Basically I’m just here for shits and giggles, I’m a Left Communist if we want to get REALLY specific but I doubt any of you care to note the difference in our tendencies and such.
Also I’m an anti-dialectic, so don’t pull that card on me either.
Dialectical materialism is integral to Marxist theory, and perhaps the most important concept outside of the LTV. Are you a Marxist or not?
While I have no questions myself, I must applaud you for “traveling into the lion’s den” as it were and not just doing so to shout insults at everyone. This topic should certainly shake things up around here. I shall be watching with interest.
I hold that Marx excised every last ounce of Hegel from his final published work of Capital.
Lets examine the post-face that Marx calls The Dialectic Method.
"After a quotation from the preface to my “Criticism of Political Economy,” Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on: “The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. … If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own. … As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. … With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx’s book has.” Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method? Of course the method of presentation must differ in form from that of inquiry. The latter has to appropriate the material in detail, to analyse its different forms of development, to trace out their inner connexion. Only after this work is done, can the actual movement be adequately described. If this is done successfully, if the life of the subject-matter is ideally reflected as in a mirror, then it may appear as if we had before us a mere a priori construction. My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought. The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of “Das Kapital,” it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre Epigonoi [Epigones – Büchner, Dühring and others] who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a “dead dog.” I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell. "
You’ll notice that in the summary of the method Marx endorsed there is not one atom of Hegel, no negation of the negation, no inter-connected totality, etc.
For more on anti-dialectics see here. http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/
At least he’s not a Keynesian.
If an An-cap was going to read one book by Marx, which would you recommend? I’m more interested in the philosophy than the economics.
SecurityCulture, since you said you are “here for shits and giggles”, you will likely provoke hostility instead of calm discussion.
One of today’s Mises Dailies (front page articles) addressed value. Austrian economist Joseph T. Salerno said, “Past expenses incurred during the production of a good are completely irrelevant to the determination of the current price of a good. The market price of a good is determined solely by the relative valuations of goods and money by the buyers and sellers of the good.”
Austrian economist Jim Cox seemingly demonstrated the error of the labor theory of value.
What is wrong with the Austrian critique of the labor theory of value, SecurityCulture?
“While I have no questions myself, I must applaud you for “traveling into the lion’s den” as it were and not just doing so to shout insults at everyone. This topic should certainly shake things up around here. I shall be watching with interest.”
Actually this thread will probably do nothing, and sway no one’s opinions, save a few of the uninitiated lurkers. Words do little to sway people, it takes action to change people’s minds.
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If you had to give two main reasons (your own personal ones) for being against laissez-faire capitalism, what would they be?
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Do you think there needs to be a dictatorship of the proletariat before the State is dissolved, or a philosophical revolution like Tolstoy suggested?
I would also appreciate a book recommendation as proposed above this.
I also thought dialectical materialism was quite important in Marxism…
(And isn’t “left communist” just a touch redundant?)
Anyway… How do you allocate resources efficiently? How do you avoid shortages of what people actually want and surpluses of what they don’t?
How do you get around the problem of calculation, in other words?
“If an An-cap was going to read one book by Marx, which would you recommend? I’m more interested in the philosophy than the economics.”
I’m an anti-philosopher and so was Marx, who preceded and predicted Wittgenstein.
“We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life.”
Oh, I have little doubt that it won’t change anyone’s mind. I was merely relishing the chance of watching some lively debate. Sometimes it gets a little too “Everyone agrees with everyone else” here, with the exception of some minor issues. It speaks to the strength of the argument that so many people enter statists and leave anarcho-capitalists–myself included–though.
Has a Marxist in history ever invented anything productive?
“If Karl, instead of writing a lot about capital, had made a lot of it … it would have been much better.” - His mother
Gets me everytime.
“What is wrong with the Austrian critique of the labor theory of value, SecurityCulture?”
