getfiscal posted:That Marx quote doesn't mean that. Marx is making a point similar to Aristotle, that higher moral ends are ends in themselves and not instrumental to those ends. In capitalist class society, labour is estranged from its aim because the worker is alienated from the object it produces and must also do that work to survive. Marx is saying that communism will bring harmony between aim and effort.
i think you're confusing my point. i'm not saying that marx's understanding of freedom is equivalent to physical necessity and as such natural law but that marx's understanding of necessity is equivalent to physical necessity
the sphere of freedom is of course distinct to the sphere of necessity, marx very explicitly delineates the two. but as engels suggests, the sphere of necessity is predicated upon knowledge of physical necessity and the coherence of such a recognition with practical expression
you're right to point out that marx's notion of Nature here is equivalent to something like bad weather, the "dumb" or blind forces of the natural world. but engels isn't using natural law in this sense, he refers to the natural law as in the system of nature, the qualities of material existence (and as such not that which is able to disappear)
marx presents the sphere of freedom and the sphere of necessity as being distinct and engels is further asserting that the sphere of freedom is the recognition of the laws of the spheres of necessity and the practical engagement with such laws in pursuit of definite ends. but because this is presented in conjunction with a dialectical and historical materialism, the recognition of such laws and the dialectical process of their resolution are alone determined by natural law
the end in itself in this case is not a moral end but one that is necessary in terms of natural law. the difference between the sphere of necessity and the sphere of freedom is not that the latter is exempt from the necessary conditions of natural law (as engels states, it is not the dream of independence of such laws)
the difference is instead that the true realm of freedom is the conscious practical engagement with the necessity of natural law, and as you suggest, in which aim is in harmony with effort. but again, like engels suggests, these are both predicated entirely on the necessity of natural law
your quote from lenin doesn't really substantiate the argument you're trying to make, it just suggests that the gradual becoming of the true realm of freedom bears the resemblance to the fulfilment of classical moral principles. this doesn't actually suggest that it is itself moral, just that it resembles the practical expression of previous notions of morality. lenin is deducing that the entrenchment of human freedom will resemble classical morality, not that it ought to
to simplify my argument, the marxist position recognises the sphere of necessity and the true realm of freedom. both are bound by and exist solely according the necessity of natural law. the distinction between the two is that the former is a blind and dumb nature, while the latter is the conscious awareness and practical expression of such awareness as an end in itself. at no point is the latter presented as a moral state. it is merely forwarded as a necessary state according to the development and processes of natural law
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most accounts of a supposed morality or ethical system in marxism only really go so far as to suggest this by pointing out the formal resemblance (whether in structure of argument or, even more crudely, his usage of terms like "equality" and "freedom" at all) between marx's theories and moral arguments by other thinkers. i don't find that very convincing at all
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conec posted:tpaine posted:why are you people even...*just kind of trails off*
iirc there have only been two people here who experienced life in the soviet union (mind u this was 50+ years after stalin): a ukrainian guy who said he and his mother barely scraped by (claims they were hungry), and crow, who must have been 5 years old when the soviet union dissolved. wasn`t crow also obama crazy just a few years ago? his opinions are just hipster after-thoughts. yea yea we get it stalin, revolution, yea. most of us can get behind that. stalin accomplished great things - w/o some of his policies, who knows what would have happened? nazi germany could have been around a few more years, perhaps. the soviet union may not have even survived without stalin. yea yea the NKVD. why bicker? they killed some folks. admit their actions were at least half-bad n gas this useless thread. y is this thread even .. **just kind of trails off**
getfiscal posted:blinkandwheeze posted:Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis.
that is, this is the rationalist deduction of the physical necessity of the maintenance and preservation of life as the condition of its continued existence. to quote engels from the anti-duhring again, "Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence of natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends." that is, again, presenting necessity as the quality of natural laws. while of course hegel's presentation of the system of nature and natural law are bound to the absolute and the divine, the marxist conception of nature is solely materialist in character
That Marx quote doesn't mean that. Marx is making a point similar to Aristotle, that higher moral ends are ends in themselves and not instrumental to those ends. In capitalist class society, labour is estranged from its aim because the worker is alienated from the object it produces and must also do that work to survive. Marx is saying that communism will bring harmony between aim and effort.
