Did Marx Say this?

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: GUEST,Piers
Date: 18 May 05 - 04:26 AM

Do capitalism and industrialisation go hand in hand?

I think the development of technology, the technology of industry, provides that material basis for capitalism. I believe it was developments in agricultural technology in Holland that meant there was a large surplus of wool (surplus to the immediate requirements of the producers), which lead to trade, thus the development of a class of merchants, thus the revolution from feudalism to capitalism. The technological development meant that the social organisation changed. In a very simplistic nutshell.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: GUEST,robomatic
Date: 18 May 05 - 07:11 AM

Practically speaking, you can live in a socialist environment and 'have your own stuff.' You might want to own a motorcycle and your neighbor might want his car. Technically you both own 'stock' in the factories that make those items.

There are other conceptions of living environments where you live in a commune and have very little personal stuff. But you can do that right here in Amerikay (Get thee to a nunnery).

Also distinguish between democratic societies which are socialist in distribution of wealth, and something like the former Soviet Union where the society was not democratic nor capitalistic, and followed its own philosophy which was so murky you could have two philosophers spouting metaphysical cant at eact other and no one else in the room could tell if they were arguing or agreeing. Communists early distinguished themselves from Socialists and victimized them no end.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: GUEST,Piers
Date: 18 May 05 - 08:39 AM

In socialism/communism you will still have personal possessions, would you want to use someone else's underpants or toothbrush when you could go to the store and get some for free?

Possession is the key, in the former USSR ownership notionally resided in 'the people' but control of the means of production resided in a bureaucratic elite. As it does in state-owned enterprises in the UK and USA, most of the means of production took the form of capital as they do in private hands in the west. The USSR also used money to allocate resources on an ability-to-pay basis (capitalist not socialist), without democratic control of production (capitalist not socialist) and produced for profit (capitalist not socialist).

Technology (the forces of production) is so advanced that we can now feed, clothe, shelter, communicate with and entertain everybody on the planet without the need for anyone to go without or work their nuts off - it's time for the next revolution. IMNSHO

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Once Famous
Date: 18 May 05 - 10:52 AM

seems too me the most authoritative here on this subject, such as Piers ought to take his sorry ass and move to Cuba.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 May 05 - 02:16 PM

I don't think you should understate your case Martin.

Marx got seriously into class.

The fuedal aristocracy owned the land and all the power that went with it. The major means of production was agriculture.

In industrial society, the capitalists own the factories etc and all the power that implies. The major means of production is industrial.

If a socialist society is possible, where power and wealth would be shared more equaly, what will be the major means of production?

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Once Famous
Date: 18 May 05 - 02:27 PM

The difference is that many who end up owning the factories worked hard and climbed the ladder to do so. You miss that point. Also, many of those large corporations that the "reds" here detest are PUBLICLY held companies, owned by sharholders who vote on who is to be on the board of directors. There is some say!

you don't have that in socialism.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: robomatic
Date: 18 May 05 - 02:46 PM

Piers I think you took my last response and muddied it up. I already mentioned that in a socialist environment one could own one's own means of personal transport. You didn't have to devolve into undergarments, that was notionally obvious.

Moreover, despite my caution that socialism should not be confused with Communism (in order to preserve the good name of socialism) you went right there. The USSR was a corrupt system, and Communism whether corrupt or not, has failed wherever it has been state sponsored. Socialism still exists, not as an overweening system, but as an element within a larger system.

As to Socialism as a single unifying economic system, as E. O. Wilson, has observed: "Socialism: Great System, Wrong Species!"

E. O. Wilson is a renowned expert on ants.

In your last paragraph about technology being so advanced no one need go without, you are confusing technology with resources. It doesn't do you much good to have a Rolls on the driveway if you can't provide the gasoline to make it go. Get a horse!

It may indeed be time for the next revolution. In that revolution we may find ourselves on bicycles and railroads rather than SUVs and jetplanes. Sic transit gloria etc. etc.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Piers
Date: 19 May 05 - 05:04 AM

Robomatic,
Marx used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably, and it is his definition of capitalism (bourgeois society), socialism and communism that I'm sticking to. The liberal apologists for capitalism who try to usurp the word have got it wrong. The idea that common ownership, democratic control and free access to goods and services can exist alongside minority ownership, minority control and 'can't pay, can't have' is ridiculous. Social programmes, welfare state and the national health service and education are part of the system based on wage labour and capital, are paid for in wealth produced by wage labour, are provided by wage labourers and controlled by a - often unelected bureaucrats - on a basis 'value for money' not need.

