Carrol Cox wrote:
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.
^^^^
CB:
Fetters , as in chains binding:
The best current reading of "productive forces" might be with respect to the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private nature of appropriation under capitalism *. Globalization, Monopolization and "centralizing"" ( i.e. the "center of the circle" metaphor, which is a way of referring to the whole; the whole circle is equidistant from its center and so the center of the circle represents the whole) of capital are the ultimate or limit of private appropriation. At the same time, the most recent scattering of the points of production / productive forces around the globe is the furthest step yet in history of the socialization of labor, the division of labor into a more fully world wide web. Marx predicts that the world wide web of labor will burst asunder the integument, the fetters binding it for the private expropriators.
Integument:
"But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation," like a seed bursting its integument.
"Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument."
"The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labor of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation. This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisition of the capitalist era: i.e., on co-operation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production."
* In the long run., less currently, as the culmination of this contradiction in the long history of all the class divided societies of Western Civilization, culmination of the rise of commodity exchange societies (See Engels discussion of Civilization and commodity exchange in _ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_)
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Where "fetters", "integument" show up in Marx:
"At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or - this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms - with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters." ( larger context of quote below)
"The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. Thus integument is burst asunder." ( larger context of quote below)
In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or - this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms - with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.
http://marxists.nigilist.ru/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/pre face.htm
"As soon as this process of transformation has sufficiently decomposed the old society from top to bottom, as soon as the laborers are turned into proletarians, their means of labor into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, then the further socialization of labor and further transformation of the land and other means of production into socially exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as well as the further expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new form. That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for himself, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an ever-extending scale, the co-operative form of the labor-process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labor into instruments of labor only usable in common, the economizing of all means of production by their use as means of production of combined, socialized labor, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and with this, the international character of the capitalistic regime. Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. Thus integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.
The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labor of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation. This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisition of the capitalist era: i.e., on co-operation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production.
http://marxists.nigilist.ru/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm
"As soon as this process of transformation has sufficiently decomposed the old society from top to bottom, as soon as the laborers are turned into proletarians, their means of labor into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, then the further socialization of labor and further transformation of the land and other means of production into socially exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as well as the further expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new form. That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for himself, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an ever-extending scale, the co-operative form of the labor-process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labor into instruments of labor only usable in common, the economizing of all means of production by their use as means of production of combined, socialized labor, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and with this, the international character of the capitalistic regime. Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. Thus integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated
http://marxists.nigilist.ru/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm