[lbo-talk] An Antinomy (from Postone)

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Thu Feb 26 02:33:19 PST 2009


At 10:04 PM 2/25/2009, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Moishe Postone, _Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation
>of Marx's Critical Theory_ Cambridge University Press, 1993, repr., 195.
>
>See also, the Symposium on his work in _Historical Materialism_ 12-3,
>pp. 43-283. (There is a strongly negative critique by David McNally; the
>bone that sticks in the craw of the negative critics is his denial of
>any transhistorical basis for the condemnation of capitalism.)
>
>Carrol

On Carrol's recommendation I finally got my hands on a copy, so currently reading. Nothing blows my petticoats up just yet, though I suspect that because one of his primary contentions is old news to me. I'm too lazy to look up the exact quote but he says something like this: "Traditional Marxism" sees the proletariat realizing itself in the development of socialism. No, what Marx really meant is that the proletariat has to be destroyed."

He's generally opposed to transhistorical claims made by what he calls "traditional marxism" -- what the postmarxists would call universalizing claims -- arguing that there is no basis for such a reading in the late Marx.

But as for the need to destroy the proletariat, for me that's a big fat duh -- which might be a function of 1. I'm doin' it rong. lolz! Or 2. I've just read this idea before since he's heavily influenced by the same thinkers I've been.

shag



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