E. O. Wilson is a renowned expert on ants.

Indeed he his, and he should of stuck to that rather than translating his studies to human society. He rebranded discredited social darwinism as sociobiology to serve as the same prop to the ruling minority as other forms of biological determinism.

As for Rolls Royces, in the social context that folk will make decisions in socialism (given the human labour required to produce a Rolls Royce and extract oil and climate change) I don't imagine anyone could really argue that they needed a Rolls Royce for their personal use. In capitalism, we have people that actively encourage it: wants are created by a enormous advertising industry.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: robomatic
Date: 19 May 05 - 08:15 AM

Piers:

I feel that the dictionary is a better resource for defining terms than either you or Marx. Socialism pertains to goods and resources held in common under democratic control. Communism with a capital 'C' refers to the Marxian system specifically, with all its fiddly bits of Marxist dogma, which is absent from socialism. I can give you a host of other philosophies that are distinct from Communism. There is an uncapitalized use of the word, communism, which is related to group control of resources also without dogma, and without Marx, no coincidence there.

There are even more than one versions of Communism extant, like Shiites and Sunnis, they split over leadership and descent of the leadership of the original strain. And, not unlike Shiites and Sunnis, they have been willing to kill each other over those differences, as the original Trotsky's head was split by a Stalinist assassin.

You also missed the point (not for the first time). Whether your Communist paradise workers decide to not build a Rolls or not build a Bentley, whatever device they eventually do build (Hmmm, maybe another Trabant?) will still need fuel.

Communists are so last Millenium!

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Piers
Date: 19 May 05 - 10:07 AM

Robomatic, The dictionary? I don't know which one the dictionary is. I'm an Oxford man, though I have friends who much prefer Collins'. My Chambers (mini) gives communism the same meaning as the 2nd meaning in my Oxford (concise). For socialism there is one definition, nation's wealth belonging to the people as whole and another belongs to the state in Chambers and the Oxford only gives the oxymoronic old Labour definition (means of exchange?). Personally I would rather trust the actual practitioners than the word collectors which necessarily give simplistic definitions which do not encounter all meanings, and can even get it wrong (see this). Neither have I seen your definition of socialism before, it seems unlikely that an -ism can pertain to objects or actions.

Seeing as we are discussing Marx I think we should be following his idea, especially as you are familiar with those fiddly bits of Marxist dogma.

Finite in capitalism means the limit of profitable, rather than physical, extraction and that technology consistently improves efficiency and provides alternatives (and without the fetters of capitalism would do more) so running out of fuel isn't the end of civilisation, but even if it did I would much sooner be in socialism than capitalism where you would end up with Richard Branson driving to a movie premier in a limo while there wasn't enough fuel for tractors and ambulances in the rest of the world.

Considering that the USA has just got itself a job lot of the stuff at
knock down price I am frankly much more concerned about climate change than whether I'll be able to joyride around town in a Bentley.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Piers
Date: 19 May 05 - 10:11 AM

Here's a snippet from the preface to the Critique of Political Economy. The juicy bit is near the end.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm

The first work which I undertook to dispel the doubts assailing me was a critical re-examination of the Hegelian philosophy of law; the introduction to this work being published in the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher issued in Paris in 1844. My inquiry led me to the conclusion that neither legal relations nor political forms could be comprehended whether by themselves or on the basis of a so-called general development of the human mind, but that on the contrary they originate in the material conditions of life, the totality of which Hegel, following the example of English and French thinkers of the eighteenth century, embraces within the term "civil society"; that the anatomy of this civil society, however, has to be sought in political economy. The study of this, which I began in Paris, I continued in Brussels, where I moved owing to an expulsion order issued by M. Guizot. The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies can be summarised as follows. In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish 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, artistic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence — but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 May 05 - 11:32 AM

So the hot wind of Marxism blows from the source.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Once Famous
Date: 19 May 05 - 11:39 AM

No, it blows from Piers' ass.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Piers
Date: 19 May 05 - 03:57 PM

The difference is that many who end up owning the factories worked hard and climbed the ladder to do so. You miss that point. Also, many of those large corporations that the "reds" here detest are PUBLICLY held companies, owned by sharholders who vote on who is to be on the board of directors. There is some say!

you don't have that in socialism.

