Rowan BerkeleyThere is a contradiction in popular Marxism which has remained unchanged since 100 years ago, when Italian Marxists were debating the conquest of Libya. This contradiction arises from the inconsistencies of Marx and Engels themselves regarding colonial matters, and their general inability to complete and integrate their own various divergent trains of thought (an inability which is apparent even in their economics).

On the one hand, socialism in the Marxian sense only becomes possible when industrial development has reached the level at which the productive apparatus is capable of producing everything that everyone basically needs with ever-decreasing quantities of human labour and ever-increasing automation. The development of capitalism within the geographical area controlled by each national economy required that regions within each where labour-intensive production was performed would have the surplus-value generated within them transferred to those in which capital-intensive production was performed. Thus, a certain degree of regional inequality was inevitable. Extended to an international scale, this meant that industrial countries would and should colonise unindustrialised ones, as captive markets, sources of cheap labour, and sources also of cheap raw materials both agricultural and mineral (from tea and coffee to oil and tin).

On the other hand, Marx and Engels supported the struggle of Germany against France, and that of the USA against Britain, and that of Japan against Russia and China. They sometimes argued as if the struggles of would-be-industrial nations against the already-industrialised ones were ‘progressive’, and sometimes as if they were ‘reactionary’. Now, after a hundred years of this ambiguity, we are seeing a global financial system which evidently makes such struggles almost impossible, and the emergence of a single integrated world market in which all but the existing industrial nations are evidently to be bombed back into barbarism if necessary to keep them at the level of obedient suppliers of raw materials and cheap labour. Is this, from a ‘Marxist’ point-of-view, ‘progressive’ or ‘reactionary’? Is there a consistent ‘Marxist’ point-of-view on this at all, and if so, does anyone have the courage to say what it is?

This is precisely the problem that became my point of departure from Marxism. It is simply a more efficient (“scientific”) colonial-industrial economic paradigm than the orthodox liberal one, or the older feudal and despotic ones. It is a revolutionary methodology, in the sense of program for instrumentalizing the violent rupture of man and his dreams unto nature, which is nothing but a way of imposing theoretical abstracts on the world and the people inhabiting it, Marxism simply being a more deeply penetrating uprooting manipulation of the world such that it threatens those already oppressing and dominating the world to their zero-sum secular advantage. It says nothing of living peacefully and harmoniously in the world that really exists, it just offers a Utopia and a battle cry.

Rowan BerkeleyIf Marxism is more efficient than liberalism, it is so for the same reasons that fascism is, plus the fact that unlike fascism it has a plausible internationalist strand to it, even though this is only relative and hence impossible to expand to a global level without self-contradiction. I refer to Leninist anti-imperialism. A global Marxian system would have to be anti-itself to maintain this justification, once the ‘capitalist’ opponent was gone.

I have a further problem, actually. It is only true up to a certain point in the geo-economic pyramid that surplus value is transferred from regions of labour-intensive production to those of capital-intensive production (which is what Marxian economics requires, to offset the falling rate of profit). Above a certain level, surplus value is transferred from the capital-intensive areas to the centres of administration and consumption, e.g. the capital cities, which produce very little. This has always been so. Rome produced nothing itself except rulers and proles. So ‘finance capital’ does not so much ‘float free of production,’ as I said a couple of days ago; it actually transcends it. Politics transcends economics. The production of money is a purely political act, undetermined by the requirements of physical production and determined entirely by political strategies. This may be a ‘delinquency’ of capital, as I called it, but it is an eternal feature of politics, even pre-capitalist ones.

Nitzan and Bichler abandoned Marxism for a reason related to this. I seem to recall that they also argue that power is not reducible to mere money, in any determinate economic sense, but is politically transcendent of it. Maybe I make them sound closer to what I am saying than they really are, but it’s definitely a related criticism. They explain their argument in this full-length, freely-downloable pdf book, ‘Capital as Power’, which I have not yet read and will read now:
http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/259/

There is an obvious way of saving the appearances for Marxian economics: define the ‘labour’ of rulers and administrators as enormously skilled and thus enormously valuable as ‘intellectual capital’. Then this invisible and imponderable form of ‘capital’ can be allowed to outweigh the various forms of ‘physical capital’ in the economic system, and thus it becomes possible to say that surplus-value naturally gravitates upward to these rulers and administrators because their ‘intellectual capital’ (i.e. political power and value) is the greatest ‘capital’ of all and their cogitations are the most ‘capital-intensive’ form of activity of all. With this circular reasoning, you can justify anything.

discipline posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:
The only communist imperialist movements that were not genuine popular movements were the Afghanisti Communist government, the reinstatement of the Hungarian Communist Government after 1956, and arguably maoist takeover of Tibet.

could you elaborate on this statement a bit for me?

Most "communist" movements were anti-colonial, land reform egalitarian parties that were labeled as such by the USA and then accepted the label to gain position during the cold war. Whether or not they were genuinely "socialist" or not is not really that important, since in reality this is what socialism has meant in real world terms. Socialism as a movement mostly means nationalization of resources, collectivization of land, introducing progressive egalitarian measures, rapid industrialization, etc, and whether this is what some first world bougie imagines pure socialism to mean is not that important.

Nevertheless, socialism does have to derive from popular movements, and these were the examples in which a regime was imposed against the wishes of the people with Soviet backing. Afghanistan is probably the only actual example of "socialist" imperialism. Hungary is complicated but I can accept people who say it was a legitimate repression of the people, and Tibet is another example I don't care enough to defend. Every other example of a socialist regime is a clear case of popular, nationalistic, revolutionary movements, which is basically the opposite of capitalist regimes allied to the USA after WWII.

Sorry if this isn't clear I'm not exactly sure what you want me to expand on.

germanjoey posted:

babyfinland posted:
soltangoliev-chan...

I'd basically like to discuss Marxism, as an analytical methodology and as a political program, and whether or not it is fundamentally allied to colonialism. Seems to me that it is, but that it has redeemable aspects (such as the concept of class analysis and its critique of capitalist logic)

how on fucking earth could it seem to you that "marxism is fundamentally allied to colonialism". what strong legs you must have to make such a leap of logic, lol.

I get what he's saying. Left-communism, Trotskyism, and other bourgeois excuses for Marxism derive from the idea of stages of economic development that communism can only manifest from fully developed capitalism, and so imperialism which develops a country into a capitalist state (a misunderstanding of imperialism obviously) is progressive and is superior to anti-imperialist nationalism which often has reactionary characteristics (Afghanistan comes to mind).

This is not a small thing, very few "communists" will come out and say they support the invasion of afghanistan against islamo-fascism (though some will, Ijust read that exact thing on revleft yesterday), many genuinely believe the USSR and China were "state-capitalist" and were never and could never be socialist because they had not gone through the transitional stage of capitalism. BF sort of phrases it wrong, because Marx is a very complex writer who could never be reduced to such a vulgar interpretation, but trotskyism which is a major trend n the 1st world left does in reality support imperialism.

germanjoey posted:

babyfinland posted:
soltangoliev-chan...

I'd basically like to discuss Marxism, as an analytical methodology and as a political program, and whether or not it is fundamentally allied to colonialism. Seems to me that it is, but that it has redeemable aspects (such as the concept of class analysis and its critique of capitalist logic)

how on fucking earth could it seem to you that "marxism is fundamentally allied to colonialism". what strong legs you must have to make such a leap of logic, lol.

Because of Soviet policy in Central Asia, for example? Or China in Tibet? Or the division of the Korean people? There's no significant difference between the Soviet Union and a bourgeois welfare state like say Finland except that the latter enjoy more civil liberties.

Edited by babyfinland (Aug. 30, 2011 16:49:43)

Crow posted:
what I don't understand, is taking this critical view against theory, in some sort of fantastical relation with a 'balanced' nature. when is nature balanced ? when do the wild dogs have enough progeny ? where do we draw the line between the acceptance of an incomplete storm, an open eye towards hyoomans, and shelter ? i'm not sure how to engage with you from your holy book, but what part of 'hating the world' makes you want to live in harmony with it ?

