[lbo-talk] Unproductive labor

Charles Brown charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
Wed Feb 13 12:49:30 PST 2008



>>> Eubulides >>>
On Feb 13, 2008 11:08 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> >
> > One political reason I don't like the p/u labor
> > distinction is that emotionally it seems to line up in
> > people's minds with p=good, necessary, justified,
> > would exist under socialism, u= bad, wasteful,
>
> So using it politically (regardless of its theoretical validity or
> invalidity) is as silly as using quantum mechanics to determine the
> proper oven temperature for a lamb roast.
>
> Carrol

=====================

Uh, no. The political/theory divide re validity is *much* more problematic than is the case you analogize to habitually.

There's a reason they call it political economy after all................

Ian

^^^^^^

CB: Carrol should know this , because it is he who so often emphasizes the primacy of practice over theory.

The "Theses" identify political action as the only truth of philosophy, famously concluding: "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it". (in the German original: "Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kömmt drauf an, sie zu verändern".)

Theses on Feuerbach
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Eleventh Thesis, original manuscriptThe "Theses on Feuerbach" are eleven short philosophical notes written by Karl Marx in 1845. They outline a critique of the ideas of Marx's fellow Young Hegelian philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. But the text is often seen as more ambitious than this, criticizing the contemplative materialism of the Young Hegelians alongside all forms of philosophical idealism. The "Theses" identify political action as the only truth of philosophy, famously concluding: "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it". (in the German original: "Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kömmt drauf an, sie zu verändern".) While the text wishes to retain the critical stance of German critical idealism, it transposes that criticism into practical, material, political terms (leading directly to Marx's later assertion that the "criticism of weapons" must at some point do the work of the "weapons of criticism").

Marx did not publish the "Theses on Feuerbach" during his lifetime; they were later edited by Friedrich Engels and published in 1888, with the original text emerging in 1924. They seem to have been intended as a note on principles which Marx wished to write out once, clearly, as a reminder to himself; the text may actually have been hung above his writing-desk.

[edit] Uses of the text The Eleventh Thesis was used by Sergey Prokofiev in his Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, Op. 74. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theses_on_Feuerbach

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