Neoprene

„Solange die wirklich arbeitende Bevölkerung von ihrer notwendigen Arbeit so sehr in Anspruch genommen wird, daß ihr keine Zeit zur Besorgung der gemeinsamen Geschäfte der Gesellschaft – Arbeitsleitung, Staatsgeschäfte, Rechtsangelegenheiten, Kunst, Wissenschaft etc. – übrigbleibt, solange mußte stets eine besondre Klasse bestehn, die, von der wirklichen Arbeit befreit, diese Angelegenheiten besorgte; wobei sie denn nie verfehlte, den arbeitenden Massen zu ihrem eignen Vorteil mehr und mehr Arbeitslast aufzubürden.“
Ja und warum bleibt der arbeitenden Bevölkerung so wenig Zeit? Könnte das vielleicht daran liegen, dass sie nicht nur für ihre Reproduktion sorgen muss, sondern auch den Reichtum der herrschenden Klasse produziert? Umgekehrt. Wenn die Produktivität der Arbeit so schlecht ist, dass außer simpler Reproduktion nichts mehr geht, wo soll dann das Mehrprodukt für die herrschende Klasse herkommen. Engels zaubert die herrschende Klasse aus dem Hut. Arbeiter haben keine Zeit, „also“ müssen „diese Angelegenheiten“ von jemand anderem verrichtet werden, der Zeit hat. Aber woher hat er die Zeit?
Schön sind auch die Kategorien „wirkliche Arbeit“ und „Angelegenheiten“ bzw. „gemeinsamen Geschäfte der Gesellschaft“. Arbeitsleitung ist da keine „wirkliche Arbeit“ und Rechts- und Staatsgeschäfte sind ein „gemeinsames Geschäft“. Als wären Recht- und Staat nicht das Sklavenhalterrecht und der Sklavenhalterstaat, also die Gewaltinstitutionen, die für die Aufrechterhaltung der Sklaverei sorgen. Als hätten die Sklaven ein Interesse an einer Organisation, die für die Abpressung ihres Mehrprodukts sorgt. Unter dem Gesichtspunkt Reproduktion der Gesellschaft verwandelt sich eben alles in ein notwendiges Mittel dafür. Da wird dann auch die Gewalt der herrschenden Klasse, die für die tagesfüllende Ausbeutung der Sklaven sorgt, zum gemeinsamen gesellschaftlichen Interesse.

Dieses Thema hatte es vor Kurzem ja noch im MDF gegeben. Das meiste habe ich nicht mehr gefunden (Warum hat der MDF-Verantwortliche eigentlich nicht wie der contradictio-Genosse wenigstens ein Backup ins Netz gestellt?). Hier deshalb ein Auszug aus einigen Argumenten:
1. Es gibt keinen höheren absoluten Grund, warum sich die Getreidebauern des alten Ägypten oder die Bauern und Handwerker des ausgehenden Mittelalters die Herrschaft gefallen lassen mussten, die sie sich gefallen ließen. Ob ein Aufstand Erfolg hat oder nicht, hängt an der Masse der Aufständischen, die immer mehr sind als ihre Herren, ihren Waffen, die immer schwächer sind als die ihrer Herren, und der Angewiesenheit der anderen Seite auf ihre Dienste, die sie ausreizen können. Das ist eine Frage von kampf, Sieg und Niederlage incl. der Rolle des Zufalls; allgemeine historische Gesetze, Möglichkeiten und Unmöglichkeiten sind da nicht zu sehen.
Selbstverständlich hätten die Horden des Bauernkriegs, hätten sie sich durchgesetzt, keinen Kommunismus errichtet, sondern eben das, was ihnen aus dem beschränkten Horizont ihrer Zeit, ihrer Form von Reichtum und seiner Gewinnung als gerecht und nützlich erschienen wäre: Also etwa eine allgemeine Arbeitspflicht, die sich gegen das bloße Genießen und Verbrauchen des Adels richtet und irgendeine frühe Form des bürgerlichen Prinzips: Eigentum = Arbeit durchsetzt; ein Prinzip, auf dem der bald entstehende Kapitalsmus erstens beruht und das er zweitens in sein Gegenteil umkehrt.