You excised the final sentence: "The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite." This is Marx's point. There are two basic types of labour: Instrumental labour which is not satisfying, and satisfying ends in themselves. For example, someone needs to collect the garbage, and someone needs to perform great music. That section refers to the fact that socialism allows the work of garbage-collecting to be minimized, since socialized production will aim at the reduction of that work, and allow more people to spend time making great music. This is because instrumental labour is necessary but not the aim of life in itself. Marx is specifically saying that the moral life is one where the focus is less on necessity and more on free human creation.
This is also why there is no (systematic, economic) exchange under communism - needs are met in a conscious way. Which is the related notion - by "Nature" here Marx is making an analogy to, say, bad weather. A worker under capitalism doesn't decide what to produce for any real conscious reason, it's because of what the capitalist thinks the market says will be profitable. So the worker treats economic choices as one might plan for weather - they don't (generally) know what they might produce in their life, or whether they will even get a job. Conscious planning allows this "Natural" element to disappear as far as possible, because socialized producers determine what to do with their days, and don't have to worry about going hungry (barring total catastrophe).
humanism in my Stalin thread? this is triggering me 
bnw, i can accept that there is a case for the logical truth of what you are saying, that marxism only scientifically analyses a subject and the conclusion of its scientific process is that the inevitable end-state of society only happens to coincidentally line up with classical notions of morality.
but on a human level it is completely unsatisfying to answer the question "what is good", probably the number one question humanity has been wrestling with since the beginning of thought, with "your question is irrelevant". i don't think anyone with even the slightest passion for the improvement of the human condition would claim that there is no moral imperative to push for revolutionary change sooner rather than later. even if i accept your argument that marxism does not suggest one condition is better than another, as individual humans we collectively have agreed in practice that one is better than another and as much bring morality into the picture. without morality marxism is just unanchored cosmology. morality moves theory to praxis.
imo.
Also the question of humanism sort of misses the point. Althusser's criticism of humanism was not that things like freedom don't exist, but that they had no special bearing on the analysis of society in a scientific manner. The idea here is that Marx wouldn't have learned much about how capitalism actually operates if he focused on the self-talk of capitalists as being job-creators or whatever. Althusser was also concerned that Marxist discourse was degrading into simple liberalism which would condemn liberation movements and such. But he didn't deny that there was an ethical realm of importance for socialists, and he did say this could be an object of study. That's why he said he was a theoretical anti-humanist, because he was saying that social science is focused on the actual instead of the ideal. Arguably this is the way that Marx saw it, too - he thought the moral aspects were mostly trivial, and didn't use language about morality because it mostly clouded the issue and was associated with Christian heritage. He saw moral "imperatives" as being successfully criticized by Hegel, and leaned more on the ancient Greeks that he studied, seeing ethics as positive and aiming for a good rather than sanction for moral error.
getfiscal posted:Marx's argument in that section is about how certain types of labour are a burden and others are a source of fulfillment. The entire reason why he identifies that as true freedom is because it is not merely instrumental. When Marx says that "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" this implies development - that you're not just meeting basic physical needs but are developing as people. His point can't be that higher forms of freedom (which he is praising) are simply crude animal appetites or something.
