Prof Quigley briefly on Marx - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Discourse exclusively on the basis of historical materialist methodology.
Forum rules: No one line posts please. This forum is for discussion based on Marxism, Marxism-Leninism and similar revisions. Critique of topics not based on historical materialism belongs in the general Communism forum.
#14730541
From Quigley's foundational magnum opus "Tragedy and Hope",

"..Under industrial capitalism and the early part of financial capitalism, society began to develop into a polarized two-class society in which an entrenched bourgeoisie stood opposed to a mass proletariat. It was on the basis of this development that Karl Marx, about 1850, formed his ideas of an inevitable class struggle in which the groups of owners would become fewer and fewer and richer and richer while the mass of workers became poorer and poorer but more numerous, until finally the mass would rise up and take ownership and control from the privileged minority. By 1900 social developments took a direction so different from that expected by Marx that his analysis became almost worthless, and his system to be imposed by force in a most backward industrial country (Russia,) instead of occurring inevitably in the most advanced industrial country as he had expected.

The social developments which made Marx's theories obsolete were the result of technological and economic developments which Marx had not foreseen. The energy for production was derived more and more from inanimate resources of power and less and less from human labor. As a result, mass production required less labor. But mass production required mass consumption so that the products of the new technology had to be distributed to the working groups as well as to oters so that rising standards of living for the masses made the proletariat fewer and fewer and richer and richer. At the same time, the need for managerial and white-collar workers of the middle levels of the economic system raised the proletariat into the middle class in large numbers. The spread of the corporate form of industrial enterprise allowed control to be separated from ownership and allowed the latter to be dispersed over a much wider group, so that, in effect, the owners became more and more numerous and poorer and poorer. And, finally, control shifted from owners to managers. The result was that the polarized two-class society envisioned by Marx was, after 1900, increasingly replaced by a mass middle-class society with fewer poor and, if not fewer rich, at least a more numerous group of rich who were relatively less rich than in an earlier period. This process of levelling up the poor and levelling down the rich originated in economic forces but was speeded up and extended by governmental policies in regard to taxation and social welfare, especially after 1945."


..so basically Quigley is discussing the dawn of Consumerism as proving Marxist analysis obsolete. And I agree. Still we are talking in terms of socio-political dialectics, and History herself proves the authority on the matter.

Hence the dissolution of Marxist theory in USSR and China, for 'post-Marxist' revisionism. It seems that if anyone were to claim to orthodox Marxism, it should be only out of complete naivete, and stunted progress in education. The concept 'proletariat', for example, is inapplicable any modern State. (In 1985 USA, for example, you would have a largely middle-class society, with largely a 'lumpenproletariat' skirting the bottom fringes of economic class structure.)

..So it seems that Marxist theory, proper, is now inherently 'post-Marxist' study, and only as relevant criticism to a consumer (or post-consumer?) economic system. Fortunately, I am sure a large proportion of so-called 'Marxists' have advanced their studies to be relevant in .. 2016. (...........)

P.S. spitting out of ideological tenets is unsatisfactory. The 'Ideal' (/Dream,) can only stem from a realistic theory of practice, implemented. There should be little to no discussion of 'how things should be', but only discussion of 'how things are', and then practical discussion of progressive policy.
#14730765
P.S. spitting out of ideological tenets is unsatisfactory. The 'Ideal' (/Dream,) can only stem from a realistic theory of practice, implemented. There should be little to no discussion of 'how things should be', but only discussion of 'how things are', and then practical discussion of progressive policy.

Which was pretty much Marx's position too. Both Marx and Engels were highly critical of 'utopian socialism', and counterposed their own 'scientific socialism' against it involving 'praxis', the dialectical interaction between rational theorising and practical activity. Daydreaming about "how things should be" was not what Marx recommended.
#14730767
Potemkin wrote:Which was pretty much Marx's position too. Both Marx and Engels were highly critical of 'utopian socialism', and counterposed their own 'scientific socialism' against it involving 'praxis', the dialectical interaction between rational theorising and practical activity. Daydreaming about "how things should be" was not what Marx recommended.


Utopian socialism isn't necessarily daydreaming. It could be considered a form of engineering, if not science.

Hmmm, it the Ukraine aid package is all over main[…]

The rapes by Hamas, real or imagained are irreleva[…]

@Rugoz You are a fuckin' moralist, Russia coul[…]

Moving on to the next misuse of language that sho[…]