2. Wenn man sich schon auf eine Debatte über die Pyramidenbauer einlässt, dann kann man auch da noch unterscheiden: Selbstverständlich werden herrschaftliche und sakrale Prunkbauten immer – schon ihrem Begriff nach – von der Mehrarbeit errichtet, die ein Herrscher seinen Untertanen abzwingt. Sie sind und sollen sein eindrucksvolle Dokumente von Luxus: Mehrprodukt über das hinaus, was das Volk, wie auch immer definiert, zu seiner Lebenserhaltung hat. Das ist nicht damit zu verwechseln, dass es die Ausbeutung der Pyramidenbauer war, aus der die Pyramiden wuchsen. Wie auch im europäischen Mittelalter (und eigentlich noch heute) sind die edlen Technologen ihrer Zeit, die z.B. Kathedralen bauten, natürlich besser bezahlt oder genährt als die einfachen Arbeiter. Dass die Prunkbauten insgesamt aus Mehrarbeit der Gesellschaft bestehen, heißt nicht, dass sie ausschließlich oder auch nur besonders aus Mehrarbeit ihrer Erbauer bestehen.
3. Es ist auch gar nicht zu leugnen, dass bis heute alle großen Werke der Kultur von der Herrschaft in Auftrag gegeben und durch die dem Volk abgezwungene Mehrarbeit verwirklicht wurden. Dass insoweit alles Große, Herrliche, Schöne – auch alle Werke der Wissenschaft und des technologischen Fortschritts von der Ausbeutung der normalen Untertanen zeugen, ist gerade unsere Kritik. Dein englischer Freund findet die Pyramiden für seine Zeit progressiv – übrigens eine wahrhaft idiotische, in jeder reellen Hinsischt absolut gleichgültige Frage – und gibt damit nur zu erkennen, dass er das Vernutzen des Lebens von Generationen zugunsten der Kultur und ihrer großen Zeugnisse für eine durchaus lohnende Sache hält. Und dabei sind noch nicht einmal damals die arbeitenden Menschen von ihren Herren ausgebeutet worden, damit Kultur möglich werde.
Dazu als Antwort:
Natürlich ist es auf den ersten Blick verrückt, sich als Heutiger, mit durch und durch heutigen Problemen, sich ausgerechnet gedanklich zurückzuversetzen in die allerältesten Geschichten, die aus der aufgeschriebenen Geschichte der Menschen überhaupt noch bekannt sind.
Wie man aber weiß ist „Geschichte“ für viele, und leider auch viele Linke ein ganz wichtiges Thema:
Der verrückte Pyramiden-Thread
B.B:
Work built the Pyramids, the Empire State Building, Big Ben, and the Panama Canal. Look at the men who retire and are miserable not being allowed to go to work. There was a movie about this theme, *About Schmidt* with Jack Nicholson. Yes, „paradise“ means sitting around playing a harp, or picking coconuts, but how many people would put up with this for more than a few weeks? The idea that work is bad is a myth, just like the idea that socialism is a good thing in theory is a myth.
K.B.
Most people do not work for themselves, but are forced to work for the profit of others. Wage labor is no instinct of man as slave labor was not either. „valuable“ it is indeed only for those who hire men and women to make their profits. For an enormous part of those working for wages or salaries usefulness is nothing that can be seen. Whole branches are existent only because private property rules. From shop detectives to judges for instances.
>Work built the Pyramids, the Empire State Building,
>Big Ben, and the Panama Canal.
It was a crazy campaign of uselessness to force a tenth or a fifth of the whole population into building that damn pyramids. It gives proof to the might of the pharaohs but nothing else.
>Look at the men who retire and are miserable not being allowed to go to work.
>There was a movie about this theme, *About Schmidt* with Jack Nicholson.
>Yes, „paradise“ means sitting around playing a harp, or picking coconuts,
>but how many people would put up with this for more than a few weeks? The
>idea that work is bad is a myth, just like the idea that socialism is a
>good thing in theory is a myth.
It is indeed a sad fact that people tend to convince themselves of the usefulness of those things forced on them. Young men regularly are even proud of dying for their country, an even bigger stupidity than loving their work.
That the governments of most states know for sure, that the love for work is not that widespread as you claim can be seen from their ever ongoing lowering or the amount of money that they hand out to jobless. Otherwise the „incentives“ to go to work would not work.