i'll try and elaborate this further, i apologise for the lack of clarity but this is always going to be a problem when terms that are functionally homonyms are being used and also i'm not a very good writer
i'm drawing a distinction between Nature, in the sense marx uses it in the quote from volume 3 of capital, and the natural, physical system as a whole that is posited by materialism
engels notes that freedom - the freedom from Nature that marx suggests - is not freedom from natural law. because of this, we have to face two distinct conceptions of necessity. any coherent materialism requires a logical principle of necessity - if p then q - in order to be rationally consistent. because both the sphere of necessity and the realm of freedom are beholden to natural law, then there is a formal principle of necessity on which both freedom and the sphere of necessity are founded
"Necessity is blind only in so far as it is not understood." this is an aphorism forwarded by hegel that engels recognises as an illustration of the true relationship between freedom and necessity
that is to say, the sphere of necessity is not only beholden to a blind Nature but a blind Necessity. like how blind Nature is not equivalent to the natural system as a whole, blind Necessity is not equivalent to necessity as a fundamental principle of natural law. blind Necessity is instead a particular and as such historical constraint, as opposed to a universal principle of necessity
in the marxist schema, the development of knowledge is a practical process. in the same sense that the understanding of production is developed through the intensification of the class struggle, the understanding of blind Nature (the constraints of natural disaster, of hunger, of resource scarcity) is accomplished through the mastery and practical intervention toward the resolution of such forces as opposed to some distant formal study
so what is the true realm of freedom? freedom is, as engels describes, not the freedom from natural law but the understanding of natural law in pursuit of definitive ends. the process of this understanding is the practical mobilisation of the subject
this true realm of freedom is, as you suggest, an end in itself. but because this end in itself is not independent of natural law, it is still necessary even if it is not functional
this necessity however is not a blind Necessity that could be indicated immediately by human want - this is not a "crude animal appetite" but necessity in a much more fundamental sense
the true realm of freedom is an end in itself because while freedom is a gradual process of understanding, the total sphere of freedom is the necessary fulfilment of this process, it is not functional because it does not hold the conditions for a state higher than itself
at no point is this a state to which moral value is attributed. it is not hegelian absolute knowledge or a state of artistotelian highest good, despite its resemblance to the formal qualities of such arguments. it is a state of rational necessity and natural law that is allowed only by the resolution of blind Nature and blind Necessity
as for anti-humanism - i'm not actually making a particularly anti-humanist argument here. you can have a humanism without the attribution of moral value to the subject. i'm pretty open to the idea that the entrenchment of human freedom might end up practically resembling of the moral principles forwarded by classical morality as lenin suggests
the problem with reading this proposed practical resemblance as indicating the presentation of moral principles in itself is mistaken. neither marx nor lenin position any of their arguments on practice as moral or ethical in character. the characterisation of a "morality" or "ethics" in scientific socialism almost entirely based on the formal resemblance to moral arguments as indicative of moral arguments in themselves
to take into account what marx actually said, he very clearly derided morality as a phantom of the human mind and explicitly forwarded it as distinct from a real, positive science. it is classed alongside metaphysical and religious thought in this sense
the fact that he didn't return to this point in later is more indicative of this simply being a settled point, rather than somehow indicative of marx later reversing his position and rehabilitating a notion of morality as you seem to suggest
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drwhat posted:i don't understand how you can claim that there is some sort of value-free basis for presenting something as a science, it reminds me of liberal politicians claiming they are making "non-political", "non-ideological" decisions.
none of us are ever going to be able to mount an advocacy of scientific principles that is purely rational and free of ideological distortion, until we actually live in practical conditions that cohere only with the production of rational thought
that's not a failure of science though, it's a failure of ideology. the difference between the liberals that proclaim themselves to be above ideology is that marxism allows us a real, concrete method of understanding what ideology is and how it permeates our thought
drwhat posted:bnw, i can accept that there is a case for the logical truth of what you are saying, that marxism only scientifically analyses a subject and the conclusion of its scientific process is that the inevitable end-state of society only happens to coincidentally line up with classical notions of morality.
i'm not necessarily suggesting that lenin is right here (but neither am i suggesting he is wrong). pobody's nerfect. thinkers like marx or lenin were beholden to an immense residual influence of idealist schools of thought, particularly the germans and the greeks they valorised
it could be the case that these arguments are marred by the remnants of this tradition (and as such not scientifically valuable) or it could be the case that they are the product of entirely rational discernment. i'm not going to pretend to have any real conclusions either way here
no, these answers aren't satisfying, but there is no royal road to science
marx didn't spend a lot of time attempting to convince an audience alien to the practical initiative of the proletariat of the relative values of socialism. he recognised that the working classes already reflexively oppose the bourgeoisie based on the destitution they suffer at their hands, out of practical self-interest in the basic sustenance of their lives. the issue is that this opposition is often blind and unfocused, its practical intuitions reckless and unformed
systematising and radicalising these existing sentiments, on a scientific basis, has been a more productive path for marxist thought in that respect
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Scrree posted:the 'stalinist' argument for the great 'terror' and executions of 1936 are not that they didn't happen, or that they were somehow necessary for the socialist state, but that they were a gross mistake forced by foreign agents (as Doctor Furr asserts) or opportunists operating without supervision. and that it was a mistake that the soviets themselves recognized, regretted, and corrected.
this doesn't explain things like gathering up the POWs after the war and shipping them back to camps, or things like the leningrad affair. so i reject this thesis, it doesn't fit the facts.
