Rosa how can you support historical materialism but not dialectical materialism? Isn't Marxist historical materialism the social science of applying dialectics to history?

Historical materialism is showing that social systems change by class war. This can only be explained by dialectic notions such as class contradictions, contradiction between productive forces and relations of production, quantity into quality, even the basic idea of dialectics is that everything is in motion caused by contradiction and this is applied to social history.

I just can't see how anyone can understand historical materialism in a Marxist sense without understanding dialectical materialism. Unless you are using historical materialism in a liberal sense? What specifically do you see in historical materialism that is not present in dialectical materialism?

I undertsand you direct these coments at Rosa and she will obviously wish to make her own reply. However, I would very briefly like to express my views on the questions posed.

Why can one not understand it with out dialectics? Does one need dialectics to define class? Does one need dialectics to observe and comprehend the importance of class struggle? Does one need dialectics to understand that the realm of ideology and politics are inevitably bound up with specific economic formations? Does one need dialectics to define a 'mode of production'?

Another point I've heard made before is that dialectics actually presents a contradiction to Historical Materialism. How can communism be the final and permanent mode of production (the beginning of history as some would like to express it)? Dialectics describes all things as being a continual process of motion where contradiction (antagonism) leads to development. To suggest that the communist mode of production brings and end to the dialectal process of class conflict as the driving force of history contradicts 'The Dialectical Method'. But hey, I suppose the dialecticians are used to contradictions...

As a counter-point, I would love to hear you give us all an exposition on 'Dialectal Materialism". Being so important to any Marxist's understanding of Historical Materialism I would hope you would be well versed in it instead of just claiming it a necessity.

The Materialist conception of History is a means by which we are able to interpret historical (and current) events, allowing us to understand the process of, and the factors effecting a particular society or event in question.

Dialectics on the other hand is a rather hazy and unnecessary bit of academic and philosophical non-sense. Marmot put it rather well here:

Comrade Sweety:

That is the story we are told, but since none of the concepts borrowed from dialectical materialism [DM] make a blind bit of sense, historical materialism [HM] does not need them, and is well shut of them.

Well, in many threads in the 'Philosophy' section I have shown that these parts of dialectics do not work, and cannot work.

You can find these threads listed here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/RevLeft.htm

The fact that dialectics cannot explain change was demonstrated here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=249

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=250

The full argument can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

Or you can go to my site and check these out;

Quantity into Quality is trashed here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

Change through 'internal contradiction' is demolished here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_01.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_03.htm

It is possible to understand HM, but it is not possible to understand DM, since the latter is full of non-sensical ideas borrowed from Hegel, who was a logical and philosophical incompetent, at best.

You can largely find what I see in HM (devoid of DM) if you read Gerry Cohen's book 'Karl Marx's Theory of History, A Defence' (if you ignore his technological determinism, and his functionalism).

Zeitgeist: This is an interesting proposition is it not? That after the supercession of class society history will operate on a different basis. Of course, we are not in a position to really grasp how this will work because we are in the wrong place in human history. Although I think the final overcoming of alienation will have some bearing on this new human dynamic.

Nevertheless, if in order to avoid this question we abandon the idea that history is driven by contradictions between the forces and relations of production which leads to class conflict culminating in the revolutionary transformation of the mode of production, then what are we left with in historical materialism?

Yes, but without recourse to an analysis which prioritises change, holism and interconnectivity, how do we produce such explanations?

In Hegel it is. In Marx it is a method he employs in order to draw connection and produce inclusive knowledge. It is a method which is necessary because the object of our scrutiny, historically emergent human society, is itself dialectical. You may disagree with this but you would be disagreeing with Marx. This is obviously not a problem unless you also claim fidelity to historical materialism in the Marxist sense.

Marmot: I sympathise with the complaint that the dialectic is vague. To some extent this is the problem inherent in reintroducing Hegelian philosophical categories into Marxism. A big mistake in 20th century Marxism, in my opinion. To another extent it is out of necessity because historical phenomena become vague, blurred and indistinct when in motion. Capitalist society is in a state of rapid process, everything is in motion; relations and exchanges multiply and generalise. We can freeze it analytically, but if we want to show it in motion - as Marx does in Capital - then the analytical stage is not enough - is, in fact, a reified version of knowledge.

I think that science employs vagueness all the time - especially when it has to understand complex system behaviour. Look at meteorology. Look at cosmology. However, I accept that if one views Marxism as a science in the narrow English manner - as empirical and positive, then dialectics do seem unnecessary. However if you view Marxism as a critical science, or critique, then dialectics makes more sense.

