[Cartertonian]

Thanks for the reference - refreshingly enlightening.

I did chuckle a bit at:

These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves

How often have we seen that phenomenon in today's society?

Out of curiosity, though, how does one bring about the classless society without recourse to the violence of revolution? I think I'm in harmony with Engels when I say that if the 'slaves' unseat the 'masters' and subordinate them by force, nothing has changed other than those brandishing the whips. Is that not what Engels' quote above intimates?

[Potemkin]

Out of curiosity, though, how does one bring about the classless society without recourse to the violence of revolution?

One doesn't.

I think I'm in harmony with Engels when I say that if the 'slaves' unseat the 'masters' and subordinate them by force, nothing has changed other than those brandishing the whips. Is that not what Engels' quote above intimates?

No. The point is that the proletariat will indeed act as the new masters once they seize political power from the current ruling class. However, they will use that power to liquidate the capitalist mode of production. This will have the effect of liquidating the bourgeoisie as a class (once a bourgeois no longer owns the means of production, he is no longer a bourgeois), which will imply that they have liquidated themselves as a class (the proletariat was created as a class by the bourgeoisie during the Industrial Revolution as the class which does not own the means of production, but owns only its own labour power). This is a fundamental and irreversible change in the power relations within society, and will end the oppression and exploitation of one class by another, forever.

[Cartertonian]

One doesn't.

I was with you in spirit, all the way up to 'classless society', but now sadly I suspect we diverge.

Frankly, I cannot see how one group taking power by force and inflicting their will on other groups can ever be 'right' (no pun intended), no matter how worthy and blissful the anticipated Utopian objective might be. If the stratification in society can be slowly eroded by increased social mobility and progressive moves toward equality of opportunity, then the need to start lobbing petrol bombs at people and kicking heads in, just because those hapless heads happen to belong to the 'wrong' social grouping, would not be required.

Y'know, drifting briefly off-topic, I've always been mildly amused by the atheism that appears to go hand in glove with Marxism. My own beef with most faiths is that they talk lots and lots of common sense...and then spoil it all by saying, "...and we'd like you to take this fairy home and keep it safe in an empty jam-jar at the bottom of your garden..." or something equally ridiculous...


...and then you have Marxists, who talk lots and lots of common sense...and then spoil it all by saying, "...but we can't achieve our aim without bloody, violent revolution..." or something equally ridiculous...

[Potemkin]

Frankly, I cannot see how one group taking power by force and inflicting their will on other groups can ever be 'right' (no pun intended), no matter how worthy and blissful the anticipated Utopian objective might be. If the stratification in society can be slowly eroded by increased social mobility and progressive moves toward equality of opportunity, then the need to start lobbing petrol bombs at people and kicking heads in, just because those hapless heads happen to belong to the 'wrong' social grouping, would not be required.

The transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production will be a fundamental discontinuity in human history; the former cannot simply 'evolve' into the latter, any more than feudalism 'evolved' into capitalism. As I recall, the rise of capitalism was accompanied by several outbreaks of bad manners....

Y'know, drifting briefly off-topic, I've always been mildly amused by the atheism that appears to go hand in glove with Marxism. My own beef with most faiths is that they talk lots and lots of common sense...and then spoil it all by saying, "...and we'd like you to take this fairy home and keep it safe in an empty jam-jar at the bottom of your garden..." or something equally ridiculous...


...and then you have Marxists, who talk lots and lots of common sense...and then spoil it all by saying, "...but we can't achieve our aim without bloody, violent revolution..." or something equally ridiculous...

Have you ever considered that maybe it's just you?

[Cartertonian]

Have you ever considered that maybe it's just you?

...frequently...

The transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production will be a fundamental discontinuity in human history.

With respect, this seems to me to be an example (echoing back to my delusional religious comparison) of Marxist 'Holy Writ', that may not be challenged upon pain of death or excommunication. Why does that transition have to be 'a fundamental discontinuity' - which to me seems like a neat, sanitised euphemism for a bloody, violent revolution?