The assertion of justice and righteousness within the opportunities provided and within the limits imposed by the Almighty; hating the world enough to not be distracted by it and using it instead as a waystation wherein to purify oneself through good deeds and faith before returning to the source of being.

marxism is a violent gesture, sure. the base structure is an idea, and ideas colonize our fractured psyches, but where will you go ? into the void ? is that decolonization ?

yes, but this takes struggle, and then you come back for a time, and you have responsibilities to tend to when you return if you are to stay loyal to that "decolonization"

a dead man doesn't have final say on our future, not from the secular texts nor the holy. how bout that? a fool tries to live in a world 'that already exists', he's always behind by definition

i think you know that that criticism doesnt really apply to believers

it seems like this criticism is along the lines of 'peace without strength,' when making peace is the strongest, most violent gesture. just look at what they call 'peacekeepers'

well no, i actually would agree with you here

Crow posted:

babyfinland posted:
Let me sum up in the form of a question:

Why is "Marxism" so weak? Why isn't "Marxism" necessary to be a good "communist", and why doesn't "Marxism" prevent revisionism?

I'll respond to the other things in a while, but you know better than this. 'Marxism' in its revolutionary role, was explosive. The Cultural Revolution shook the core of the First World, reconfiguring it radically. The lapses in revision, they were a complete turning away of Marxism as a living science, it was taught and institutionalized as completely dead, boring theory in the 'revisionist nations'. My mother, raised after WWII and hardly a Marxist whatsoever, can recite from memory perfect Marxist jabber, perfectly dead, without any sort of conviction. I'm sure many of you could do the same.

So why did Marxism turn to revisionism? Why did Islam turn to revisionism? Where does Islam govern in a revolutionary role right now? Why did Gaddafi have to turn away from the Arabs, the harbingers of Islam? This is weak, baby finny, this is weak sauce. You may as well ask 'why are humans prone to error?,' that's a good question, a better question is 'how can we fail better?' Life is a process of learning from your mistakes, and mistakes are inevitable, so we must strengthen the ideas that truly worked. I'm sure the Colonel would agree.

Anyway, ideas aren't inherently oppressive, they may have those elements, but they are free like you and me, and can be altered. Marx and Engels were unreliable in their understanding of imperialism. Are we to assume the theory they worked on is still so unreliable? Does it reliably predict the process and power flow of Capital better than other theories? Of course there's a weakness in previous forms of Marxism that turned to revisionism and colonialism, there's no disputing that, the dispute here is that 'what is will always be'. Nein! We rip from the Grund, and transcend it. Perhaps in your language: we are part of the Almighty, and also free to act. We came a long way with Marxism, there's no dead end here, no need to turn back and go to a 'harmonious nature' that never allowed us to remain.

I actually agree with everything you've said here, so maybe you're misunderstanding me.

I was thinking about the question I posed and I think I need to reframe it: It's not so much "Why is Marxism (or Islam, or any given revolutionary methodology) so weak?" but "Why do we demand strength from the abstract what we (necessarily) contain within ourselves in the concrete?" There is no need to conduct idolatrous wars of ideology, we simply must engage in revolutionary struggle, collectively and universally.

My problem here with so-called "Marxism" (and this is a problem with "leftism" generally, at least in the present time) is as follows:

First, the illusion that there is a community upon which to engage with in Marxist terms (i.e. there is no Marxist nation or Marxist community and so Marxism must always be adapted to the particular; something that is commonly understood in theory but rarely practiced in reality anymore). Marxian theory and economics surely can be adopted by revolutionary movements, but they are not really necessary. The fundamental revolutionary tenets such as social justice and anti-capitalism are not exclusively "Marxist" and do not need a nominally or peculiarly Marxist program to be resolved. Revolutionary struggle will express itself correctly if it is engaged in correctly: we should resist the urge to colonize popular movements with theory.

