^^^^^ CB: Below I argue that nature, i.e. human biology, enters into Marx and Engels basic idea in historical materialism - history is a history of class struggles between exploiting and exploited classes mediated by the state- in that meeting or satisfying vulgar , physiological, natural needs tor exploited classes are conditioned on those classes producing surpluses to be exploited.
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http://groups.google.com/group/marxist-debate/browse_thread/thread/c2e671cee29d44f?pli=1 Exploited classes in history are coerced into producing surpluses for exploiting classes by making supply or satisfaction of the physiological necessities of life to the exploited classes conditional upon their producing those surpluses. Not only do exploited classes produce the physiological and derivative material necessities of life for society , but they are denied the fruits of their labor unless they supply the bosses, the ruling classes with super fruits.
Default Search the Marxism-Thaxis archives: [Marxism-Thaxis] Locus of material necessity in human society and history
Charles Brown Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:01:36 -0800
This is a reworking and expansion of a thesis I have been developing on Thaxis
Charles
Materialism, Necessity and Freedom: Rehearsal of the Fundamentals of Marxism
By the _Manifesto of the Communist Party_ every Marxist knows the A,B,C's of historical materialism or the materialist conception of history. The history of hitherto existing society, since the breaking up of the ancient communes, is a history of class struggles between oppressor and oppressed. Classes are groups that associate in a division of labor to produce their material means of existence. Why are class struggles fundamental in determining the whole of society's laws and rules, it's history and culture, the "super-structure" ?
Because exploited classes are coerced into producing surpluses for exploiting classes by making supply of the physiological necessities of life to the exploited classes conditional upon their producing those surpluses. Not only do exploited classes produce the physiological and derivative material necessities of life for society , but they are denied the fruits of their labor unless they supply the bosses, the ruling classes with super fruits.
Ruling class coerce this exploitation by control of the state power or special repressive apparatus
In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels implied this elementary anthropological or "human natural" rationale for this conception of class relations determining substantially the shape of society as a whole. In a section titled "History: Fundamental Conditions, they say: "*life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life."
Production and economic classes are the starting point of Marxist analysis of human society because human life, like all plant and animal life must fulfill biological needs to exist as life at all. It is an appeal to biologic (which I support, all of the anti-vulgar materialist critiques to the contrary notwithstanding, but that's my other paper). Whatever humans do that is "higher" than plants and animals, we cannot do if we do not first fulfill or plant/animal like needs, meet physiological necessities.
Marx and Engels define scientific analysis as tracing the materially or objectively _necessary_ connections in a phenomenon. Thus, the scientific understanding of human society must be based in the materially necessary connections of human society. Fulfillment of physiological or biological requirments are the materially necessary "connections" for humans.
These biologically necessary connections exist in all human societies. But it is only in' class divided society that , as said above, surpluses are extorted from exploited classes by ruling classes by employment and threat of deployment of the forces of destruction and violence, standing bodies of armed men , against the exploited and ruled classes less they disgorge the surplus fruits of their labor to the ruling classes.
For not only is supply of food, shelter, air etc. biologically and materially necessary for living. The _absence_ of being killed or bodily harmed by armed men is materially necessary to live. Thus, the mode of destruction is as central to the necessary connections of human society as the mode of production. The mode of destruction as critical in ruling class coercion and extortion of the ruled classes is a mode of necessity in human society and history.
Thus the mode of necessity in human society consists in both the mode of production and the mode of destruction.
On Materialism ( speaking of Mao), there are two levels of the relationship between thought and being: "economics" and "physics". While society remains in the Realm (or kingdom) of Necessity , society during its class divided history, ruling classes control masses by conditioning fulfillment of the _material_ needs of the exploited classes on the exploited classes ' producing surpluses for the ruling , exploiting classes. The materialism (determinism by the material) at this level derives from the coercive use of conditional provision of material needs. In all societies, including those in the Realm (kingdom of Freedom ( socialist, communist future and ancient) , all people must , of course, "obey" the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, objective reality etc. "physics", in the general sense.