Yes, you wouldn't have that in socialism. Yes, some of those end up owning the factories worked hard and climbed the ladder to do so, but it is a different kind of hard work than a miner, a farmer, a fireman or a librarian. Yes, in public limited companies there is some say by shareholders but (A) share ownership is extremely unevenly distributed, some live off share dividends, most have none; (B) choosing leaders is a very limited democracy and ;(C) the whole point of a company is to make money, turkeys aren't going to vote for Christmas - are shareholders going to vote to invest in marmalade when napalm is twice as profitable? OK, you get the 'ethical investment' brigade but it doesn't change the fundamental priority of capitalism, profit not need.

Despite enormously powerful state machinery, supranational organisations and charities intervening to try and make the capitalist system 'work', it doesn't - the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of kids needlessly die every 35 minutes because it is not profitable to provide them with a decent diet and healthcare, hundreds of millions the world over are malnourised and in the 'west' most of us are so busy looking after money-making that we don't have time to look after ourselves.

I think there is a general realisation that the present social relations are a hindrance to the material well being of all people. More and more people are doing, mostly misguided, things to 'put the world right', go out protesting, give to charity etc. It's the task of socialists to catalyse the humanisation of the productive forces that have developed in capitalism in an organised way and when the consensus moves from 'there is no alternative' to 'capitalism is redundant, let's try socialism', demonstrated through the ballot box, then we've got the beginning of human civilisation.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Once Famous
Date: 19 May 05 - 04:12 PM

Piers, I would suggest you live in China or Cuba

Socialism has never cured humanity. The US is not perfect, but it's capitalism provide people with opportunity to rise from the pack and to excell from the morbid existance that has always been found in socialistic circumstances.

I still stay the biggest proponents of socialism especially here are the ones who are the biggest failures at making it in their capitalistic societies. Maybe they weren't lucky, or maybe they spend too much time criticizing a system instead of trying to make it work for them. But that is the left-wing liberal way. Bitch, moan, hand-wring, anger, disatisfcation with those who make it work for themselves.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: robomatic
Date: 19 May 05 - 07:53 PM

Piers, that kind of cant went out so long ago you must feel that peoples' memories have failed. Tens of millions of men women and children starved to death in the USSR under the Five Year Plan. Do a little research into Mao's China in the sixties, or forgawdsake look at N. Korea. You are spouting words with no meaning.

The existence of people advocating Communism today calls forth the need for humankind to preserve what is left of its sense of smell.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Piers
Date: 20 May 05 - 03:53 AM

Robomatic, Martin,
I've explained what I mean by socialism, I've explained how socialists intend to get it through democracy. Why do you bang on about China, USSR and Cuba when these were clearly mostly state capitalist economies forced onto (feudal) people who didn't want it?

If you've got a better plan for stopping wars, the millions of deaths that happen unneccesarily every year, reducing working hours, increasing democracy, decreasing bureacracy then let's hear it?

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 May 05 - 03:05 PM

Ok, I started this so it's partly my responsibility.

The challenge is this: if fuedalism used agriculture and capitalism uses industrialisation (which surely is true) what will socialism use?

I see neither of these systems to be inherently fair. Most people were poor and powerless under fuedalism and under capitalism. The US is rich because it is rich in natural resources and it industrialised very early on. People who work for trans-national organisations in third world countries are poor and powerless.

This is really a question to be answered by marxists:

The simple view that the upper classes using agriculture to be replaced by the middle classes using industries would in turn be replaced by the working class, once they got organised, has been a complete disaster.

I suggest this is because no one has found a new means of production to replace industrial capitalism.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Once Famous
Date: 20 May 05 - 03:13 PM

Here's what I think, further.

There are web forums for many if not all types of music. country, jazz, rock, big band, dixieland, barbershop quartets, countless more.

I get the feeling that the topic of socialism is brought up on any music forum is probably zero with the exception of some radical left-wing folk singers on a forum such as this.