Dusty:
Karl Burg wrote:
> Most people do not work for themselves, but are forced to work for the
> profit of others. Wage labor is no instinct of man as slave labor was
> not either. „valuable“ it is indeed only for those who hire men and
> women to make their profits.
At the risk of being pedantic I have to say I wouldn’t agree with that Karl. Some of the „value“ of the process of production does indeed go to the worker. If not, why would he work?
> It was a crazy campaign of uselessness to force a tenth or a fifth of
> the whole population into building that damn pyramids. It gives proof
> to the might of the pharaohs but nothing else.
Maybe not. Maybe such monuments were a necessary part of social cohesion in a civilised society rather than just waste for most people.
> It is indeed a sad fact that people tend to convince themselves of the
> usefulness of those things forced on them. Young men regularly are
> even proud of dying for their country, an even bigger stupidity than
> loving their work.
You mean in Iraq only? Vietnam? What about the NLF resistance fighting for independence and social improvement in Vietnam. Or the Red army against the fascist hordes? Or say Australians fighting against the potential occupation of their country by Japanese imperialists?
K.B:
Indeed, wage labor implies wages, normally paid out in money, the ultimate means of abstract value. But the purpose of wage labor is not to imbue the workers with value. The opposite is true, the less they get, the better for their employer to increase his profit.
> Maybe such monuments were a necessary part of social
> cohesion in a civilised society rather than just waste for most people.
It is/would be telling about the nature of your nicely worded „social cohesion in a civilised society“, if your verdict were/is true. That monumental national „big“ undertakings very often find the applause of those suffering for this is not really a good argument. And of course we speak of class societies since those days of Ramses et. al. Those chaps who built the Gizeh pyramids may have been some sort of wage workers (probably not slaves, as far as I have read) but they definitively did not have any saying in this gigantic project.
>You mean in Iraq only? Vietnam? What about the NLF resistance fighting
> for independence and social improvement in Vietnam. Or the Red army
> against the fascist hordes? Or say Australians fighting against the
> potential occupation of their country by Japanese imperialists?
Your line of historical and hypothetical conflicts shows that you have to look very carefully what’s going on, who is fighting whom for what reasons, before you can hand out your medals of honour. To evade a concrete answer I would say that there are far less „just causes“ than the usual newspaper would feature. Even left newspaper.
Dusty:
As you say, there is historical (written) evidence that the „Gizeh pyramids may have been some sort of wage workers.“ Further, the work was done in off-season and according to VG Childe the payments that went to the builders allowed for substantial population increases. Further the better pyramids involved significant development of basic geometry and engineering principles.
But my main point still stands. Like it or not the theocracy that ruled over Egypt was progressive in its time. Part of its function was the keep out the nubian hordes and to maintain order in a closely knit agricultural society based on irrigation. So the „offerings“ of the population assistede this and shouldn’t be judged ahistorically.
K.B:
You sound like a Keynesian put into a time machine. No, if there was a substantial increase in population, this resulted from better harvests, better weather, better agricultural techniques and that sort of real things. Handing out precious gold coins obtained from the upper Nile did not bring this about and could not bring this about (Therefore Keynes is dead for good these days, those eternal fans on the reformist left ignored). I would see it the other way around: If indeed Egypt flourished during those days, then the Pharaoh could order such a madman’s project without ruining the state at once. Still they better had built an early version of the Assuan damm or things like that (geometry and engineering knowledge would have been useful for these kind of undertakings too). Your „significant improvements“ sound a bit like those NASA-lobbyists that tried to sell their Star Wars schemes with the side effect of the Invention of Teflon nowadays used for kitchen pans.