The "higher" (cultural, semiotic. super-structrual, social conditioning traditions, "super-natural", super-organic aesthetic, artistic etc.) human activities are limited or negatively determined ( See Marshall Sahlins' _Culture and Practical Reason_ on biological limits of culture) by the productive and destructive activities, the activities that produce biological necessities or deprive human biological necessities (Althougn, in human IDEAS, SYMBOLS, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE, because of the arbitrary central definition of the symbol ("sign" in French) there is non-necessary connection. _Arbitrary_ connection is the opposite of _necessary_ connection. This is the sense in which superstructure is not subject to scientific analysis the way that infrastructure is. Idea systems do simulate necessity as rules, such as rules of grammar or cultural rules, including state enforced laws
Also in formal logic, "necessary"
arises in
> _modus ponens_, modus tolens
or "if-then", if p, then q, q is a
necessary
> condition of p, i.e.
not q,not p. This is arbitrary
and abstract necessity. In the Realm
of Necessity, ( Marx and Engels
used the
> term "necessity" here precisely
to make the point I am making here)
> there is a science of human
conduct based on the things that human must
do, i.e. necessity. As Marx and Engels had to explain to "the Germans" in _The German
Ideology_, humans have physiological necessities. In meeting these,
there arise scientifically discernable necessary patterns in their behavior
To continue, This means that historical materialism starts with human nature, our human natural species qualities, Feuerbach's "species-being " This is Marx's point in the famous passage in the Intro to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy concerning social being determining social consciousness
"At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or - what is but a legal expression for the same thing - with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.
Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic - in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production. "
Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/...
The economic conditions may be articulated "with the precision of a natural science" because in that sector of society biological necessities or needs are met, and as discussed above, thereby necessary connections reside. Necessary connections are the business of science.
Being determines consciousness, but intermitently
However, being determines consciousness discontinuously. ("primarily and ultimately"). Meanwhile, in between time, being and consciousness are reciprocally determiining.
Being , in the form of class struggle, determines consciousness in history. However, the revolutions which are the points of determination or change by class struggle are intermittent and rare. Most of the time consciousness or ideology is not changing, is not in a revolutionary state of transformation. Most of the time society is in a status quo, a relative equilibrium , is not changing fundamentally.
This is somewhat analogous to the punctuated equilibrium of Stephen Jay Gould in natural history, with the punctuations being the revolutions when being determines, asserts itself, like the roof falling in periodically asserts the law of gravity, when contradictions reach a crisis.
It is the long equilibria that cause the confusion and make people think that consciousness has determined being in history's revolutionary changes, or the idealist error.
Also, there is a sense in which consciousness as a system of ideas does determine people's conduct. When an idea grips the masses , it becomes a material force; and lots of ideas grip the masses. In fact , the masses only act based on ideas that grip them. What revolutions do is change the system of ideas that determines peoples' conduct. And only class struggles change systems of ideas or ideologies. This is the fundamental sense of being determines consciousness or part of the theory of historical materialism.
As Marx says "...so can we not judge such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production. " "
In big historical changes, Necessity is the mother of invention. , the mother of revolution. The necessary connections in economy and class structure periodically, though rarely , break through to "invent" a new superstructure revolutionary ideas. Necessity is the mother of invention, new ideas. Ideology, traditional ideas, is the stabilizer of convention.
Ideologies are formal logics, based on the principle of identity as their first premise. Formal logics are not "self-changing", they abdure contradictions ( non-identity) tend to sustain convention, avoid invention of new principles. Ideologies are conservative of existing social relations, of the status quo.This is why we don't think our way to revolution. This is why dialectical logic , with contradiction as its first principle, is rooted in class struggle , reflecting real or material contradictions.
The Second Thesis on Feuerbach - the test of theory is practice
The most practically reasonable and rational course is for the working class of our era to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism. This would be the optimum for the class self-interest of the working class , collectively and individually in its billions of people. Yet, we are in a lag time, the long lag time of the "equilibrium" before the punctuation of revolution. Irrational ideas, from the standpoint of the working class,ideas of many types compete with the rational idea of revolutionary class struggle for gripping the working masses. False consciousness, capitalist ideology, which tends to preserve the status quo, is determining being, keeping it stuck in capitalist relations of production.
Do any of the fancy Marxist theories which interrogate the principle of being determines consciousness have solutions to the riddles of the irrational, anti-class self-interest ideologies, systems of ideas and images which are gripping the masses and blinding them to their historic revolutionary mission ? That is a question on consciousness for today's challengers of materialism who also claim to be Marxist in some sense.
