[lbo-talk] Dustup - final installment

Ted Winslow egwinslow at rogers.com
Sun Jul 27 06:49:53 PDT 2008


Julio Huato wrote:


> Marx's view is that the
> possibility of placing our collective life under our collective
> control stems from the nature of our specifically *human* labor. In
> other words, communism is simply an expansion of that "realm of
> freedom" that germinates even in the simplest, most primitive labor
> process conceivable, expansion of the "realm of freedom" at the
> expense of the "realm of necessity" -- i.e. the realm where what we do
> escapes our control, turns against us, and oppresses us. Communism is
> expanding the control any immediate producer exercises over its
> immediate product to the whole gamut of our social relations, because
> so far in human history, people has largely produced and reproduced a
> host of those social relations without full consciousness and control
> over them.

If this is an interpretation of what Marx means by these two realms, it isn't quite accurate.

He uses the concepts to differentiate two kinds of activity in the ideal community - "communism.

The difference between them is that the activity that defines the "realm of necessity" is instrumental (i.e. is "determined by a compelling extraneous purpose which must be fulfilled") while that defining the "true realm of freedom" is an end in itself (i.e. "free activity" which is "not determined by a compelling extraneous purpose which must be fulfilled), e.g. making pianos versus using pianos to play "the most beautiful music."

Both kinds of activity, however, require the fully developed capabilities of the "totally developed individual," i.e. the fully rationally self-determined "individuality," the "free individuality," Marx identifies with fully developed "mind."

Since, according to Marx, fully developed mind is the product of a long and difficult historical process of development, minds capable of fully rational self-determination (including minds fully open to change through rational persuasion) only become actual at the end of this process. It's only then that the relation between individuals becomes a fully "critical, scientific and human relation."

The "materialism" having no logical space for the idea of the "responsible individual" (i.e. the individual capable of rational self- determination) is immune to rational critique because existing social relations anchor it in minds in a way that makes it immune.

Marx himself, for instance, pointed (in the third thesis on Feuerbach) to the self-contradiction it involves and to the particular kind of 'vanguardism" to which it's invariably linked. Many contemporary "Marxists," however, misidentify Marx's "materialism" with this one and no amount of textual evidence will persuade them otherwise.

Here, once more, is some of the textual evidence that supports these interpretive claims.

"Just as the savage must wrestle with nature to satisfy his needs, to maintain and reproduce his life, so must civilized man, and he must do so in all forms of society and under all possible modes of production. This realm of natural necessity expands with his development, because his needs do too; but the productive forces to satisfy these expand at the same time. Freedom, in this sphere, can only consist in this, that socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate to their human nature. But this always remains a realm of necessity. The true realm of freedom, the development of human powers as an end in itself, begins beyond it, though it can only flourish with this realm of necessity as its basis. The reduction of the working day is the basic prerequisite.” <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm>

"Time of labour, even if exchange value is eliminated, always remains the creative substance of wealth and the measure of the cost of its production. But free time, disposable time, is wealth itself, partly for the enjoyment of the product, partly for free activity which— unlike labour—is not determined by a compelling extraneous purpose which must be fulfilled, and the fulfillment of which is regarded as a natural necessity or a social duty, according to one's inclination.” <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch21.htm

>

"This possibility of varying labour must become a general law of social production, and the existing relations must be adapted to permit its realization in practice. That monstrosity, the disposable working population held in reserve, must be replaced by the individual man who is absolutely available for the different kinds of labour required of him; the partially developed individual, who is merely the bearer of one specialized social function, must be replaced by the totally developed individual, for whom the different social functions are different modes of activity he takes up in turn.” <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm>

“The most rigid form of the opposition between the Jew and the Christian is the religious opposition. How is an opposition resolved? By making it impossible. How is religious opposition made impossible? By abolishing religion. As soon as Jew and Christian recognize that their respective religions are no more than different stages in the development of the human mind, different snake skins cast off by history, and that man is the snake who sloughed them, the relation of Jew and Christian is no longer religious but is only a critical, scientific, and human relation. Science, then, constitutes their unity. But, contradictions in science are resolved by science itself.” <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/>

“The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.

“The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.” <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm>

Ted



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