Dusty:
But there was no such thing as coinage in Old Kingdom Egypt. The workers were paid in kind – food, clothing, and so on. Even so, the consumption of this food – on the scale that must have occurred during the building of the Pyramids – would have promoted better nutrition in the peasant population and left more peasants in a better position to have more children – these are rudimentary and well-attested demographic processes – this in turn promoting population growth, and, all else being equal, and allied to the advances in engineering and geometry mentioned above, the expansion of irrigation projects in the Nile Valley. The Pyramid-building projects also involved and intensified specialisation – they kept in constant employment large teams of skilled artisans in the employ of the State. And it’s probably reasonable to assume, too, that the Pyramid-building projects led to considerable advances in the further development of writing and administration. We have no evidence that the peasant-builders were working under coercion – they may well have done what they did because they regarded the success of the Pharaoh in the afterlife as being intimitely bound up with their own success as a COMMUNITY in this world. Moreover, the sate-labour forces that worked on the Pyramids were later used for other, less conspicuous public works projects. So the construction of the Pyramids of using the labour of workers from the Nile Valley villages promoted a more-or-less interdependent mixture of labour specialisation, population growth, intensification of agriculture, technological and bureaucratic advances of various kinds, the use of labour under the command of the state to build public works, and the God-King ideology of a cohesive, civilised, heavily stratified society. All of which, in historical terms, points unmistakably to progess. Events like the building of the Pyramids must be seen in those terms if we are to avoid falling into the trap of evaluating history a- historically.
K.B:
do neither pretend to be an expert in ancient money nor in egyptology. But your correction to my joke makes the important point: The consumption of those masses allocated to the project Gizeh came at the expense of the rest of the population, mainly the peasants.
> Even so, the consumption of this food – on the scale that must have occurred during
>the building of the Pyramids – would have promoted better nutrition in
>the peasant population and left more peasants in a better position to
>have more children – these are rudimentary and well-attested
>demographic processes – this in turn promoting population growth,
For me it is exactly the other way round. The extra „tax“ for the pyramids depressed the living standards of the peasants.
>all else being equal, and allied to the advances in engineering and
>geometry mentioned above, the expansion of irrigation projects in the Nile Valley.
>The Pyramid-building projects also involved and intensified
>specialisation – they kept in constant employment large teams of
>skilled artisans in the employ of the State.
>And it’s probably reasonable to assume, too, that the Pyramid-building
>projects led to considerable advances in the further development of
>writing and administration.
It is obvious that this project was only possible and itself feeding the described advances. But a useful plan would have had exactly the same effects. Perhaps they could not have built the Assuan damm, they were no beavers, but the infrastructure could have been improved directly with far more impact. This wise men and women should have done, if the well being of the people living then would have been their goal.
>We have no evidence that the peasant-builders were working under
>coercion – they may well have done what they did because they regarded
>the success of the Pharaoh in the afterlife as being intimitely bound
>up with their own success as a COMMUNITY in this world.
Once gain, the sad fact, that masses sacrifice themselves for their nation and religion happens all of the time, since then till this day. For good? No, in most cases not.
>So the construction of the Pyramids of using the labour of workers
>from the Nile Valley villages promoted a more-or-less interdependent
>mixture of labour specialisation, population growth, intensification
>of agriculture, technological and bureaucratic advances of various
>kinds, the use of labour under the command of the state to build
>public works, and the God-King ideology of a cohesive, civilised, heavily stratified society.
>All of which, in historical terms, points unmistakably to progess.
>Events like the building of the Pyramids must be seen in those terms
>if we are to avoid falling into the trap of evaluating history a-historically.
For someone who pretends not to „fall into the trap of evaluating history“ quite a heavy evaluation, I would say. I personally do not adhere to this kind of stairway to heaven look upon history anymore: Could it be that mankind could have been wiser before? Basically all Cro-Magnon have been and are the same for quite some time, since the last Ice Age at least I presume. Real progress is a little bit late, so to say.
Dusty:
The last word („a-historically“) is crucial to the meaning of the sentence. Of course I don’t „pretend not to evaluate history“, and I don’t think anything I’ve said would indicate that I do. You seem to be implying that the social status quo ante the building of the Pyramids was one of idyllic, egalitarian, caring and sharing village life. If you are, think again. Long before the unification of Egypt, village communities along the Nile were bound together in socially stratified chiefdoms, the heads of which, like the Pharaohs, extracted taxes from the peasants. Neither the unification of Egypt, nor the building of the Pyramids at Giza can be regarded as the catalyst for the processes by which the surplus was alienated from the hands of the peasantry, since these processes had been in train for at least 1,000 years before the building of the Giza Pyramids was even commenced, and for 500 years prior to unification. Egyptian unification was, it appears, a predominantly organic (rather than coercive) event arising out of cooperative irrigation projects among Nile Valley chiefdoms in the late 3rd century BC. Unification was therefore an undeniably progressive event, its success at least partly contingent, at least initially, on its capacity to provide better harvests for the peasants. It is true that these harvests were taxed, but better harvests in the Early Dynastic period must also have led to a higher standard of living for the peasants – certainly population density increased during that period. Equally, Pyramid building was not merely historically progressive as a force tending further to intensify social and political cohesion and civilisation (specialisation, geometry, literacy, bureaucracy, etc.) in general, but socially progressive in the narrower sense – it involved the (admittedly partial) re-distribution of the surplus to the peasants in return for their labour, which would have led in turn to an amelioration in their standard of living, concomitantly higher birthrates, and the further improvement of irrigation in response to increasing population density. The point, then, is that the production of surpluses on such a scale would have been impossible without the unification of the Egyptian state and the intensification of irrigation-based agriculture and the increased exploitation of labour that attended on it. History is what it is, and not what we would have it be. Seen in terms of historical materialism, rather than idealism, both the unification of Egypt and the building of the Pyramids must be regarded as progressive.
