[lbo-talk] Universal Asceticism and Social Levelling

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sun Jul 15 11:31:11 PDT 2007


andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
>
>His
> views are clearly laid out in the 1875 Critique of the
> Gotha Program, where he says that the lower phase of
> communism will be the fulfillment of bourgeois right,
> where each is remunerated according to his work, prior
> to the higher phase, with the unfettering of the
> productive forces and remuneration according to need.

I'm in an intellectually lethargic state just now & I don't want to reread the Critique of the Gotha Programme to check for myself. Does the phrase "unfettering of the productive forces" (or any clearly synonymous phrase) appear in that work, or any other writings of the late Marx? _And_, is there any clearcut explanation in Marx of any period as to just what the phrase, "Productive Forces," means? If Marx meant unfettering of productive forces to mean that progress came from greater gdp, then it's a case of Homer nodding.

For a landed aristocracy, Realith = The Past, and a defense of reality is a defense of the past embodied in the present.

For a capitalist class, Reality = the Future, and a defense of Reality is destruction of the present.

For workers (or for people in a non-class society), Reality = the Present, and a defense of reality is an opposition to the tyranny of the Future.

Endless increase in production is just another version of the Tyranny of the Future.

Carrol



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