> But all of this what they were saying was not some obscure formula
> like a
> physicist or chemist. What Marxists were saying to the masses
> substantially
> corresponded with the masses direct experience. They dug deeper, but
> these
> social and economic and historical issues and facts were substantially
> part
> of the direct experience of the working class and poor. Marxists just
> connect the dots for most people.
I have something to say about the Marxist concept of "science" below.
> CB: You are begging the question. What we are disputing is whether
> social
> science can do exactly that.
Yes -- I'm not begging the question, I'm raising it. And my answer is that "social science" can't do it. See below.
> Have you looked at the history of social
> systems from the past ? You know, the rise and fall of swivilizations ?
> Mayas, Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, European middle ages. There doesn't
> seem
> to be any that last forever. Are you saying they are destroyed from the
> outside by non-contradictions.
True, these earlier civilizations aren't still around; otherwise we would be them and not us. (Although traces of them are still with us.) And I don't suppose that what we call "our civilization" will last forever. But I have no idea when or how it will change to something else, any more than anyone else does, because that's the sort of thing that is unknowable.
Some civilizations could be said to be destroyed from within, but not all. Toynbee had a far more complex theory which he developed to try to explain the rise and fall of civilizations, and historians tend to criticize even it for being too oversimplified.
> CB: Yea he does discuss countervailing tendencies right there in the
> same
> lucid moment he discusses the profit fall. There he also discusses the
> organic composition of capital, which would predict more and more
> machines
> and fewer and fewer human workers, which is exactly what is happening.
> So,
> there's prediction from Marx of the future that has come true. I
> forgot that
> one.
One can point to this or that episode in history that appears to be a "confirmation" of his predictions, as you do --
> He's notions about the working class are remarkably right on . What
> are you
> talking about ?! Did you notice that we had a little thing called the
> Russian Revolution ? Not only that the German workers were close to
> making
> exactly a Marxist revolution, but the bourgeoisie pulled out fascism.
> There
> was a red revolution in Spain. France had the Commune and a gigantic
> workers' movement. Italy had the largest Communist Party of all. You
> don't
> seem to be too familiar with the how much the workers have fulfilled
> Marx's
> "predictions." The working class is rising in Venezuela as we speak.
-- but the fact that there have been uprisings here and there doesn't confirm Marx's whole theory about the future course of capitalism. There have been uprisings here and there in every class society -- Greece, Rome, China, etc. -- because people who are subjugated by an exploiting power are always tending to want to get free of it, and sometimes they have a bit of success, even. But remember that Marx claimed to have found a "mechanism" whereby the "forces" at work in the capitalist system would produce greater and greater break-downs, and simultaneously produce a stronger and stronger working class, so that eventually the system would break down irretrievably and the working class would take over.
That just hasn't happened, and it hardly looks likely at this point that it will. The course of world history began to deviate from the Marxist-Leninist early in the 20th century, if not before, and has deviated more and more from it ever since.
If Marx had been right, some advanced capitalist country, such as Germany, would have gone through a revolution and gone to the aid of the Russian Revolution. But the attempted revolution in Germany, whether or not it would have been a "Marxist" revolution, which is another question, didn't happen, and it fell through before fascism arose there. There was a red uprising in Spain, but it was split 6 ways to Sunday between various factions and it failed too. Italy had a large Communist Party, but where is it now? Where is the German Communist Party? What happened to the revolutions in the Soviet Union and China? Who needs to check their facts -- you or me?
You will say that these are only temporary setbacks in the great, majestic march of the International Workers' Revolutionary Movement. But as I see the world, there is no such movement. There are a few groups which are able to temporarily bob to the surface here and there, as in Venezuela. But I don't see any of them sparking off this great international movement, which is precisely what Marx and Engels thought would happen. If the alliance between the USSR and the People's Republic of China after 1948 wasn't able to hold together and push world history towards international socialism before it fell apart, how do you expect Venezuela to do it?
> No Marxism is a guide to action, which is
> the way Lenin took it.
Not a very good guide, it seems. If it were, the great International Workers' Revolutionary Movement would certainly be thriving by now.
> CB: Well, Marx did foresee that socialism would have to maintain a
> state
> apparatus, and "state apparatus" is a euphemism for things like
> "police".
> Marx also foresaw the "revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat"
> as
> part of this socialist state. So, Marx kinda foresaw a bit more of the
> Russian Rev than you are allowing.
Of course, just about every Marxist scholar, except the dogmatic ones, has pointed out that by "dictatorship of the proletariat" Marx didn't mean anything like the Stalinist system. He would probably have been horrified by it.
> Marx also, knew that there had to be a rev in an advanced capitalist
> country
> for socialism to survive. So, Marx sort of foresaw a little more than
> you
> give him credit for on that too. In other words, there is a general
> sense
> that we might even say that Marx's theory would *predict* that the
> Soviet
> Union couldn't last forever on its own without a revolution in an
> advanced
> country to accompany and protect it.
Precisely -- and the fact that that didn't happen was not exactly according to what Marxists in 1919 were expecting.
> CB: Marx's idea is that the majority, the working masses, will decide
> to
> change the system.
>
> I don't know what to say about you "don't see anyway that capitalism
> can
> perish from its own contradictions in the classic Marxist way. I guess
> I can
> say "I do see a way that it could".
>
> As to evidence of the contradictions, you might want to read up on
> world
> labor history in the 19th and 20th Centuries. There was quite a bit of
> evidence of classic Marxist class contradictions and struggle, i.e.
> class
> struggle. In fact there was overwhelming evidence of it. Like beyond a
> reasonable doubt.
Of course there is a class struggle in the 19th and 20th centuries, and there is at this moment. Capitalism always has class struggle in it. But at this point, guess who is winning the struggle? Not the workers. And what do "orthodox Marxists" propose to help the workers reverse that situation, right now in 2004, in this country? Nothing, that I can see. If you do, please enlighten us.
> CB: You might want to take a look at the Russian Revolution again,
> which
> took place 34 years after Marx died. Then there's a few other Marxist
> revs
> after that.
But Charles, Charles, Charles ... they all *collapsed* -- their countries returned to capitalism! Capish? I'm getting very tired of repeating this, while you refuse to accept this fact, so I'm not going to repeat it any more, but just keep in mind that I have tried to point it out to you numerous times.
> That's not
> very "precise" on your part to ignore that enormous difference. Did you
> think I wasn't going to notice that you are equating 2000 years with
> 150
> years ? That would suggest that you have more religious, Jesus style
> thinking and logic in your anti-Communist faith than that Communists
> are
> thinking religiously. That's a pretty irrational identification: 2000
> =
> 150. There have been historically recent Communist revolutions.
I already pointed out that your misreading of what I wrote got you started on this "2000 years of Christianity" stuff, and now you're going back to it again.
We're just going around and around in circles, so this argument has reached the point where I will have to break it off. I don't know whether you are independently wealthy or something, so that you have so much time to waste on pointless verbiage, but unfortunately I have to work for a living, so can I no longer go on with this.
As Spok says, "Live well and prosper."
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)