Secondly, due to the problem I've described above, to be principally a "leftist" anymore is to be someone who demands. There are of course leftists of various kinds in various communities, but they are first and foremost Palestinian, or African, or American or whatever: their allegiance is hinged to a community and nationhood before it is hinged to ideology. This is an issue that is dealt with most commonly in rightist texts such as those of Dugin's (his theories of Eurasia vs. Atlantis) and even some liberals such as Slezkine's The Jewish Century (Appolonians vs. Mercurians), but it is an issue that is neglected by leftists to their detriment, lumping them into a niche that is firmly embedded within capital flows. If one is a true "leftist", i.e. revolutionary anti-capitalist, one will take these demands and drives to one's community and work with that community to better it according to one's understanding. To bombard Capital with demands and undermine the working class by identifying problems of reaction within the oppressed without being a member of that community (and therefore understanding why there exists this reactionary element, and perhaps the necessity of it at a given point in time, and the ability to offer constructive solutions instead of abstract dogmas (i.e. theoretical colonization)) is liberalism, and covertly conducting the work of Capital. One can be firmly a member of the community and identify as such before one's leftism, because there is no nationhood that exists that can really be "capitalist" or "reactionary". Capitalism destroys communal identities, families and nationhoods. These forms of social organization are natural allies to revolutionary anti-capitalism.

babyfinland posted:
First, the illusion that there is a community upon which to engage with in Marxist terms (i.e. there is no Marxist nation or Marxist community and so Marxism must always be adapted to the particular; something that is commonly understood in theory but rarely practiced in reality anymore). Marxian theory and economics surely can be adopted by revolutionary movements, but they are not really necessary. The fundamental revolutionary tenets such as social justice and anti-capitalism are not exclusively "Marxist" and do not need a nominally or peculiarly Marxist program to be resolved. Revolutionary struggle will express itself correctly if it is engaged in correctly: we should resist the urge to colonize popular movements with theory.

Well, yes, Marxism theory doesn't need to lead struggle, there's no denying that historical necessity is mediated by contingency. But Marxist theory isn't just the basis of a program, it's the basis of a strategy, and this makes all the difference. Because armed with this strategy, we know the enemy at its proper historical and contingent distance, most importantly on the basis of dialectical materialism (which is THE theoretical task today: how to strengthen and re-establish the coordinates of this dynamic theory). Dialectical materialism is extremely important, because it is not a simple, naive, contradictory logic, but a logic of contradictory relations, which helps us understand the whole societal relation from which Capital and its primordial power basis developed. It is not linear or expressive, but a radical departure that highlights the dominance of instances. Applying this diamat to the first world/Capital empire, the US becomes the dominant instance, but not the definitive, and as you can see this has very serious strategic repercussions for any anti-imperial or liberatory movement.

Of course there are some very serious philosophical repercussions here, that transcend particular revolutionary strategy, which is the real importance of the dialectical-materialist basis of Marxism (and psychoanalysis). While of course we must take to task any incorrect imposition of theory, theory must indeed be imposed in a way, due to the contingency of history and the (free) will of men blah blah blah. I mean, supporting and applying ideas, well it is a free gesture on the face of history, for history already has all the components of the 'world as it is', but ideas delve into the 'world as it can be'. The 'world as it can be' is a world that must struggle to be born. I'm thinking Khalid ibn al-Walid here, pushing theory with a sword.

