I do find I understand James Heartfield's points as quoted and see an error in dlaw's reply. It is subtle and turns on exact meanings, or rather dlaw taking a precise term but using it in its everyday meaning.
"As long as there are disputes, there must be a system of logic for
resolving disputes. THAT, is the historical constant of human society.
>From the stone-age Iroquois Constitution (that Marx was in love with) to our
present laws to fifty generations past the Revolution, people will have
agreements among themselves to resolve disputes - laws and rights by any
other name. Because humans are a social animal, we must cooperate; because
we must cooperate, disputes are inevitable; because disputes are inevitable,
there will always be laws and rights. Communism is the ultimate expression
of the social contract. "
Disputes, what are disputes between people? It is simple to have a personality clash wirth your nieghbour or work mate - that will go on under communism. Likewise materially some two things might not be compatable but both need doing (a natural winner and a natural loser) that will continue under communism. Finally there will be individuals who intentionally or otherwise hurt others and this will be found under communism. In all these sense disputes contiunue under communism very much for the reasons you give: " Because humans are a social animal, we must cooperate; because we must cooperate, disputes are inevitable".
But are these trivial conflicts disputes as we know them? I mean they happen but are they the things that really require today or anytime formal "dispute resolution". And before anyone points out that nieghbours sometimes call in the whole power of the judiciary tro solve some petty problem, our rembrances of such things is based on the fact that it is unnecessary in the first place. In a litigous society anything can be brought to court, but the real question is what soughts of disputes bring courst about?
The solution is to the problem is to reverse the causuality.
You state as there will be disputes there must follow extra-personal means of resolving them.
Makes sense except only a narrow band of disputes go through extra-personal resolution. Indeed the most common aspect of human disputes is that they most often completely resolved by the individuals directed connected to them, and always have been and will be in the future.
Reverse the causuality and ask what type of disputes called into existence extra-personal resolution?
Now the answer seems stright-forward, disputes which are extra-personal to begin with. Disputes arising from contradictions of the social relations they find themselves, social relations which are not open to conscious change but imposed on the person by virtue of the general relations of general production (no particular mode being referred to).
Amongst the tribal relations where people are born into these relations and express them as "person", sometimes eloborate means are used not because the conflict is personal (directly involving only those in direct dispute) but precisely beause others are indirectly part of the dispute - in fact because the dispute is social and not personal at all.
Communism means nothing at all (that is full communism) unless social relations also become conscious relations, unless a dispute is seen for what it is and not for what it represents. This of course does not mean that every individual is consciously aware of all that takes place (this would be impossible) but rather that the relations established are fully human and lack the force of unconscious relations. Disputes will arise because the factors involved are not always conscious, but this is different to them being necessarily unconscious as in previous modes of production.
It is a subtle point, but on it a lot turns. Lets assume a complex dispute involving lots of people under full communism, a dispute where most of the participants (or all) are completely unconscious of the underlying problems which have caused the conflict.
In our society this requires a resolution to be imposed. The imposition has little to do with the actual causes, but with the relations involved which consciously can only be percieved as "rights" standing somehow above the dispute and through which it must be resolved. "Rights" exist as a necessary expression of what cannot be properly expressed, those relations which unconsciously make a "right" of some aspect of being. This is what Marx had in mind, "rights" as an exclusion of others, "rights" expressed as an abstract action of unconscious relations and hence seen as standing above actual beings, as something of a God.
Take away the necessity of unconscious relations (they can still exist and will but they are no longer necessary) and the need for "rights" dissappears (until then, and in dispute with some high handed expressions about rights they are of course a necessary and important thing).
Greg
--- Message Received --- From: "dlawbailey" <dlawbailey at netzero.net> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 18:03:34 -0800 Subject: RE: no rights under communism - yeah, right
James Heartfield writes:
"For Marx there are no competing interests under Communism, so no need for human beings to conceive of themselves as 'rights-bearing subjects'."
I feel no fear of contradiction in saying that any reasonable person may simply reject this daft concept out of hand.
Though we must ultimately blame Marx for it, Comrade Heartfield continues:
"In other words, communism is not a social contract (or a contract of any kind) since there are no contracting parties. Social administration, ceasing to be contentious, will lose its special character to settle alongside any other scientific endeavour.
The subtext that perhaps 'dlaw' finds difficult is that, for Marx (whether you agree with him or not) rights have no natural foundation, but remain a social product, and a historically transient one, that in given circumstances could fall away as a historical redundancy."
I see, so under communism individuals will not need the protection of rights because murder, robbery, brutality, venality, fraud and power-madness will simply vanish as a "historical redundancy".
Right, pull the other one.
"What dlaw says of communism as a social contract might apply to the period of socialism, or the 'dictatorship of the proletariat', the seizure of the state, but that is merely preparatory to communism the falling away of the state, and of conceptions such as rights."
Right, a world without agreements, contracts, promises, obligations, and - most importantly of all - disputes. One need hardly take the trouble to argue against the idea of a dispute-free world, but let's just say that nothing less than the immutable laws of physics - the expressions of the probabilistic nature of the very universe - stand in such stark contrast to this notion that it shrinks to insignificance - it's proper place in the order of things.
As long as there are disputes, there must be a system of logic for
resolving disputes. THAT, is the historical constant of human society.
>From the stone-age Iroquois Constitution (that Marx was in love with) to our
present laws to fifty generations past the Revolution, people will have
agreements among themselves to resolve disputes - laws and rights by any
other name. Because humans are a social animal, we must cooperate; because
we must cooperate, disputes are inevitable; because disputes are inevitable,
there will always be laws and rights. Communism is the ultimate expression
of the social contract.
_________________________
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Modular And Integrated Design - programing power for all
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