The revolutionary dialectic - Page 2

Rosa Lichtenstein · #21 14th January 2008, 09:07

Peacenicked:

Quote:

Mystical forms that have god as their 'matter', correspond to real forms when they deal with actual things. This is roughly Marx on Hegel, who you are one step behind.

This was when Marx was leaving his Hegelian roots behind him.

He never asserted this again. And even if he had, there is no way Marx could have proved this.

But, hey, you believe everything you read, don't you?

peaccenicked · #22 14th January 2008, 11:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

Peacenicked:

This was when Marx was leaving his Hegelian roots behind him.

He never asserted this again. And even if he had, there is no way Marx could have proved this.

But, hey, you believe everything you read, don't you?

Quote:

We cannot do justice to the concrete, historical dialectic without considering in some detail the founder of this method, Hegel, and his relation to Marx. Marx’s warning not to treat Hegel as a ‘dead dog’ has gone unheeded even by many good Marxists. (The efforts of Engels and Plekhanov have also been all too ineffectual.) Yet Marx frequently drew attention to this danger. Thus he wrote of Dietzgen: “It is his bad luck that he managed not to study Hegel.” (Letter to Engels, 7.11.1868.) And in another letter (dated 11.1.1868) we read: “The gentlemen in Germany ... think that Hegel’s dialectic is a ‘dead dog’. In this respect Feuerbach has much on his conscience.” In a letter dated 14 January, 1858 he lays emphasis on the ‘great benefits’ he has derived for his method of procedure with the Critique of Political Economy from his re-reading of Hegel’s Logic. But we are not here concerned with the philological side of the relation between Marx and Hegel. Marx’s view of the importance of Hegel’s dialectic is of lesser moment here than the substantive significance of this method for Marxism. These statements which could be multiplied at will were quoted only because this significance had been underestimated even by Marxists. Too much reliance has been placed on the well-known passage in the preface to Capital which contains Marx’s last public statement on the matter. I am referring here not to his account of the real content of their relationship, with which I am in complete agreement and which I have tried to spell out systematically in these pages. I am thinking exclusively of the phrase which talks of ‘flirting’ with Hegel’s ‘mode of expression’. This has frequently misled people into believing that for Marx the dialectic was no more than a superficial stylistic ornament and that in the interests of ‘scientific precision’ all traces of it should be eradicated systematically from the method of historical materialism. Even otherwise conscientious scholars like Professor Vorländer, for example, believed that they could prove that Marx had ‘flirted’ with Hegelian concepts ‘in only two places’, and then again in a ‘third place’. Yet they failed to notice that a whole series of categories of central importance and in constant use stem directly from Hegel’s Logic.

From http://www.marxists.org/archive/luka...eface-1922.htm

It seems Rosa you dont understand anything you read at least on dialectics,

try reading the Logic and Capital in tandem.
As to proof :How many examples do you need 1 to infinite?

Rosa Lichtenstein · #23 14th January 2008, 13:37

PeaceN:

Quote:

It seems Rosa you dont understand anything you read at least on dialectics,

As I have pointed out to you, and others, many times, this puts me in good company, since no one understands this mystical theory (any more than theologians understand the Trinity) -- not Hegel, not Engels, not Plekhanov, not Lenin, not Trotsky, not Lukacs...

Or, if they did, they kept that secret well hidden.

Quote:

try reading the Logic and Capital in tandem.
As to proof :How many examples do you need 1 to infinite?

Done it many times, and made detailed notes. Still incomprehensible twaddle (the Hegel stuff), and Capital is not based on the 'logic', despite what Lenin, or even Lukacs, said.

This I have demonstrated many times, for example, here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...1&postcount=69

And still, you advise me to read Hegel's two hundred year old 'logic' (which puts logic back to before Aristotle), when you have yet to master any modern logic. [But you still pontificate about it.]

At least this explains why you have swallowed all this Hermetic guff.

And, please, do not quote any more Lukacs at me; I want to hang on to my dinner a bit longer in future.

*Bob The Builder* · #24 14th January 2008, 18:08

Quote:

And, please, do not quote any more Lukacs at me; I want to hang on to my dinner a bit longer in future.

That's a bit mean given that you seem to have nicked one of your favourite arguments off him - the coquetting with modes of expression passage which he played down (in 1923) and you play up (in 2008).

Rosa Lichtenstein · #25 14th January 2008, 18:43

Z:

Quote:

That's a bit mean given that you seem to have nicked one of your favourite arguments off him - the coquetting with modes of expression passage which he played down (in 1923) and you play up (in 2008).

