>It is natural for things to get slightly exagerrated and best when this
>happens to slimply pull back a little, nor should too much be made of
>phrase of expression, or should recasting a view mean either >capitualtion
>or duplicity (an accusation for which I apologise).
This sort of civility is all to rare, and often fall sort of it myself. Thanks, and I commend it to all.
>
>However, my cavaet would be that though the relationship has to change
>getting a better collective understanding may well be an impoortant
>contigent feature in this development that is it is possible that a better
>intellectual response may conttribute to spuring just such a thing forward.
Well, as someone once said, there is no revolutionary practice without revolutionary theory. I think the theory cannot aspire to be the total view of everything and has to accommodate many different perspectives--the chopped salad we were discussing.
>
>My main thesis is that the classical works are far from exhausted, in some
>areas (such as a general theory of social evolution) we have barely
>scratched the surface, politically it is an area which has much to say
>about the relations between the sexes and family and not a little about
>property and the state. However on this many would disagree.
>
Not me on either count.
Even if I am completely right, what we end up with still will look like chopped salad, but as less of a side dish and more as a main course (if such an analogy makes any sense).
That's pretty good. I may steal it.
>Without going into details at this point, if I said that conceptually the
>general understanding of what is Socialism is not compatable with
>Historical Materialism and for the sake of argument this was accepted (for
>instance that the economics of socialism is based on the capital-labour
>relation) it is something which has wide ramifications especially
>politically
Yes indeed. For example, if the possibility of socialism depends on the development of the productive forces, but these require markets to develop, the certain conceptions of socialism are doomed.
I praised the analytical Marxists and asked about Greg's approach, Who has
pursued it productively?"
>
>It depends on what you mean productively - I would rate CLR James and
>Duneskaya (spelt wrong) pretty highly and would include many who would not
>readily fit the mold in any exact sense (Zygosty, hints of Bukharin and
>definitely I would drag post-1914 Lenin into view).
Well, if you just mean Hegelian Marxism, you can take Gramsci and Lukacs, the best of the last century. But I thought you meant something more specific. I think highly of CLR James and less so of Dunayevskaya, but are they Ollmanian? Well, perhaps thet don't have to me: Cohen isn't Elsterian on the analytical side.
I really don't know where you would place Braverman (I forgot the name of his main work on labour),
Labor and Monoply Capital, a great book.
>I mean this seriously I would love to claim him, but I suppose he could
>also fall into your definition (I don't honestly know one way or another).
I don't think he'd like either of us.
>
>Now what typifies the worst is in mind Althusser whose overly structuralist
>method went from no-where to no-where.
We agree on that, yet there are people I respect who think highly of Althusser--Perry Anderson, Frederick Jameson.
>
>I admit my knowledge of the Phenomenology is worse than thin and I doubt I
>will ever properly read it. However, the quest for what in the hell was the
>dialectic did find a home in the Logic and I cannot say I found the same
>condensed rendition in my attempts to penetrate the Phenomenology.
Give the PhG another try, and read the Introductioan nd the Prefacr Last. The think is that the dialectic as it plays out in the PhG isn't amenable to short formulations, it's a way of telling a story, and you have to see it at work. Charles Taylor's short Hegel & Modern Sociry is the easiest introduction I know, very accessible.
>
>I woulkd loosely link this to "The Making of Capital"(I have forgotten the
>author's name)
Roman Rosdalsky
>where the original plan for capital was examined - something like a world
>history was part of this.
Well, he thought he might get around to it someday.
jks
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