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The Forum > Article Comments > Marxism Destroyed the Dialectic > Comments

Marxism Destroyed the Dialectic : Comments

By Gilbert Holmes, published 27/9/2010

Marx poisoned modern political philosophy because he didn't understand the dialectic

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Hi Grok,

One problem with reality is that there is potentially a multitude of 'antitheses' to every 'thesis' (many negations to every negation, if you like): there is not just A and B.

So if America is A, not-good, it doesn't mean that everything else, B, is good (cf. Ahmeninejad, al-Qa'ida, Chavez, Mugabe). They may be C, far worse (or D, far, far worse): they may represent a REACTIONARY thesis to the American capitalist antithesis, a yearning for medieval or feudal PRE-capitalism, or a return (seriously) to the Neolithic idyll (cf. factions of the Greens).

And pointing out A's crimes may not absolve B or C or D from theirs. You get the picture, I hope.

David, yes, how can there ever be genuine and lasting socialism without safeguards for human rights ? Socialism surely must BUILD ON whatever social reforms, revolutions and innovations that capitalism historically (i.e. for its 'own' purposes) developed: they shouldn't just be thrown aside. Surely socialism must be morally better than capitalism, not just different from it ?

And to what extent did the Red Terror give carte blanche to all manner of White Terrors, including fascism and Nazism, to exterminate all of the groups who didn't fit into THEIR societies ? Did Lenin make a massive and (with hindsight) incredibly naive assumption that revolutions would rapidly spread across the world and be victorious everywhere, so that it wouldn't matter if, within five or ten years tops, all anti-revolutionary classes and individuals were 'processed' out of the way, in order for the proletariat to move quickly on to the second phase, to Communism, to the withering away of the state by, say, about 1930 ?

Over to you, Grok :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 6:52:42 PM
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> So yes, if you can sea a way to make capitalism viable, equitable,
> conscionable and sustainable, then I'm with you! If capitalism can
> provide for the whole planet's prosperity and fulfilment, and ensure
> "all" human rights, then by all means lets enshrine this formula and
> make it inviolable!

Of course, Marx is justly famous for *proving* that capitalism is *inherently* unstable -- and thus can NEVER have a future. Other than to destroy the very planet that gives us all life... And the kernel of this instability is the innate, compelling logic of capitalism, which utterly _requires_ of each pool of capital that it MUST expand -- and the faster the better: it is *imperative!* -- or it DIES (i.e. be extinguished or absorbed by more competitive capitals). Which process, oddly enough, leads _directly_ to monopoly 'capitalism'..!!? But that's another story for a later telling...
;P

> You say that "Socialism could be a very good system provided that
> such guardians of freedom as a free press and an independent judiciary
> were preserved". I'm with you! But not if it is based on capitalist
> exploitation.

The utter cluelessness which this quote is based on almost makes me want to cry... It is so thoroughly bourgeois in its limited horizon as to stultify, really. Because by its very nature, the democratic praxis of socialist -- and later, communist -- society *will be its own guardian* (talk about 'checks & balances'..!): and far, far better than that of any possible bourgeois political order. Certainly any we've ever known. And as for the fraudulent supposed 'independence' of bourgeois (and its feudal predecessor) judiciary (i.e.: politically-connected sleazoid lawyers in black robes): there will be no need for such sham justice in any conceivable future socialist or communist society -- because the aforementioned fully democratic praxis will be its own law, and its own justice. Truly people's justice. The real deal -- not the phony travesty we suffer today.

And we can expand on that at leisure, later. Even dialectically-so.
;)
Posted by grok, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 7:01:14 PM
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Dear davidf,
I've had my suspicions before, but now I'm convinced that you don't even read your respondents' posts, at least not closely--with consideration. You are enamoured only with your own thoughts and cannot, will not, let them go (but take heart, you have plenty of company). I'm wasting my time.
I will be away for the next few days; perhaps it's just as well..

Comrade Grok,
you're rather an expurgative. But I should warn you that OLO is a conservative organ (panopticon), and most of the inmates are not used to having their chains rattled. But you would be long familiar with that.
Posted by Squeers, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 7:44:36 PM
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We continue to hear this sentiment that “Socialism is good in theory but…”

But socialism is not good in theory. If it was, it would have worked, that’s the whole point.

Look at it this way. There are two competing theories. The Marxists say that
a) without anyone consciously making any effort, socialism will arrive in the advanced capitalist nations with the inexorability of historical law; which assumes that
b) given the right conditions, socialism can work.

The Austrian school of theory says that
a) socialism is impossible even in theory, and
b) attempts to implement it will necessarily result in planned economic chaos, arbitrary totalitarian government, and abuse of human rights.

Now which theory is better at explaining the facts?

Talk of the differences between the prospects of success of socialism in “rich” industrial versus other countries; or at the hands of Lenin versus Stalin or Trotsky; *or in any historical contingency whatsoever* is beside the point.

Socialism cannot *ever* work because of the economic nature of what it attempts. People who say socialism could work in practice, or is good in theory, are merely displaying their ignorance of the economics in issue, simple as that.

On the other hand, private ownership of the means of production arises spontaneously without central co-ordination; it is the necessary precondition to government but does not itself require government; it succeeds in feeding, clothing and sheltering the world’s population; and even where it is nobbled by governments confiscating most of what is produced and spending it on forcibly suppressing market transactions, it still functions to put the masses at the highest standard of living in the history of the world.

I challenge anyone saying socialism could work
a) to understand, and
b) to refute the argument from economic calculation: http://mises.org/econcalc.asp

If you want me to explain it, please ask.

Grok
I challenge you to defend any tenet of Marx’s theory on condition that you lose immediately if you have recourse to any of the following forms of argument:
• Assuming what is in issue
• Appeal to absent authority
• Ad hominem.
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 8:37:50 PM
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Keep it up, grok! This is hilarious! It's like being bored to death by some pompous, middle-class revolutionary in a student union bar in the 70s, all over again.

I also find it hugely ironic that you name yourself with a word coined by a writer who said of himself, 'I'm so damned libertarian, Ayn Rand is a bloody socialist compared to me.'
Posted by Clownfish, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 10:14:20 PM
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Dear Squeers,

You are right. I don't absorb all the respondents say. I feel approximately the same way towards Marxism that I do towards Nazism. Marxism was a brutal system producing about 100,000,000 corpses following Karl Marx, a Jew hating theoretician. That overrides anything else. I don't follow everything a Nazi would say defending his system because I remain appalled by what he is defending.

Marxists and Nazis are both human. The systems they defend appeal to them for some reason or other, but the record of both systems stinks to high heaven.

I have argued with religious fundamentalists on this list. I don't understood regarding a book written by men containing old legends as though it is actually true. At some point I stop arguing. If I had good sense I never would have started arguing.

All economic and social systems have flaws, but I feel Marxists set up capitalism as a devil in exactly the same way the Nazis set up Jews as the devil and the fundamentalists accept the invention of the supernatural devil.

However, Marxists, Nazis and religious fundamentalists are all human beings and should be treated with the consideration one should show to all human beings.

If I have failed to do so to anybody in this discussion please forgive me.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 30 September 2010 4:31:13 AM
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