K.B:
I am in no position to doubt the factuality of what you describe as the processes, that happened in Egypt around the time of the unification of Egypt and the building of the great pyramids. My doubts are more fundamental: To ascribe the label progressive to every regime that for its own reasons that have nothing to do with the improvement of the living standard of the masses that they govern, if they organise something, that further on was useful. Srd [ein weiterer Poster] made the obvious point, that then war as the mother of quite a few things should be hailed and not fought. WWII was his example, where only a few would think your logic to its end. But the draconian rule of exploitation of Ramses gets your praise, „well done buddy, go on!“.
Mehring, one of the most profound classical marxist historians for instance bemoaned that the „modern“ progressive catholic leader Wallenstein did not win against those „backwards“ protestant Landesherren in Northern Germany in the 30-years-war.
I share the critic of Marx and his comrades of the capitalist exploitation system but not their, especially Engels, step by step through history on the railway of historic progress that inevitably leads to socialism. I know that this was/is a widespread sentiment. One of the reasons, that so many citizens of Eastern Europe so easily fell victim to the capitalist onslaught comes from this: When they became convinced, that their system is no more on the winning side of history, „outdated“ so to say, and Imperialism obviously is the winner everywhere, then it more than necessary to join this process and leave the outdated loser system behind. This history is on your side was wrong during the ascendency of the marxist/socialist workers movement and it ad disastrous ideological impacts when imperialism put the screws on.
srd:
‚History is on our side‘ tends to a smug fatalism–socialism is inevitable–but viewing class societies as a historical wrong turn leads to a grave pessimism–socialism is impossible. If class societies were always irrational, why have no radical socialist experiments been successful?
How a Marxist should view the class struggles of old is a complex question. Howard Fast, a Stalinist, wrote the book version of „Spartacus.“ His choice of sides is clear, but is it justifiable? Perhaps some of the paradox could be removed if the turning point between a social formation being progressive and reactionary could be found. Instead–speaking at least for myself–it has come to seem rather untenable to hold that the productive capacity of capitalism was exhaused circe 1907.
But in general it seems to me that the progressive role of class societies is far briefer than may have been implicitly supposed. Marx thought socialism was achievable decades before the date Lenin concluded capitalism had been exhausted. When was capitalism progressive. If it first took state power at the end of the 18th century, it might appear that capitalism was strong and progressive for maybe 50 years. During that time, the contradiction between the interests of the bourgeoisie and workers was attenuated. Perhaps for ancient societies, the progressive period was of similar proportions.
K.B:
> ‚History is on our side‘ tends to a smug fatalism–socialism is
> inevitable–but viewing class societies as a historical wrong turn leads
> to a grave pessimism–socialism is impossible. If class societies were
> always irrational, why have no radical socialist experiments been successful?
Your question is my question too. And I have to admit, that I do not have an answer. But I will not accept the underlying thesis, that those who won during the last few millenniums were always right. That their victories their exploitation system were necessary and justified. No they simply won. And when it went the other way round, as with the Bolsheviks, it still is nothing more than a mere fact, yes they won. If they had lost the civil War, not only every Menshevik would have said, I told you so, communism is against the laws of history, stay away from this bloody experiments!
