynamic of class struggle, that one can make ultimate sense of other relations of power, from racism and sexism to the asylum and the prison. As far as I can see, that is the logical corollary of the primacy of class struggle in history. And that is what I meant by the phrase that "capitalism is the defining essence of all power relations." Certainly, formulations that the class struggle [or the economy] is determinative only "in the last instance" allow for considerable mediation and complexity in explanation, but, by their very terminology, they still accord trans-historical [that is human history as we know it, bracketed on one end by 'primitive communism' {hunting and gathering societies} and on the other end by 'communism proper'] primacy to the class struggle.
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CB: I agree with Leo that Marx and Engels afforded transhistorical primacy to the class struggle in _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_. I note that the post-Marxist and other position of denying transhistorical processes and contrast on contingent ( accidental) and socalled historical ( that is , I guess, not TRANShistorical ) processes reduces to an idealist/religious/magical epistemology. It posits that social formations arise spontaneously , like Athena birthed fully formed from the head of Zeus. Poof ! we have feudalism with no relation to anything that came before. Presto ! Capitalism, a complete accident with respect to what went on before. Radical contingencism is radical anti-explanation.
I would further note that in _The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_ , Engels provides a Marxist precis of the relationship of class struggle to the range of power relations which is debated here. So, Marxism has from its classical period a much more dialectical attitude to the connection of class struggle to other social power institutions. It seems almost silly to think that we cannot learn anything about capitalism from the forms of society that preceded it.
As to historical magic(alism), we might pose the standard Marxist test of "theory": What does it imply for practice that is different than classical Marxism ? Are we to presume that socialism ( or whatever form of society is the aim of these magicians) will come about accidentally, contingently, and with no important relation to the forms of capitalism ? What do we do to "cause" the accidents that will change things ? Wave a magic wand ? What of Leo's favorite quote from Frederick Douglass ? Is it struggle that "causes" the accidents that are progress ? Wasn't Frederick Douglass making a transhistorical generalization about the efficacy of struggle and progress, very much like that of Engels and Marx, ?
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If I had to locate myself on the terrain of theories of power relations, I would define myself, following Laclau and Mouffe, as a post-Marxist, rather than a Marxist, precisely because I do not see power relations as an unified, closed field, defined by some primary, essential contradiction. There is a lot to be gleaned from Marx's analysis of the capital-labor relationship, as well as from figures in the Marxian tradition, such as Gramsci, who worked to develop a radical democratic political theory based on class relationships. Class struggle has been a central, albeit far from exclusive, terrain of radical democratic struggle in the modern epoch, and for the foreseeable future it will remain quite important. That is why, in part, one chooses to call oneself "post-Marxist": it not only reflects a political trajectory, it also allows one to identify with a lot of valuable theoretical analysis in the Marxian tradition. But it is also "post-Marxist" because it has moved beyond that central core of Marxian analysis, and sees a much more contingent, much more historical, much more articulated field of power.
At 09:37 PM 06/18/2001 -0400, you wrote:
> >or one can dispense with
> >the Marxist premise that capitalism is the defining essence of all power
> >relations, and see what Marx and Foucault can tell us about a more
> >contingent, more articulated field of power.
> >
>
>Leo, you have been so reasonable for so long, and now this unnecessarily
>provcative red herring. There is not a single Marxist here, not even
>Charles, who thinks that "the defining essence," whatever that is, of "all
>power relations" is capitalism. Even a class reductionist would not be so
>narrow (what about feudal or slave relationships before the rise of
>capitalism?). And even a fairly ortho Marxist need not be a class
>reductionist.
>
>A historical materialist like myself (as I have explained, I doubts about
>the utility of the "Marxist" label, and don't care to either fight _for_ it,
>or because of it) is perfectly happy to say that there are all kinds of
>power relationships with all kinds of different bases. It's just that if you
>want to understand class societies, including our own capitalist one, class
>relationships are particularly salient for a lot of purposes, e.g., if you
>want to figure out who runs the government and why, or why the press lies
>the way it does, or why voting for Democrats somehow fails to being long
>term large scale improvements beyond holding the dike. Do I insist, or
>suggest, that sex oppression is really capitalist exploitation under its
>skin? Of course not. That dog won't fight. So why bring it up?
>
>- --jks
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 212-98-6869
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --
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