Ro:

I think perhaps part of the problem here is that all the philosophising is at such a level of abstraction that it loses meaning. Thus, there is no way on Earth that Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Cliff or any other dialectical Marxist would describe the concrete process of history and class struggle in the way which you claim is consistent with their philosophical speculation. In fact, those five comrades are among the very best interpreters and analysts of the class struggle.

In Anti-Duhring, Engels warns against an analysis which begins and ends at the level of abstract statements such as the negation of the negation. He argues that this abstract formula describes a very general law of development but it cannot disclose an adequate understanding of concrete examples of development in either history or nature. In fact the main thrust of the book is to demonstrate that Marx's analysis in Das Kapital is not, as Duhring argues, derived from Hegelian abstraction, but from a thorough scientific analysis which just so happens to confirm the material dialectic. And there is enough evidence from Marx's own published comments on Kapital that he believed he'd accomplished the same.

But, as has been pointed out, at a certain level of analysis this is true > in any epoch of class society the subordinate classes are engaged in a struggle with the ruling class. When a subordinate class overthrows the ruling class there is real movement in history. A new social order is established (of a higher kind, if you agree with historical materialism that history in its general movement is a succession of modes of production, each one reflecting mankind's increasing mastery over nature) whereby the former subordinate class installs itself as the ruling class (but of a different kind) and occupies an antagonistic relation to other classes.

Of course, at this level of abstraction, we can see a general patterning of history, but we can't fully understand specific instances of revolution without empirically (and hermeneutically) investigating them.

He does write this. He claims he does it in the chapter on value as a homage to Hegel, who, despite his errors and weaknesses, was a great thinker compared to the "mediocre epigones" who were then dismissing him. So I think we can dismiss the idea that this "coquetting" was a means of satirizing Hegel himself and more a genuine nod of solidarity to a significant, former influence.

Moreover, it would be odd if Marx, in his major scientific work, employed these modes of expression in a random or capricious manner. It'd be comparable to Darwin coquetting with passages from Genesis in his Origin Of Species! In Marx's discussion of the primitive accumulation of capital (which Engels quotes from in my post above and which, incidentally, does not belong to the chapter on value which Marx targets as the chapter where the coquetting takes place in the Postface), I think Marx is struck by how the historical process he outlines mirrors, in its general movement, the negation of the negation.

Incidentally, the Postface which you place such emphasis on in order to absolve Marx from complicity in dialectical materialism ends with Marx proclaiming: Now this was written in 1873, a good five years after the original publication of Das Kapital. Are we to believe that he was still coquetting?

CZ:

As the quotations I have listed show, Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov, and Lenin (Mao also) did in fact argue along these lines when they tried to do a little amateur philosophy

I agree with you that this is incompatible with what they believed to be the case in HM, which just shows how useless dialectics is.

That is why I think so much of the concrete analyses developed by the comrades you mention, and reject the philosophical abstactions you refer to. The latter just get in the way.

I wonder why you defend them!

Once more, I agree, which underlines, yet again, how useless dialectics is.

We do far better when we ignore it. It neither works in the abstract, nor when we try to apply it to the class struggle, as you have seen.

Sure, but this just tells me HM does not need dialectics.

Quite the reverse, in fact; it is well off without it.

The more you try to make HM work, the more you have to ignore the input of dialectics.

Well, did Marx remove that phrase from the Introduction?

So, yes, he was still 'coquetting'.

And we can now see why; the Hegelian input prevents HM from working.

Ro:
I'm curious. Those five would argue that a dialectical understanding of social reality is crucial to their more concrete analyses. They argue for a definite and indispensable connection. You obviously disagree and see no connection between their philosophical musings and their political praxis. Nevertheless, you have devoted a lot of time and energy in exposing this "mystical doctrine" and continue to do so. This is a puzzle. If dialectics is such nonsense and has such little bearing on theory and practice, then why is it so passionately defended or opposed by its adherents and critics?

Marx didn't think so. An instant after having confessed to his "coquetting" he writes: That reads like a generous assessment of Hegel's achievement in the eyes of Marx. A ringing endorsement. Marx obviously believes the dialectics is of value in his analysis of the inner workings of the capitalist mode of production - if only it is stood upright and its rational kernal discovered.