> How a Marxist should view the class struggles of old is a complex
> question. Howard Fast, a Stalinist, wrote the book version of „Spartacus.“
> His choice of sides is clear, but is it justifiable? Perhaps some of the
> paradox could be removed if the turning point between a social formation
> being progressive and reactionary could be found. Instead–speaking at
> least for myself–it has come to seem rather untenable to hold that the
> productive capacity of capitalism was exhausted circa 1907.
It is obviously ridiculous to search for the magic date. No, capitalism never has or will exhaust its drive to accumulate. This system has never been „progressive“ and it will not be in the future, whatever inventions and machinery the profit driven engineers are ordered to invent in the future. This futile search for the clipping point has led communist from the old days on (Luxemburg for example) to look out for the final showdown as proof for this theory. The Healyites were the most famous/infamous for this „the end is near!“ argument of a final crisis as a good argument for becoming a communist critic of the capitalist system. As it did not materialise lots of people won by this went back into the willing subordination of capitalist wage slavery. Success is „the“ proof of correctness and necessity.
Yes the imperialist states increased the productive forces more rapidly than the COMECON states. And consequently millions of Stalinist went over to capitalism as obviously the system of still historic future. They should have done better and a good starting point would have been the reevaluation of this wrong theory of historic development.
srd:
But with this position it seems you must repudiate any kind of scientific approach to history. If who „wins“ is completely adventitious, then the flow of history is random. I by no means think that is an absurd position. It doesn’t follow that philosophical realism must be repudiated, as Engels or Marx (I haven’t read them with the idea of making distinctions) sometimes seem to think. Anti-historicism is, moreover, what everyone instinctively believes. But it seems to take us back to utopian socialism or to lead to giving up the socialist project.
What isn’t clear to me is why exactly you have concluded against the Engels-Plekhanov model of Marxism. That historicism has served as a rationalization for opportunism doesn’t automatically discredit the former. The basic Plekhanov answer is logically sound; whether it is true may be something else.
> It is obviously ridiculous to search for the magic date. No,
> capitalism never has or will exhaust its drive to accumulate. This
> system has never been „progressive“ and it will not be in the future,
> whatever inventions and machinery the profit driven engineers are
> ordered to invent in the future. This futile search for the clipping
> point has led communist from the old days on (Luxemburg for example)
> to look out for the final showdown as proof for this theory. The
> Healyites were the most famous/infamous for this „the end is near!“
> argument of a final crisis as a good argument for becoming a communist
> critic of the capitalist system. As it did not materialize lots of
> people won by this went back into the willing subordination of
> capitalist wage slavery. Success is „the“ proof of correctness and necessity.
>> How a Marxist should view the class struggles of old is a complex >> question. Howard Fast, a Stalinist, wrote the book version of >> „Spartacus.“ >> His choice of sides is clear, but is it justifiable? Perhaps some of the >> paradox could be removed if the turning point between a social formation >> being progressive and reactionary could be found. Instead–speaking at >> least for myself–it has come to seem rather untenable to hold that the >> productive capacity of capitalism was exhaused circe 1907.
> It is obviously ridiculous to search for the magic date. No, > capitalism never has or will exhaust its drive to accumulate. This > system has never been „progressive“ and it will not be in the future, > whatever inventions and machinery the profit driven engineers are > ordered to invent in the future. This futile search for the clipping > point has led communist from the old days on (Luxemburg for example) > to look out for the final showdown as proof for this theory. The > Healyites were the most famous/infamous for this „the end is near!“ > argument of a final crisis as a good argument for becoming a communist > critic of the capitalist system. As it did not materialize lots of > people won by this went back into the willing subordination of > capitalist wage slavery. Success is „the“ proof of correctness and > necessity.
You may be conflating two different dates. One matter that is rather a dead horse is the idea that there is some final crisis from which capitalism cannot recover. The other much more subtle idea follows from the notion that capitalism becomes increasing a brake on the development of production. Consequently, at some point it become, on average, more of a brake than an expeditor. At that point the amount of capital in the world on average in the intermediate run begins to decline rather than increase. Periods of increase and decline, prosperity and depression, continue, but the depressions become progressively deeper than the dpressions. It should not be thought that this means the world becomes increasing hospitable to socialism. As the level of technology continues to develop, the social system becomes eventual over-ripe for revolution, so that revolution becomes harder to make rather than easier.
