I agree with about 98 percent of what you write. Marx had a great deal to say about alienation, inequality, and the instability of unregulated markets. A great deal of what he wrote, even the parts in the Manifesto on property, are relatively neutral. Yes, in fundamental respects, Marx is best understood as a post-Ricardian economist. He was building on Ricardo and adapting the latter's critique of rent and land distribution to modern industry. That was, however, a fundamental shift. It would take you well north of 5 percent of Capital to rework the changes so people familiar with the arguments would not catch on. If Marx never fully spelled out what life would look like after the Revolution, he left little doubt that history, as we know it, would come to an end. It is not just the line about the withering away of the state in the Manifesto; it's also the introduction. The line about poetry and fishing comes from the German Ideology. Throughout his political works, Marx makes clear that class conflict drives history through a series of evolutionary stages and that mature industrial capitalism is the final stage. That vision is more complex in the historical works but unmistakably still present. You can apply Marx' insights into the functioning of industrial capitalism without accepting his view of history. There is also a great deal of room for debate -- as Bernstein and Luxemburg, among many others, showed -- about just what Marx meant by Revolution and how it should be achieved. But I don't think you can make sense of Marx without recognizing the utopian current that runs through his thought, despite his best efforts, or the effort to present a universalist account that would apply to all times and places. In philosophical terms, your Marx sounds more anti-foundationalist (and reasonable) than mine.
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Wines for the 1%?
- Thread starter Christian Miller (CMM)
- Start date
I agree with about 98 percent of what you write. Marx had a great deal to say about alienation, inequality, and the instability of unregulated markets. A great deal of what he wrote, even the parts in the Manifesto on property, are relatively neutral. Yes, in fundamental respects, Marx is best understood as a post-Ricardian economist. He was building on Ricardo and adapting the latter's critique of rent and land distribution to modern industry. That was, however, a fundamental shift. It would take you well north of 5 percent of Capital to rework the changes so people familiar with the arguments would not catch on. If Marx never fully spelled out what life would look like after the Revolution, he left little doubt that history, as we know it, would come to an end. It is not just the line about the withering away of the state in the Manifesto; it's also the introduction. The line about poetry and fishing comes from the German Ideology. Throughout his political works, Marx makes clear that class conflict drives history through a series of evolutionary stages and that mature industrial capitalism is the final stage. That vision is more complex in the historical works but unmistakably still present. You can apply Marx' insights into the functioning of industrial capitalism without accepting his view of history. There is also a great deal of room for debate -- as Bernstein and Luxemburg, among many others, showed -- about just what Marx meant by Revolution and how it should be achieved. But I don't think you can make sense of Marx without recognizing the utopian current that runs through his thought, despite his best efforts, or the effort to present a universalist account that would apply to all times and places. In philosophical terms, your Marx sounds more anti-foundationalist (and reasonable) than mine.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
I think Derrida and Foucault are anti-foundationalists. I, of course, recognize Marx's Hegelianism and thinking in terms of the end of history practically defines being both Hegelian and foundationalist. But one has to know what the end of history means. When Hegel said, in the 19th century no less, that art, from the perspective of its highest calling, was a thing of the past, he didn't think there either was no more art or would be no more art. He thought that art could no longer be the mode in which a culture understood itself and thus could no longer be a driver of historical change. For Marx, the end of history did mean the end of teleologically directed conflict. When the workers are also the owners, of necessity the class struggle will come to an end since the basis of class will no longer exist (not merely difference in economic wealth but the self-awareness of class state that comes with conflict). But, just as art objects continue to get produced even after art's historical role is over, historically meaningless, but no less actual conflict will have to exist. Neither Marx nor Hegel say these things directly except in the reading of clauses. I'm willing to think that Marx, because he never thought beyond the goal he wanted, never really considered the issue and only spoke utopically. I'm not willing to take that as a serious estimate of his thinking. And I'm not even close to being a Marxist, by the way.