Scrree posted:consider how fucking crazy it is that the fact that Stalin had Ezhov and his men at the NKVD tried and executed for their crimes against the soviet peoples is used as evidence of his complicity of their crime.
Like, if Obama's first act as president had been to order the arrest and trial of bush, chenny and powell for war crimes against the iraqi people would you take a stand and say that this was proof that he was the true mastermind behind the invasion and slaughter? no, because thats fucking stupid!!.
a better analogy would be bush arresting cheney after the invasion and then carrying on with operation iraqi slaughter anyway.
From Communpedia, the Trustworthy Encyclopedia
- Tim Tzouliadis
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- Nikita Khrushchev
- Three Million Russian Traitors who allowed themselves to be captured by the fascists in combat
- Sixty Million Russian Traitors who allowed themselves to be killed by fascist death squads
Themselves posted:on the other i have a lot of upvotes from panop and i dont want to alienate one of my core constituencies here
I thought about this too. My decision was, lib trot revisionists are gluttons for punishment, so I can safely tell them to stfu.
blinkandwheeze posted:the fact that he didn't return to this point in later is more indicative of this simply being a settled point, rather than somehow indicative of marx later reversing his position and rehabilitating a notion of morality as you seem to suggest
I appreciate your response. My brain honestly can't even comprehend the idea that self-activity aimed at the practical appropriation of human necessity would not be entirely structured by ethical concerns, maybe it's tautological for me. Aiming to fulfill a necessity is by definition aiming for some good, it is synonymous. It is the applicable of self-conscious reason to the entirety of social life, which is why the economy should be planned. This is not a vulgar form of Hegelianism because that would make reason autonomous in some sense, when instead Marx is talking about the full real lives of people acting within the world (describing the process by which the community finds a way of realizing the good together given the capacity to do so through social development via the dialectic of negativity in the form of class struggle).
HenryKrinkle posted:tbh the fact that people here are engaging in respectful debate w/ massive paragraphs w/ an anti-Stalinist instead of just going "lol stfu lib trot revisionist" is kind of cool.
that fact none of the stalinists answered my first question in this thread is fucking pathetic
Panopticon posted:why did stalin have a bunch of economists shot in the leningrad affair
They were attempting to restore capitalism in the USSR. The accusation that this was done entirely at Stalin's direction and due to their paranoia is one of many, many lies Khrushchev told in their "secret speech" of february 1956. And even Khrushchev admitted about the Leningrad affair that
...here Stalin was convinced that this was necessary for the defence of the interests of the working classes against the plotting of enemies and against the attack of the imperialist camp. He saw this from the position of the interest of the working class, of the interest… of the victory of socialism and communism…He considered that this should be done in the interest of the party, of the working masses, in defence of the Revolution's gains.
blinkandwheeze posted:engels notes that freedom - the freedom from Nature that marx suggests - is not freedom from natural law.
i would suggest caution here not to confuse things by using the wrong terminology. 'natural law' has a specific meaning and historical context which really has nothing to do with what you are talking about. i've read back to see where you are getting this from and i see you are talking about anti-duhring. the context there makes clear that a more appropriate phrase is 'the laws of nature'. i mention this because marx and engels consistently reject capitalist self-justification on the grounds of supposed 'natural law' (indeed this is precisely what engels is critiquing in that passage of anti-duhring).
leaving that aside, i feel you overstate marx's feelings wrt morality. he seems to me to have been opposed to talk of morals for strategic reasons, all morality being temporal class morality and therefore poor philosophical grounding. still, marxist thought has a strongly implied ethics - why argue for, and work towards, a dictatorship of the proletariat if one does not believe that is how things ought to be? so it is a nonsense to suggest that marxism truly has no moral or ethical character; rather, it is scientific justification for what is essentially a moral project.
This seems pretty clear to me, not sure where the confusion is. Of course understanding this doesn't mean you agree with it, but I do think pure determinism needs a rehabilitation as a fundamental question that must be asked instead of avoided.
Panopticon posted:poor stalin. he was so focused on single handedly industrialising russia and winning the great patriotic war that the people around him were able to get away with murdering 650,000 party cadres. if only stalin were a woman, women are better at multitasking.
you seem mad, dunno why since you can go to any other forum on the internet and get uncritical dismissal of Stalin and the USSR. this is, without question, the only place where you will get intelligent effortposts defending Stalin. Butting heads with ideologies i thought were crazy eventually gave me those ideologies 