I’m sure you know this stuff. I’m regurgitating it because you are not clearly dealing with this model in your refutation of historicism. To me it is at best an hypothesis, but surely not an absurd hypothesis.
> Yes the imperialist states increased the productive forces more
> rapidly than the COMECON states.
This requires careful validation. What I think we are talking about in increasing the productive forces is increasing the acceleration in the advance of efficiency of capital production. So it’s a somewhat abstract and indirect concept. For simplicity, as above, we often abbreviate its specification, but to evaluate your conclusion, more precision is needed.
If this is true and if the historicist interpretation of Marxism is also true, then it becomes an argument that COMECON was not a group of deformed workers states and was not supportable. This implication, by itself, would not justify, of course, rejecting the historicist interpretation of Marxism.
srd:
Intentions are the wrong standard — for what? When we look at struggles in the distant past, one might wish to be inspired or wish to understand the inevitable. Your position denies historical inevitability, even in the long run. This also determines your objective, in that you can only seek inspiration in retrospective support, the other option having been foreclosed by your rejection of historicism.
Of course those who consider the pyramids as serving some historically progressive role would not give retrospective political support to the Pharaohs, but the judgment that the Pharaohs played a progressive role has to temper their retrospective enthusiasm for anti-Pharaoh struggles. How one stands on the struggles of a previous epoch can’t be called programmatic. To me it is _odd_ that such enthusiasm should be tempered. I think that oddness may reflect an in the conventional Marxist evaluation of the Pharaohs, as progressive AT ANY TIME. Ancient social development (I’m guessing) took place after the social forms of ancient society ceased to be progressive in any sense.
A.F.
Here, in essence, is my position on this: the unification of Egypt and the building of the Pyramids led (whether this was the intention of the Pharaoh or anyone else makes no difference at all), principally via the accelerated development that they afforded to an aspect of the means of production – i.e. irrigation works in the Nile Valley – to a rise in the living standards of the Egyptian peasantry. These historical events were therefore historcially progressive. I’m reiterating this largely because I think it has implications for many previous (and no doubt future) discussions on this site. For example, a-historical idealists posing as Marxists are wont to claim that working people’s objections to mass immigration in the developed world spring from „racist“ intentions. But the truth is that they are defending their material interests as a class: their strength and cohesion to organise, their pay and conditions at work, their hard-won standard of living and, yes, their own demotic culture. „Racist“ ideology, if it exists at all, is, at best, secondary. No honest person would deny that the effects of mass immigration – in this historical period – on the living standards of working people in the West are deleterious, so that, regardless of the subjective role of „racism“ (a word oft-used but seldom defined) in all this, to a Marxist, the opposition of workers to mass immigration must be seen as historically progressive. It is the governments of the „Western Democracies“ that are bringing in large (and ever-increasing) numbers of immigrants. Now, if you accept that these „Western Democracies“ are run by and in the interests of the capitalist class, well……you must either conclude that the bosses‘ intentions are „non-racist“, while those of the workers are „racist“, and that, moreover, „racism“ is the primary issue, OR that the bosses are opening the borders to immigrants for other reasons which can only be understood in terms of historical materialism, and that THIS is what is important. Do you understand now what I’m getting at?
K.B:
Yes I do understand: your brand of Histomat-Marxism ends in positions other „Marxists“ have had before. For me this is a rerun of the social chauvinism that killed the Second International as a revolutionary force before and especially during WWI.
Wie man sieht, kostet es keine zwei, drei Seiten, und schon ist man von den Pyramiden wieder da angekommen, von wo die Rückschau inhaltlich ja auch den Ausgang genommen hat, nämlich in der kapitalistischen Gegenwart.
1. Es gibt keinen höheren absoluten Grund, warum sich die Getreidebauern des alten Ägypten oder die Bauern und Handwerker des ausgehenden Mittelalters die Herrschaft gefallen lassen mussten, die sie sich gefallen ließen.
Ob ein Aufstand Erfolg hat oder nicht, hängt an der Masse der Aufständischen, die immer mehr sind als ihre Herren, ihren Waffen, die immer schwächer sind als die ihrer Herren, und der Angewiesenheit der anderen Seite auf ihre Dienste, die sie ausreizen können. Das ist eine Frage von Kampf, Sieg und Niederlage incl. der Rolle des Zufalls; allgemeine historische Gesetze, Möglichkeiten und Unmöglichkeiten sind da nicht zu sehen.
