[lbo-talk] The State and Capitalism

Charles Brown charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
Mon Mar 10 09:06:21 PDT 2008



>>> "james daly"

I think what Marx is saying is that during a first phase of communism there will be a relationship of exchange, in the form of payment by the community to each according to their work. Because it is commodity exchange involving property he calls it "bourgeois right". Beyond its "narrow horizon" lies a relationship without exchange, production "from each according to ability", distribution "to each according to need".

The first is stained with "the muck of ages" (German Ideology), a market relationship. For Marx, that seems to last until the over-coming of scarcity, when the need to get the better of each other ceases. (I prefer C. B. MacPerson's treatment of scarcity as relative, because desires are unbounded, and until fulfilled are experienced as scarcity).

The second is paradisiacal, prompting Erich Fromm's epilogue to his Feuerbachian-humanistic "Marx's Concept of Man", in which he says that

Marx's essential insight is ontologically the same as that of deepest and truest religion -- I would add, without the muck of ages.

J. D.

^^^^

CB: The rational kernel of human culture is sociality, both within and across generations. A rational kernel of "religion" is the trans-generational social connections, some of culture. Some of culture _is_ muck. The challenge is to throw out the muck and not the baby.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Brown" <charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 5:19 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] The State and Capitalism


:
: Ted Winslow
:
:
: Ted: I don't think this adequately represents Marx's idea of
: communism.
:
:
: So too is the idea of the fully developed "powers" this activity
: requires as inconsistent with the activity being divided and
: specialized. The idea of the universally developed individual
: appropriates Hegel's idea of the "educated man" who "can do what
: others do."
:
: ^^^^^
: CB: These universally developed individuals will not be totally
: economically self-sufficient, will they ? An individual won't
produce
: every use-value they use. There will be economic exchange between
: these universally developed individuals.
:
:
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:

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