In other words, proponents of socialism in the US are very few and far between.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: robomatic
Date: 20 May 05 - 07:30 PM

Marx is the wrong go-to guy on socialism. He made some analytical critiques of capitalism which may or may not be true or relevant to our current conditions. If the above excision of his writing is genuine, the guy was a hard read as well. I know for sure his followers took advantage of dense turgid prose to indicate they knew something. But the Communists were merciless brutal power players and their first victims were Socialists, whom they successfully defeated by framing the issues and branding them Mensheviks, which meant 'Lesser' Party, when in fact the Socialists outnumbered the Communists.

There are better sources to go to for Socialist information. But as for Communists, "Danger Will Robinson!"

Communism is to Socialism what Fascism is to Republicanism.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 21 May 05 - 02:21 AM

You are probably correct Martin.

The reason I raise this issue here is because when I read other threads in this part of mudcat I find an enormous collection of opinion on issues of general public and political interest and I know I am going to get some quality posts.

The wealth of the world, raw materials into food, clothing etc is made by working people, planned and organised by middle and upper management but an incredible amount of wealth and power resides with shareholders and company boses, many of which don't do much.

I don't doubt that effective companies are created by imaginitive, hard working people like Bill Gates but most of trans -national companies are no longer like that. They are owned by face, very rich people who do nothing but move wealth around and generaly towards themselves.

At the moment it looks is if that will never change. That simply is the way wealth will be created and shared. This leaves a massive gulf between the third world poor and the owners of the places in which they work.

Further still, how will thw unemployed people of the US feel when all manufacturing industry has gone south?

The poor of this world know where you live Martin. They don't like you and they are ready to kill themselves if they can take lots of us with them them.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Piers
Date: 23 May 05 - 07:53 AM

Robomatic, stooping to rewrite history to support your liberal position doesn't seem to be below you. You professions about those fiddly bits of Marxist dogma are now exposed for all their worth - you have never read anything written by Marx!

Lenin drove a wedge between socialism and communism and this was has continued in Russia and amongst many leftist parties elsewhere, he described socialism as a stage leading to communism. In Leninism and Stalinism there was never an opposition between socialism in communism, hence Stalin called himself, and his party, communist came up with his unMarxist theories of 'socialism in one country' and 'world socialist market'. Stalin did kill and exile Mensheviks, Left opposition and Social Democrats though this had nothing to do with socialism and communism but to do with tactics for socialist revolution (in the former) and allegiance to Trotsky and his equally unMarxist theories and in the latter case those unsupportive of Stalin (the Bolsheviks had previously described themselves as 'Social Democrats').

I'm sure socialists are few and far between in America, they are in the UK too. This is no surprise considering the capitalist ideology that is rammed down our throats from morning and night from birth until death. However, you do have the
WSP(US) and the SPC as well as fellow travellers (by a different route) the
SLP and inevitably a hundred shades of Leon Trotsky.

Subject: RE: Did Marx Say this?
From: Piers
Date: 23 May 05 - 07:55 AM

"No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the tasks itself arises only when the material conditions of its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation."

Les, I disagree that it is the technological state of society that has held the working class back from our final victory. I think it has a lot to do with the power of the capitalist media/educative machine in bolstering capitalist ideology, the fact the socialist/communist concepts have been dirtied in many people's minds because of the Russian experience and the related fact that workers have not chosen the shortest route between capitalism and socialism but instead to attempt to humanise capitalism and become ended up trapped in campaigns for reforms. Also that many workers aren't able to shake off the reliance on leaders (who rarely lead them where they want to go) instead of democratic self-organisation.

Hertzka calculated in 1886 that by rationalising production so that all industries had access to the most advanced technology, to produce the means of subsistence in Austria (then population 22 million) by which he meant provision of a 150m2 5-roomed house for every family, food, coal, flour, sugar, machinery, clothing and chemicals, would require 1 hour's labour a day for the working population by which he meant men only between 16 and 50 years of age. For the entire population to have access to the luxury goods that the 'comfortably situated' then had would mean an extra 1.5hrs labour a day for what he called the working population. Imagine if we could do these calculations again today! I think it shows that the material solution to poverty, wageslavery and all the problems associated with minority control of the means of production (e.g. war, alienation, lack of democracy) is within our grasp and all that remains is to change the consensus that capitalism is the best way to do things.