Or in a letter to Kugelman from 1870:http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...s/70_06_27.htm

But to what end?

If coquetting with Hegelian modes cannot be interpreted as a slight against Hegel - but against those who mock him - then this just seems to indicate Marx's continuing fidelity to that "mighty thinker".

I don't quite understand your meaning. Are you suggesting that the reason Marx coquetted with Hegelian modes of expression was because he wanted to demonstrate that the dialectic was a hindrance to historical materialism? Doesn't this put us in the world of eccentric caprice? Couldn't Marx have found a more direct way of stating this? Something like "Everything Hegel wrote was rubbish. Don't even go there! It'll destroy historical materialism." I mean, why deliberately mislead people by claiming that you "critically apply" Hegel's method?

In truth, Rosa, the more evidence which is turned to in terms of Marx's own view on what he was doing, the more insecure your claim that Marx alone is absolved from the sin of dialectical materialism.

CZ:

Well, that is an entirely separate issue, which I have tried to explain briefly here before. I won't go into it again in this thread since it has little to do with the topic in hand -- you can find the full explanation now here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm

It's late and I have to get up early, so I will respond to the other things you say tomorrow.

CZ:

And it turns out that this 'rational kernel' contains no unities of opposites, no negation of the negation, no change of quantity into quality, no 'Totality'.

How do we know this; well as you now know, Marx very helpfully added a summary of that 'rational kernel' for us:

So, unlike the other dialectical classicists, Marx's method contains not one atom of Hegel.

And no wonder; we have seen that dialectics (a la Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov and Lenin, etc.) does not work in the abstract or the concrete, and can only be made to work by overlaying it with non-Hegelian concepts drawn from HM.

Not so, when you recall Marx endorsed a summary of 'his method' that left Hegel out completely.

Indeed, his critical method of applying it is to remove everything Hegelian from it, and return it to its source in the materialist method of the Scottish Historical Materialists, from where both Marx and Hegel got these ideas.

That summary confirms it.

Well, I recognise Plato as a 'mighty thinker', but reject 99% of what he says, and I sometimes play around with his concepts and analogies (such as the Myth of the Cave).

And if Marx really respected Hegel, then why would he 'coquette'?

I screw around with Plato's ideas to show my contempt for that 'mighty' ruling-class hack.

In view of the fact that, according to Marx himself, his 'method' contains no Hegel, I think Marx and I are on the same wavelength.

Except, I do not even 'coquette' with Hegel.

This is because, compared to Plato or Aristotle, Hegel was a dunce.

I think that by the time he was writing Das Kapital, Marx was returning to Aristotle, and waving goodbye to that logical incompetent, Hegel.

His 'coquetting' use of Hegelian terminolgy was a way of saying 'goodbye'.

In my early days as student, I was a sort of Platonist; when I abandoned it within a year, and began to read and study Wittgenstein, I still used to play around with Platonic terminology; I still do from time to time. I am sure others have been in the same boat.

And this can be asserted with some confidence, since Marx himself -- not me, not James Burnham, not Max Eastman, not Peter Struve -- endorsed a summary of 'his method' in which not a single Hegelain concept can be found.

On the contrary, the more we discuss this, the more clear it becomes I am right on the money.

It's an interesting conjecture. Trouble is there is absolutely no textual evidence left by Marx to support it. If Engels is to be believed, Marx nerver mentioned this departure in conversation to even his closest and most trusted collaborator.

CZ:

Well, I am not the first person to have noticed this; several others thought of it first.

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=uk

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=r...nMbcMY4A&hl=en

MEIKLE, SCOTT, Essentialism In The Thought Of Karl Marx (Open Court, 1985).

But, even if this is wrong, and it should turn out that Marx accepted the dialectic as Engels, Lenin and the rest did, that would still not make it work, and the job of excising it from Marxist theory would still have to go ahead.

Under those circumstances, Marx's reputation would, in fact, take a blow.

Incidentally, evidence that Mao did indeed reject the 'negation of the negation' can be found here (in addition to that given above):

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=m...O6TAE3UE&hl=en

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0...cpPt7LVk&hl=en

Although this is put into context here:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=C...MRrMo4-o&hl=en