An even more fundamental understanding of consciousness must come through an augmented Marxist feminism. As the historically constituted class of oppressed and exploited reproductive or caring laborers, the creators of subjects en masse, women have been the uncredited makers of consciousness in history. This is not just in childrearing , although that is obviously important, but in all caring labor which is critical in shaping and repairing the self. This includes housework, for the house or the home is that shelter where the adult self is itself away from work in the capitalist daily geography of the person.Thus, women's liberation and recovery of women's history is fundamental to the science of consciousness.
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/m-fem/1998m07/msg00006.htm
(Here is a reiteration of the above thesis)
Materialism, Necessity and Freedom: Rehearsal of the Fundamentals of Marxism
A three act play with beginning, middle and end, and non-dogmatic improvisation. Several vulgar parts
Double materialist determination; there are two levels of determination, in materialism attitude toward the relationship between thought and being:
1)"economics" and 2) "physics".
1)"economics" While society remains in the Realm of Necessity , ruling classes control masses by conditioning fulfillment of the _material_ needs of the exploited classes on the exploited classes ' producing surpluses for the ruling , exploiting classes. The materialism (determinism by the material) at this level derives from the coercive use of conditional provision of material needs.
2) "physics" In all societies, including those in the Realm of Freedom ( socialist, communist future and ancient) , all people must , of course, "obey" the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, objective reality etc. "physics", in the general sense.
The first level above is based in the specific biological necessities of the second level.
There is a third level of materialist determination in the Marxist thesis. It is also economic. Marx and Engels (Engels and Marx) claim that history is a history of class struggles. The answer to the question "Why is history a history of class struggles ?" is the philosophy of historical materialism. Why is it that economic material relationship of exploiting and exploited classes causes the changes which are called "history" ? The alternatives at the time Marx wrote the thesis were especially Great Men in state and economic power and Big Ideas as in Philosophies of Great Men.
Marx in wanting to take a scientific approach to the question, looked to necessity upon the theory that science details necessary connections between things. There is no necessity as strict in the realms of ideas or Great Men as the necessity of biology, and by extension the area of economics of material production of minimal life sustaining necessities or Being or Existence
There still must be made an argument as to why and what changes by class struggle determination in the sense that history is a history of class struggles. What changes through the course of history ?
If it were the structure of the relationship between classes, then what about tautology ? So, Big Ideas (or Consciousness) and Great Men _types_ change as the change that is history.
However, Being determines consciousness intermittently, rarely in terms of the total time of the many generations of people. Most generations don't experience a fundamental or revolutionary change.
And so on the rare, intermittent determinism of the structure of ideas by the Realm proper of Necessity:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/1998-March/007351... Although biology only limits us human beings because we have culture (super-natures and natures ) this contradiction between biology and culture is still where it is at in generating universals or big generals. Being determines consciousness is still a focal rule of thumb (guide to action) for building a universal, real common interests among huge numbers of people, the masses. My first post-Marx development of species-being is to derive women's liberation organically from historical materialism's premises, as Marx and Engels derive workers' liberation from those species-being historical premises. It is a correction of classical Marxism, but based on Marxsim's own premises. In ways its too vulgar for pomos and fancy marxists. However, the pomos and their old cousins, Frankfurt school, Gramsci, exitentialists, et al. all the fancy marxists have taught us something: being determines consciousness discontinuously, intermittmently, rarely. Through most of the actual time of history ( day-to-day life; quotidien), consciousness and being are reciprocally determining. Only rarely, in revolutions, primarily and ultimately does being utterly determine consciousness. Today, that means that the direct naked appeal to the working class' class self-interest is inadequate in itself-necessary but not sufficient in the formal logical sense -to inspire revolution. That appeal cannot be dropped - the vast majority are working class, wage laborers - but must be complemented with appeals to other consciousness, other consciousness = determined by being (gender, for example) and consciousness that is determined more by consciousness. Overall one wants to change the world based on interpreting it, changing it through practical-critical activity, a unity of theory and practice still.
(to be continued)
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* [Marxism-Thaxis] Locus of material necessity in human society and history Charles Brown
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