For people who were read in David Ricardo and Marx, I couldn't of course pull it off with 5% or even 50%. At the very least, Ricardo doesn't have the wonderfully spooky lines about labor that identify it with being alive that occur in Marx. But you got my point about what 5% would do.
For people who were read in David Ricardo and Marx, I couldn't of course pull it off with 5% or even 50%. At the very least, Ricardo doesn't have the wonderfully spooky lines about labor that identify it with being alive that occur in Marx. But you got my point about what 5% would do.
I think the late, great Gerry Cohen would agree with your sentiments, Jonathan. However, Marx's output is such that one is left trying to square Grundrisse with German Ideology, or more entertainingly, 18th Brumaire with reality (I don't think he ever let facts get in the way of great lines).
So the pedant in me insists on asking which Marx you are discussing, for I do not recognise the one you write about.
So the pedant in me insists on asking which Marx you are discussing, for I do not recognise the one you write about.
originally posted by Yixin:
I think the late, great Gerry Cohen would agree with your sentiments, Jonathan.
I don't think Cohen gave up on Marx' teleology. He simply presented a systematic version of the argument in Karl Marx' Theory of History: A Defense. I don't see how we can be talking about Marx' legacy without that teleology. Otherwise he merits no more than a footnote to Ricardo, apart from the great lines. Would you go that far, Jonathan?
originally posted by Yixin:
I don't think he [Marx] ever let facts get in the way of great lines.
Certainly not! That is among the great appeals of the work.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Actually, I'd almost say the reverse, up to a point. If one is to understand Marx as he understood himself, one can't do without the teleology, again just as with Hegel. And, to the extent that this started with his theory of justice and ideology, I would certainly agree that no statement he made makes any sense without the teleology. But, if one wants to think about his value as a thinker, I think one has to think around the teleology, just as one can only find what matters in Hegel by both understanding the teleology and thinking around it. I think he has more value as an historian, a sociologist and an economist than either Cliff or Yixin would allow. And that value does rise free of his teleology. The "footnote" he adds to Ricardo, while it makes the labor theory of value more of a superstition, also shows the superstition that was already there, and that's no small footnote. I am far from an expert on France between 1848 and 1852, but I also think the Class Struggles in France (and thus by extension, the parts of the 18th Brumaire that are nearly identical to it)to be pretty good history, better than any that was written at the time or for some years after and probably the best extant attempt to write the history of current events. People who write history from newspapers get their share of facts wrong.
Christian Miller (CMM)
Christian Miller
Did you mean 1848? I'm racking my brain for what happened in France in 148.I am far from an expert on France between 148 and 1852
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
Did you mean 1848? I'm racking my brain for what happened in France in 148.I am far from an expert on France between 148 and 1852
Fixed, thank you. I'm sure if you read the first volume of Michelet, you can find something that happened in France in 148. But I don't know anything in Marx about that year.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
originally posted by Cliff:
Mais bien sûr !Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian...
You're just going to confuse people into looking for these little known historical works by Marx.
No doubt!
For a little more context:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals....
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
For a little more context:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals....
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
As Marx did not say, Eggheads of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your yolks.
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
As Marx did not say, Eggheads of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your yolks.
Bravo, Prof! That was nothing short of brilliant.
Mark Lipton
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
As Marx did not say, Eggheads of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your yolks.
Bravo, Prof! That was nothing short of brilliant.
Mark Lipton
Please don't give me credit for this. It's Adlai Stevenson.
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
As Marx did not say, Eggheads of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your yolks.
Bravo, Prof! That was nothing short of brilliant.
Mark Lipton
Please don't give me credit for this. It's Adlai Stevenson.
Pshaw! You're an academic: if you can't take credit for the unacknowledged use of another's work, who can?
Mark Lipton
Salil Benegal
Salil Benegal
Undergrads? (They try.)originally posted by MLipton:
Pshaw! You're an academic: if you can't take credit for the unacknowledged use of another's work, who can?
Mark Lipton
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Wilde to Whistler: I wish I'd said that.
Whistler to Wilde: You will, Oscar, you will.
Whistler to Wilde: You will, Oscar, you will.