babyfinland posted:
Secondly, due to the problem I've described above, to be principally a "leftist" anymore is to be someone who demands. There are of course leftists of various kinds in various communities, but they are first and foremost Palestinian, or African, or American or whatever: their allegiance is hinged to a community and nationhood before it is hinged to ideology. This is an issue that is dealt with most commonly in rightist texts such as those of Dugin's (his theories of Eurasia vs. Atlantis) and even some liberals such as Slezkine's The Jewish Century (Appolonians vs. Mercurians), but it is an issue that is neglected by leftists to their detriment, lumping them into a niche that is firmly embedded within capital flows. If one is a true "leftist", i.e. revolutionary anti-capitalist, one will take these demands and drives to one's community and work with that community to better it according to one's understanding. To bombard Capital with demands and undermine the working class by identifying problems of reaction within the oppressed without being a member of that community (and therefore understanding why there exists this reactionary element, and perhaps the necessity of it at a given point in time, and the ability to offer constructive solutions instead of abstract dogmas (i.e. theoretical colonization)) is liberalism, and covertly conducting the work of Capital. One can be firmly a member of the community and identify as such before one's leftism, because there is no nationhood that exists that can really be "capitalist" or "reactionary". Capitalism destroys communal identities, families and nationhoods. These forms of social organization are natural allies to revolutionary anti-capitalism.

i mean really what i see here is the sceptre of dogma and revision, which is what Lacan meant by the university discourse (quite literally, think of the example of my mom reciting Marxist dogma she learned in school and university, in that revisionist, droll tone!). But this, also, can be approached with psychoanalysis and Marxist as unified diamat, for we are truly coming to an abstract colonization of the subject, which we can take to task with these theories. To be honest, I am here sympathetic to Zizek's (and Badiou's) materialist theology, specifically the case of Grace, the opening towards becoming a subject to truth in the wake of an unexpected event. "The grace of living for an Idea." But where does grace inject itself? into an event within a community, an event 'taking hold' within the historical conjecture, of course this is the true radical heart of Marxist strategy. there is no reason to abstract theory to an imagined 'international community' that does not also live within the community in the particular. that's obviously dogma that is of no use, an error, not good theory. obviously you go to the people, and work at the application of theory to the masses, this is where the genius of Lenin and Mao resides.

reaction to capitalism and imperialism isn't enough, it is the Idea that transcends it. when we lose the idea, then it is simply reaction against reaction, and that is doomed.

Edited by Crow (Sept. 1, 2011 06:17:54)

babyfinland posted:
I've read your response a couple times and I don't think we disagree very much. I have some qualms about your claims regarding dialectical materialism but I that is something I'll have to consider more carefully. Also I think you are more steeped in Badiou's vocabulary and thought, and his take on Marxism than I am. I hear some exclusionary language in your insistence upon the uniqueness of historical materialism as strategically significant, which is a claim I don't think is justified. Perhaps Badiou could shed some light on this but I don't think that Marxism is such a radical rupture from the philosophies of the Enlightenment. (Maoism fares much better, though, and should probably be distinguished from "Marxism" as such, at least for our purposes).

Crow posted:
reaction to capitalism and imperialism isn't enough, it is the Idea that transcends it. when we lose the idea, then it is simply reaction against reaction, and that is doomed.

this is precisely where communism / marxism fails. the world knows its Idea, it does not need these theories to posture as great thinkers failing and failing better with every passing decade

Well, I think here I am making a mathematic turn, and so to me the birth of diamat is the birth of differential calculus, indeed also the rediscovery of set theory (important in how we can begin to understand the enigma of large cardinal numbers, that is, the infinite). That is such an epistemological break, that indeed comes from the Enlightenment, but only as its transcendent.

With this in mind, I consider Maoism and Marxism-Leninism as the heirs to Marxism, or rather the temporal configurations and advancements of the Idea. As far as historical materialism is concerned, it is a branch of science, and just like any branch must be continuously purged. Not sure what you want here? Historical materialism is not destiny, since the present is contingent. Don't really see the problem here man, if you don't want to use a scientific branch to climb up the monkey tree, fine, but you better find another branch to latch onto!

elemennop posted:

babyfinland posted:
I suppose that's what it is: "science" in Marxism takes place within the artifice of the Enlightenment paradigm which compartmentalizes reality towards the ends of secular efficiency, which is imperialist epistemology.

This is where I disagree with you. I don't believe Science is an imperialist epistemology taking place within an Enlightenment paradigm. While it may have been Bacon or whoever who codified science formally, science has existed as an epistemology from before Babylonians. It may be in imperialist "possession", but that's no reason to let them keep it!