My guess would be that its because most physicists are not Marxists or Hegelians. But that's about all this does tell us. Unless we also want to infer that the reason economists don't talk about the LTV is because Marx was wrong on that as well.

Zeitgeist: There are many famous disquisitions on dialectical materialism and most of them are rubbish because they separate this 'philosophy' from its connection to historical materialism. As I posted previously, history is the dialectic. Our job is to understand how this dialectic unfolds.

I found this beautiful, simple and coherent definition of dialectics by Trotsky the other day:

Link

BTB:

So, you do want to cling on to this useless Hegelian concept (i.e., 'dialecitical contradiction') after all, and your previous claim that I misrepresented you was wrong?

In that case, my additional claim that you and Marx disagree here was correct.

But, then again, you do not seem to be able to make your mind up:

So, you do want to rid Marxism of 'dialectical contradictions' after all?

Or, like Trivas, do you not really know what you believe?

LZ, no one wants to consider things in any other way, but the plain fact is that dialectics does not work, has been shown not to work, and if true, things could not change:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=249

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=250

The full argument can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

Rosa: If you ignore those aspects of his work, it disappears completely! He has to resort to technological determinism because he rejects the dialectical connection between the forces and relations of production. It's an empirically observable and linear accumulation of technological know-how which drives history for Cohen. His functionalism becomes necessary because he rejects the idea that society is riven with contradiction.

BTB:

Does this description ("rubbish") include the ideas of John Rees and Chris Harman, and many other SWP CC members, who are quite happy with more traditional descriptions of dialectical materialism, and who are Ok with the importation of Hegelian concepts?

BTB:

Not so; it is possible to repair Cohen's work without this Hegelian concept (which you claim to reject anyway -- or, rather, you cannot seem to make you mind up over). Indeed, since I have shown that this concept ('dialectical contradiction') cannot work, it is incumbent on us to so repair HM.

This repair with involve the use of the many thousands of words we have in ordianry material language that allow us to describe both change and complex relations (such as that between the forces and relations of production).

Like Marx I argue that the contradictions lie in the objective relations of human society.

How does the passage you quoted imply that I do?

Quite possibly.

Rosa, have you read this work by Hiroshi Uchida: Marx's Grundrisse and Hegel's Logic?

Do you have a refutation of that on your site?

So you claim. We have yet to see the evidence. But if it is possible to repair Cohen's work it is something which has so far eluded Cohen himself, or indeed any other exponent of analytical Marxism.

BTB:

So, when you said this you were either lying or joshing:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...2&postcount=31

Certainly Marx set these aside in Das Kapital, which is why I have alleged that my view of HM and his are at one.

On this, you seem to change with the wind.

This is a Hegelian concept, and you said:

So, unless you like to contradict yourself, you said it.

Well, then, why do you not write to Socialist Worker, as I do, and make this point?

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/SW_Letter_001.htm

Or, will you be at John Rees's talk on Saturday, as I will be, and make this point (as a supporter of my site will be doing)?

http://www.marxismfestival.org.uk/20...istmethod.html

BTB:

That is because he is still working in a functionalist and technological determinist paradigm.

And Plekhanov was a dialectician, but he was a technological determinist. So, dialectics is no guarantee of doctrinal purity.

And, you will need to be patient; I will repair HM when I have finished killing-off DM.

If you can't wait, then you will just have to accept Marx's claim that his theory can work without any Hegelian concepts, a subject over which you seem to be in two minds, anyway.

After all, one has to kill-off the source of infection [DM] before the patient [HM] can be helped on the road to recovery.

LZ:

No, and that is because Marx chose not to publish this book (i.e., Grundrisse -- which is only slightly Hegelian anyway, despite Uchida's claims), so it is not all that important.

Anyway, I have a general refutation of any theory of change that relies on Hegel. You can find that at the links I posted above.

Rosa:So how will you know when you've killed off DM? If it was just a case of theoretical refutation and, as you claim, dialectics is nonsensical, this should be quite an easy task which you should have completed long ago. No?

It's only important to understand dialectics if you want philosophic grounds to understand the importance of history, the class struggle, etc. Why else are ideology and politics inevitably bound up with economics? If these questions don't concern you, Marxist philosophy doesn't matter.
Marx never said communism is the "final and permanent mode of production", he said it was the end of class-based society. Surely other contradictions in society will arise.

I am fixated on clarity, which you seem to eschew.

You must first understand what you're attempting refute. I've no evidence of this at all in your voluminous writings.