That's why I made the comparison with religious dogma...you guys talk great sense and then - often out of the blue - you suddenly insist you gotta split some wigs, man!

WTF?

Sincerely, much of what the left aspire to reflects my own ideals, but its like you're doctors treating someone for brain cancer. You, the patient and the patient's family all want to get rid of the cancer, but all you can come up with is to chop the patient's head off!! WHY are the left so remorselessly intransigent about the need for violent revolution.

[Potemkin]

With respect, this seems to me to be an example (echoing back to my delusional religious comparison) of Marxist 'Holy Writ', that may not be challenged upon pain of death or excommunication. Why does that transition have to be 'a fundamental discontinuity' - which to me seems like a neat, sanitised euphemism for a bloody, violent revolution?

The fundamental issue here is precisely how capitalism can transform (or be transformed) into socialism. Either it can evolve into socialism by gradual, incremental steps, or it cannot. Marx believed that it cannot (and spent about 800 pages in Das Kapital demonstrating why not). Despite the fact that capitalism contains the seeds of socialism within itself (just as feudalism contained the seeds of capitalism), it still requires a human agency to make that final transition. That human agency is provided by the revolutionary working class.

The transition from capitalism to socialism is discontinuous, since either the means of production are privately owned or they are collectively owned. Any attempt to achieve socialism by gradually expanding workers' co-operatives is doomed to failure, as Marx pointed out - they will be squeezed out of existence by the surrounding capitalist enterprises, or else will be forced to become a capitalist enterprise like any other. The failure of Robert Owen's various socialist 'utopias' in America is a case in point.

[Cartertonian]

I rather think we've drifted off topic somewhat...

Whilst I can see some logic to your proposition, I still sense that there are many aspects of Marxism that have been unreasonably elevated into articles of faith. I would far rather work constructively to change society incrementally and progressively, than ever contemplate a 21st Century iteration of the events of the early 20th Century that were so destructive, malignant and costly in human life.

[Potemkin]

I would far rather work constructively to change society incrementally and progressively, than ever contemplate a 21st Century iteration of the events of the early 20th Century that were so destructive, malignant and costly in human life.

You mean World War I?

[ingliz]

cartertonian:

There are 'socialists', who are not marxists and not revolutionary, who reject the class struggle, uphold social solidarity, and advocate the workers collaborate with the bosses and not confront them. If this sounds more you, I suggest you give your local branch of the Labour Party a bell. I am sure they will be more than happy to welcome you into the fold.

[Cartertonian]

There are 'socialists', who are not marxists and not revolutionary, who reject the class struggle, uphold social solidarity, and advocate the workers collaborate with the bosses not confront them. If this sounds more you, I suggest you give your local branch of the Labour Party a bell. I am sure they will be more than happy to welcome you into the fold.

Cheers, Ingliz.

In our current, benighted 2-party, FPTP system, it is likely that Labour would get my support, purely and simply because they are not the Tories. But is that any way to organise a political system?

It would be interesting to see how Labour might evolve under a PR system. They might then mature into something I could wholeheartedly support.

[FallenRaptor]

I don't see why integrating different paradigms is necessary. Marxism has never claimed that any class is homogeneous and it recognizes that various strata exist within each class(ie. labor aristocracy, petty bourgeoisie, big bourgeoisie, etc). Combining Marxist class categories with Weberian ones would just seem to create a mess of confusion since they are so different. Weberian phrases like "middle class jobs" don't make any sense in the Marxist paradigm, even though Marxism is capable of analyzing what Weberianism means by that phrase.

I'm not saying that there is no value in Weberian or other non-Marxist analyses of sociology, but if something isn't broken, why try to fix it?

[Ombrageux]

Pot - If we had the incites of only one Marxist (besides Marx), who would you choose? (I think of Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg and Gramsci in particular but maybe you have others in mind.)