No, any part of Lukacs, even the part where he mangles that argument, makes me queasy.

He missed out the part where Marx explains his method, the part that I predicted you will need to have shoved under your nose at least another 18 times before it sinks in:

Quote:

"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

You will notice that Marx's method contains no "Totality", no "Unity or Identity of Opposites", no "contradictions", no "negation of the negation" and no "quantiy into quality" b*llocks.

So, Marx agrees with me, and not with you, or Lukacs, or Lenin.

You will also note that Lukacs advcates the importance of Hegel.

Odd that you missed that bit, isn't it...?

*Bob The Builder* · #26 14th January 2008, 18:49

Yes.

Quote:

what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02.underline emphasis added

The dialectic method which you continually call into question.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #27 14th January 2008, 18:58

Z:

Quote:

The dialectic method which you continually call into question.

Yes, and he helpfully summarised it for us:

Quote:

"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

Even you will not be able to find anything in there that merits calling it 'dialectical', except in a 'coquettish' sort of way.

No "Totality", no "Unity or Identity of Opposites", no "contradictions", no "negation of the negation" and no "quantiy into quality" b*llocks.

As he himself admits; here and there he:

Quote:

coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

Now there is not much I can do to help you if you keep ignoring Marx.

So, that's only 17 more reminders you are going to need...

*Bob The Builder* · #28 14th January 2008, 19:13

R:

Quote:

You will also note that Lukacs advcates the importance of Hegel.

Odd that you missed that bit, isn't it...?

No I didn't miss the Hegel stuff and I'm not claiming that I agree with Lukacs here (actually I wouldn't pretend I'm particularly familiar with his argument, despite the fact that his book has been gathering dust on my bookshelf for nearly twenty years!). I was just struck by the similarity between the arguments he derides and the ones you propound.

But this is the question that always bugs me: According to your reading, Marx is arguing that the description given by the reviewer is an accurate description of his method - his "dialectic method". What does he mean by "dialectic" in this context?

You're right of course, on one level. The reviewer does not mention "Totality", "Unity or Identity of Opposites", "contradictions", "negation of the negation" or "quantity into quality". But this doesn't seem to prevent Marx from describing his own method (and the one employed in Capital) as a dialectic method.

So Marx's reading of the review seems to differ from your reading.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #29 14th January 2008, 19:19

Z:

Quote:

What does he mean by "dialectic" in this context?

He is using the term 'coquettishly', as he admitted.

Quote:

So Marx's reading of the review seems to differ from your reading.

No, for I see in there no "Totality", no "Unity or Identity of Opposites", no "contradictions", no "negation of the negation" and no "quantiy into quality" b*llocks.

And I take this seriously:

Quote:

(I) coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

You do not.

*Bob The Builder* · #30 14th January 2008, 19:28

Sure, but he ends this very same postface - which is only a few pages long - with this declaration:

Quote:

In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.
The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is once again approaching, although as yet but in its preliminary stage; and by the universality of its theatre and the intensity of its action it will drum dialectics even into the heads of the mushroom-upstarts of the new, holy Prusso-German empire.

Is he still coquetting like a mischief-maker here? If so, when he uses the "mode of expression" dialectic and contradictions, what is he really referring to?

Rosa Lichtenstein · #31 14th January 2008, 19:33

We do not need to speculate, for he had already told us that his method was this:

Quote:

"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

Where you will notice that all the things comrades like you associate with the 'dialectical method' are conspicuous by their absence.

Only 16 more reminders to go...

And, in the passage you quote, he says this:

Quote:

because it lets nothing impose upon it

This personifies the 'dialectic' and shows Marx is still merely 'coquetting'.

And, as to the meaning of the terms you mention, they have no meaning as used by you mystics, and that is why Marx said:

Quote:

(I) coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

peaccenicked · #32 14th January 2008, 20:02

The ''Grundisse" is even closer to Hegel than Capital. The latter was written for a more popular audience. The are pieces from Hegel(when he drifts into materialism) that could fit right into Marx's Text.
The "Logic" is simply the method Marx used on economy that Hegel used on god. Marx recognises this when he says he turned Hegel on "his feet."

You cannot get away with this enormous blind spot. You are talkin pure BS.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #33 14th January 2008, 20:10

Marx saw fit not to publish Grundrisse, so whatever happened to his thinking between writing that 'book' and publishing Das Kapital, he clearly turned away from that logical incompetent, Hegel.