Selbstverständlich hätten die Horden des Bauernkriegs, hätten sie sich durchgesetzt, keinen Kommunismus errichtet, sondern eben das, was ihnen aus dem beschränkten Horizont ihrer Zeit, ihrer Form von Reichtum und seiner Gewinnung als gerecht und nützlich erschienen wäre: Also etwa eine allgemeine Arbeitspflicht, die sich gegen das bloße Genießen und Verbrauchen des Adels richtet und irgendeine frühe Form des bürgerlichen Prinzips: Eigentum = Arbeit durchsetzt; ein Prinzip, auf dem der bald entstehende Kapitalsmus erstens beruht und das er zweitens in sein Gegenteil umkehrt.
Zu einem ähnlichen Argument im MDF:
Offensichtlich wollten die den Feudalismus oder die spezifisch asiatische Form eine agrarischen Klassengesellschaft (ich kenne mich da leider auch überhaupt nicht aus) nicht abschaffen. Geschichtsleleologen scheint es aber nicht hinnehmbar, daß die das die letzen bekannten 5 bis 7 Tausend Jahre nicht gewollt haben. Dann können die das auch nicht gewollt haben oder wenn sie es gewollt haben, dann ging es eben nicht , bzw. nicht lange. So haben dann Marxisten immer wieder Sympathie für diese leider zu früh geborenen „Utopisten“ gehabt, so haben sich die Linken in der SPD ja bewußt Spartakusbund genannt (und in den 70ern gab es dann ein Minirevival im trotzkistischem Outfit, aber erst jetzt hat die Geschichte ihr Ziel erreicht, erst jetzt ist der Sozialismus nicht nur notwendig sondern Tagesaufgabe. Und dann kommt natürlich schon das Grübeln auf, daß selbst dieses „Jetzt“ ja mittlerweile schon wieder die Patina von rund 150 Jahren hat. Bekanntlich ist der Kommunismus ja mittlerweile tot, weil er aufgegeben hat. War er vielleicht doch noch nicht „zeitgemäß“?
Zwar meine ich auch, daß der Cro-Magnon, also „wir“, seit seinem Auftreten hier in Europa vor einigen Zig-Jahrtausenden der gleiche geblieben ist, so schlau, wie Leute heute sein können, waren sie schon „immer“. Und wenn es Menschen um irgendwas wichtig war, haben sie schon immer verdammt viel rausgekriegt und hingekriegt (Typen wie Däniken wollen das einfach nicht akzeptieren und brauchen deshalb immer eine außerirdische Intelligenz um eindrucksvolle kluge oder technisch anspruchsvolle Sachen von sehr viel früher zu „erklären“).
„Letzten Endes ist es eine hypothetische Frage, ob die historischen Völker Kommunismus hätten machen können. Sie haben es nicht gemacht, sondern was anderes und das soll man als Historiker gefälligst erklären und es nicht am Massstab des verpassten Kommunismus messen und beurteilen.“
Aber es ist natürlich nicht erbauend, auf die Geschichte zu schauen, und zu sehen, daß da fast durchgängig fast alle nicht viel davon gehabt haben, was es jeweils gab und das verdammt lange hingenommen haben. Denn dann ensteht natürlich der naheliegende Verdacht, daß daß so auch nochmal 7000 Jahre hingehen könnte, wenn nicht ein paar Menschen sogar so blöd sein sollten, alles in die Luft zu jagen. Sozialismus oder Barbarei eben.
Einem möchte ich noch widersprechen:
„Dein englischer Freund findet die Pyramiden für seine Zeit progressiv – übrigens eine wahrhaft idiotische, in jeder reellen Hinsicht absolut gleichgültige Frage“
Für dich und ein paar wenige andere (um den alten Kalauer zu zitieren: die meisten davon wirst du persönlich kennen) stimmt das, aber die Idee des Progressiven ist so was von allgemein gültig, vom offenen Apologenten des Systems bis hin zur gesamten Linken (War der Kapitalismus bis 1890 progressiv oder bis 1907, oder ist er es wohlmöglich immer noch, etc?)
Insofern ist der Ausflug in die ersten Hochkulturen ein Roundtrip through History und landet immer wieder in der Gegenwart. Wo auch sonst!