Of course not! I used scarequotes around "science" to denote that scientific practices (political, economic and otherwise) have been monopolized by precisely that problematic epistemology perspective. It need not be so.

It is true that with each stage of progression, the heirs to Marxism have become less and less so, but I just don't see the benefit or utility of its rehabilitation and springing it upon the world once again when we have the tools we need already.

You say that "I better find another branch to latch onto", but the way I see it, the Marxist branch is beneath us and there is a plenitude of branches above; we want to get to the top, so why this perverse loyalty to what will only lead us back down?

Constructing a metaphor doesn't make it true. I don't believe that the line of Marxism is finished. Certainly, we must improve and refine it like Crow has said, but even in very flawed implementations it has been remarkably successful in practice. Furthermore, an idea repeated at a different time can be completely different. Look at the difference between Archimedes's proto-Calculus compared to Newton's. Without the support of analytic geometry (and everything else), Archimedes's calculus was a rough idea--he could not create it into a complete theory. But that does not mean that his idea was a failure!

I actually agree with you, I just think that the time for Marxism per se, i.e. overtly "Marxist" projects, has past. Even movements like the Naxalites using overtly communist articles or people the world over championing icons like Che alongside their own national heroes, but these are already characterized by something more particularized, tradition-bound and carried by nationalist (rather than internationalist) cultural and expressive modes. The tools and science of Marxism has impregnated the resistance struggles of the world's oppressed and achieved quite a lot, thank God! However, Marxism (or perhaps I should say Marxists) per se have become alienated from these struggles and co-opted into the bourgeois, pseudo-academic imperial domain. I say this in full cognizance of the role of communist parties in labor organization throughout the world, including the Arab Spring, and have nothing bad to say about those comrades. But they should not and can not carry the whole weight of anti-imperialism by themselves, and I do not see them as carrying the vanguard force that they once did.

babyfinland posted:

Secondly, due to the problem I've described above, to be principally a "leftist" anymore is to be someone who demands. There are of course leftists of various kinds in various communities, but they are first and foremost Palestinian, or African, or American or whatever: their allegiance is hinged to a community and nationhood before it is hinged to ideology. This is an issue that is dealt with most commonly in rightist texts such as those of Dugin's (his theories of Eurasia vs. Atlantis) and even some liberals such as Slezkine's The Jewish Century (Appolonians vs. Mercurians), but it is an issue that is neglected by leftists to their detriment, lumping them into a niche that is firmly embedded within capital flows. If one is a true "leftist", i.e. revolutionary anti-capitalist, one will take these demands and drives to one's community and work with that community to better it according to one's understanding. To bombard Capital with demands and undermine the working class by identifying problems of reaction within the oppressed without being a member of that community (and therefore understanding why there exists this reactionary element, and perhaps the necessity of it at a given point in time, and the ability to offer constructive solutions instead of abstract dogmas (i.e. theoretical colonization)) is liberalism, and covertly conducting the work of Capital. One can be firmly a member of the community and identify as such before one's leftism, because there is no nationhood that exists that can really be "capitalist" or "reactionary". Capitalism destroys communal identities, families and nationhoods. These forms of social organization are natural allies to revolutionary anti-capitalism.

this is more of a criticism of the impotency of the academic "left" than leftist thought per se. you're right when you say that Demands must always be rooted in the experiential conditions of a community. revolution will always require movement-building; a deep commitment and solidarity with an oppressed people. to be successful, these movements must universalize individuals' suffering and anomie under capitalism into an aggregate force for systemic change, and the only way to do that is to build trust and relationships with actual, live humans. the dirty work of organizing requires the organizer to immerse themselves in the lives of the people they are trying to serve. marxist thought provides a platform and strategy to take these universal expressions of oppression and provide them with drive and direction, it is an ideological weapon and a unifying drive.

so, yes, ivory tower leftism will never amount to much, precisely because it is not rooted in the experiences of a community. for the academic, it is a dry, dead ideology. for someone who is actively organizing and living a life of struggle it is vibrant and beautiful.