But you would know all this if you kept up. We have been over this more times than even you have screwed up.

Quote:

You cannot get away with this enormous blind spot. You are talkin pure BS.

Translated, this simply means you cannot respond to my argument.

So, you throw your toys out of your pram again.

As you always do...

*Bob The Builder* · #34 14th January 2008, 20:13

Quote:

We do not need to speculate, for he had already told us that his method was this:

Yes, yes. But how do you interpret the final two paragraphs of the postface that I quoted above?

Rosa Lichtenstein · #35 14th January 2008, 20:31

Z:

Quote:

But how do you interpret the final two paragraphs of the postface that I quoted above?

I don't.

Marx was in 'coquetting' mood, and in that mood he is best left ignored.

[Especially when you recall that the ruling class in Stalin's USSR rather liked the 'dialectic', so it cannot have been an 'abomination' to them; personified or not.]

peaccenicked · #36 14th January 2008, 21:08

My arqument is quite simple. Marx in all truth was an Hegelian till thje day he died. Lukacs points this out. You choose to ignore this. Your whole argument is screwed up because you fail miserably to recognize the truth when it hits you in the face.

If you go through commodity production while use value and exchange value are not opposites, Marx views them through the prism of opposites. He talks of it not being the quantity of labour time but the quality. He talks of constant and variable capital. It is everywhere.

I really do think you are just at winding people up.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #37 14th January 2008, 21:17

Peacenicked reduced to simple declarations of faith:

Quote:

Marx in all truth was an Hegelian till thje day he died. Lukacs points this out. You choose to ignore this. Your whole argument is screwed up because you fail miserably to recognize the truth when it hits you in the face.

Unfortunately, Marx disagrees with you.

Quote:

If you go through commodity production while use value and exchange value are not opposites, Marx views them through the prism of opposites. He talks of it not being the quantity of labour time but the quality. He talks of constant and variable capital. It is everywhere.

You'll be saying 'god' is everywhere next.

Quote:

I really do think you are just at winding people up.

Yes, it's convenenient for you to think this, isn't it?

*Bob The Builder* · #38 14th January 2008, 21:33

R:

Quote:

Marx was in 'coquetting' mood, and in that mood he is best left ignored.

So we should take him seriously right up to the point where he uses the phrase "coquetting with modes peculiar to him" and then he's just winding up the reader?

Wow, what an amazing insight! Did he tell you this in a dream?

Quote:

Marx was in 'coquetting' mood, and in that mood he is best left ignored.

Meaning: Rosa ignores everything Marx wrote which contradicts her.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #39 14th January 2008, 22:19

Z:

Quote:

So we should take him seriously right up to the point where he uses the phrase "coquetting with modes peculiar to him" and then he's just winding up the reader?

You have no room to talk, for you accept the traditional view of these passgaes, where for example, Marx allegedly eulogises Hegel, but you are quite proud of the fact that you have never read Hegel, and do not look to his philosophy for guidance.

I just go one step further than you, and take Marx at his word that he was "coquetting" with Hegel at this point.

So, you are the inconsistent one here.

Quote:

Meaning: Rosa ignores everything Marx wrote which contradicts her.

Just as you ignore this:

Quote:

"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

In which, not a single 'dialectical' idea is to be found.

Only 15 to go.

*Bob The Builder* · #40 14th January 2008, 22:57

Quote:

You have no room to talk, for you accept the traditional view of these passgaes, where for example, Marx allegedly eulogises Hegel, but you are quite proud of the fact that you have never read Hegel, and do not look to his philosophy for guidance.

Yes, because the traditional reading makes more sense than your highly selective interpretation which dismisses the concluding remarks of the piece and asks the reader to accept that all reference to the "dialectic method" which Marx makes is some obscure joke.

Quote:

I just go one step further than you, and take Marx at his word that he was "coquetting" with Hegel at this point.

No, you take several steps further and distort the meaning of Marx's word, so that "coquetting with the mode of expression peculiar to him" actually means a total rejection of Hegel. Next you'll be arguing that 2+2=5.

Then there are those words Marx uses when he writes, for instance:

Quote:

The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

and you tell us to ignore them.

Then there are the words which are absent. The words where Marx tells us that somewhere between writing the notes of the Grundrisse and writing Das Kapital, he had an epiphany - a complete transformation and reversal in his method - and he completely abandoned the dialectic. Of course, the reason they're absent is because they don't exist. He never wrote them.

So we can see from the above in the way you distort, omit and assume, how much you respect the word of Marx.

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