The idea that labour is the substance of value comes out more clearly when we examine the historical preconditions for the existence of value relations. For individuals to produce exchange-values, the products they produce must be use-values not to themselves but to other individuals, that is, social use-values. Labour which creates social use-values is social labour, and presupposes a social division of labour which forces individuals to rely on the production of society to satisfy their needs. However, only in certain instances of the social division of labour do the products of society appear as exchangeable values. These instances are where the various branches of the social division of labour carry out production independently of one another and for private account. In such instances, the products of labour become social through the medium of the value-form. Value serves as the substance which undertakes the natural necessity common to every society of apportioning out the labour-time of society to different branches of production in order to serve social wants. As the medium through which labour becomes social labour, we can see clearly that the essence of value is labour. In fact, to say that the substance of value becomes a tautology, which is equivalent to saying that the substance of social labour is social labour.
“Words do little to sway people, it takes action to change people’s minds.”
I disagree. My views have changed due to what I consider to be superior arguments.
“1) If you had to give two main reasons (your own personal ones) for being against laissez-faire capitalism, what would they be?”
I do not oppose just laissez-faire Capitalism, but all forms of Capital accumulation EG the M-C-M accumulation cycle, I oppose the existence of Exchange-value, and as such seek to abolish currency.
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It’s in my class interests.
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It’s a good conversation piece.
“2) Do you think there needs to be a dictatorship of the proletariat before the State is dissolved, or a philosophical revolution like Tolstoy suggested?”
Depending on how you define DoP you could be posing a false dichotomy. But no I’m not an idealist (I mean this word in a Platonic sense) like Tolstoy.
As for book recommendations, just dive right into Capital, it’s not that hard, about high-school level if you’re American which I assume most of you are, that the typical demographic of this tendency yes?
When I think of the dialectic, in a Marxist sense, I think of two opposing forces that seek unity. Marx used the class struggle to describe this. I’m not sure that I understand what you are getting at in your post, but It looks like you are out to refute Hegel by proposing a different concept of materialism. Are you here to argue with libertarians or Hegel?
Correct me if I’m wrong.
How do you define “currency”?
Also, what is your response to Marx’s error in Das Kapital Volume 3 Chapter 9 regarding the transformation problem? His theory of production conflicts with his theory of value.
More specifically this quote,
“The foregoing statements have at any rate modified the original assumption concerning the determination of the cost-price of commodities. We had originally assumed that the cost-price of a commodity equalled the value of the commodities consumed in its production. But for the buyer the price of production of a specific commodity is its cost-price, and may thus pass as cost-price into the prices of other commodities. Since the price of production may differ from the value of a commodity, it follows that the cost-price of a commodity containing this price of production of another commodity may also stand above or below that portion of its total value derived from the value of the means of production consumed by it. It is necessary to remember this modified significance of the cost-price, and to bear in mind that there is always the possibility of an error if the cost-price of a commodity in any particular sphere is identified with the value of the means of production consumed by it. Our present analysis does not necessitate a closer examination of this point.”
When Marx cannot objectively define an answer here, his analysis ceases to be scientific and he implicitly admits to a subjective theory of value.
“I also thought dialectical materialism was quite important in Marxism…”
Most Marxists will tell you it is, but as you’ve seen I’d argue otherwise using the bits from Marx posted above, and the website posted above.
“(And isn’t “left communist” just a touch redundant?)”
No, Left Communists see ourselves as to the Left of Communism and not just to the Left of Capital. We hold that Maoists, Stalinists, Hoxhaists, etc. are to the Right of Communism and to the Left of Capital. We do not believe these tendencies can bring about Communism.
“Anyway… How do you allocate resources efficiently?”
Assumably you mean post-revolution. Let me say this. “The emancipation of the working class must be an act of the working class.” This means the working class is going to decide how society post-revolution is set-up and not me, this means what I tell you is going to be as vague as possible so as to remain true.
Most likely people will submit their wants to their local council/committee/etc. They will be compared within the community, be sent to the higher-up organisations, and from there they’ll plan production, based on social want.
“How do you avoid shortages of what people actually want and surpluses of what they don’t?”
Well obviously we’re only making what people ask for, so there won’t be too much surplus. You can’t avoid shortage in any economy, I’m skeptical of a post-scarcity Marxist position, but I think it would be possible.
“How do you get around the problem of calculation, in other words?”
You’ll have to forgive me, I’m not familiar with your terminiology as I’m sure you’re not familiar with mine. Please explain what you mean and I’ll do my best to reciprocate the action.