Carrol said:
You are still confusing moral categories with ontological categories. Individualism as a theory of society is quite consistent with opposition to individualism as an ethical canon.
In other words it would have been quite consistent for Thatcher to condemn individualist behavior even while asserting individualism as a social theory (society does not exist, only individuals and families).
Unless you keep those two senses of "individualism" distinct you make a hash of whatever it is you are trying to say.
It is alos possible to deny the existence of "the individual" but approve of individualism in behavior.
Carrol **************************
I think you're confusing hash with dialectical opposites. The moral and the ontological are intertwined; you can't have one without the other. Meanwhile, the political-economy of the matter is that bourgeois individualism is based on the acceptance of wage-labour and that acceptance plays into the notion that freedom is negatively defined, a war of each against all. Communism is based on the opposite notion of bourgeois negative freedom: i.e. an injury to one is an injury to all and that human solidarity (only finally, fully realisable in a classless society) and mutual aid are the real, material principles on which to base the organisation of human social relations.
Thatcher's and Reagan's and so many others' stance on the question of freedom is tied to the current material reality of the marketplace for commodities, codified in laws which some individuals break. They are being rational in the sense of confirming this reality as the best of all possible worlds. Communists beg to differ, seeing the current reality as being, irrational and proposing reality as wage-slavery's sublation in a higher level of freedom.
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Mike Ballard Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 5:48 PM To: lbo lbo Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] A Draft: "Individualism" vs "The Individual"
Communism means individualism. Not narrow individualism, the 'hooray for me, devil take the hindmost' individualism. Capitalist or narrow individualism is based on a negative dynamic for freedom: My freedom is your un-freedom. We need communist individualism, an individualism firmly based on the principle of equal political power amongst all men and women. Nobody should have more political power than anyone else in a classless association of free producers. This principle, consciously enforced by the association of free producers themselves in a spirit of solidarity will ensure that people attempting to impose political power over others are shunned by consensus, up to and including exclusion from the society for periods of time.
"Thus things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to safeguard their very existence. This appropriation is first determined by the object to be appropriated, the productive forces, which have been developed to a totality and which only exist within a universal intercourse. From this aspect alone, therefore, this appropriation must have a universal character corresponding to the productive forces and the intercourse.
"The appropriation of these forces is itself nothing more than the development of the *individual capacities* corresponding to the material instruments of production. The appropriation of a totality of instruments of production is, for this very reason, the development of a totality of capacities in the *individuals* themselves."
from THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY by Marx *********************************************************************** Wobbly Times http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com/