re: Marx

============================================================================
Date: Mon, 04 Dec 2000 13:51:16 +0000
From: Laurence Cox <Laurence.Cox@may.ie>
Subject: Re: philosophical/theoretic explanation
To: "Richard K. Moore" <richard@cyberjournal.org>

Hi Richard,

I'm not quite sure how this email got to me (at work I have
Eudora, and haven't yet found out how to get the full
message headers, so I'm not really sure what if anything I
should be saying in response. Two quick thoughts, because
life runs on:

One is that it doesn't strike me as particularly necessary
for you, or anyone else, to "believe in Marxism" in some
kind of religious sense. I don't have any faith in the view
that individual or indeed collective salvation comes from
increasing the number of souls who have accepted Marx as
their personal saviour. Personally, as an activist and an
academic, I find Marx's analysis convincing, and in those
contexts I'm prepared to engage with people who are
interested in discussing it. But really, I'm not motivated
to say "you should believe in Marxism because".... So I feel
a bit outside this particular discussion!

I did however have one thought on this:

    > Marx came up with a model.  He identified certain forces
    and predicted those forces would play themselves out in a
    certain way.   I don't see it happening.  Instead, I see
    elite agency changing the rules as necessary to keep society
    on a certain path.  You might say Marx predicted the course
    of a river based on geological formations, not realizing
    someone was going to build dams and dikes and move the river
    somewhere else. Perhaps if he hadn't published, history
    might have gone more the way he predicted.

I think as a Marxist I would say that the existence, not
just of elites in general, but of particular elites with
particular kinds of interests, motivations and resources, is
something that needs historical explanation. What explains
the existence and domination of the current global
capitalist elite, as opposed to (say) a mediaeval
aristocracy - church setup, the "big man" structures of
clientelism in some horticultural and nomadic societies, or
systems of age-based power that you find in some
hunter-gatherer groups?

To rethink your metaphor, I'd say Marx's analysis of
capitalism tells us some important things about geographical
principles. Few geographers would set out to predict from a
simple knowledge of the nature of a particular kind of rock
exactly where a river will flow, particularly since most
would be aware that rivers have a tendency to change their
direction of flow, silt up, carve new channels, etc. But
they would argue perhaps that a geographical style of
thought and investigation can tell us something useful about
specific rivers too, when we get into examing the build-up
of soil, the effects of glaciation, and so on.

The "predictive" element is not as strong in Marx as it is
sometimes presented, and on occasion Marx loses the run of
himself on this one. But if you think "geological
timeframes" - or long-run history - then there is a space
for prediction. All elites seek to preserve their power, and
act as best they can to shore it up. This is not new.
However, they are not always successful in doing so. This
situation is known as revolution, and is a reasonably
frequent figure on the historical stage if we take any
long-term view of things. I have noticed a few myself in my
short time on the planet, in South Africa and the
Philippines, in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union,
in Afghanistan and Latin America. (Not all revolutions are
good things, and these have not always been a good couple of
decades.) Undoubtedly there is a role for agency in
revolutions - both elites and revolutionaries can do their
job well, or make a mess of things. But there are situations
in which the best of revolutionaries can do nothing - and
situations in which active and intelligent ruling classes
still get toppled. From watching such events, and from
reading about the process of the French and English
revolutions, about 1848 and 1871, the revolutions of the
late 1910s and early 1920s and the movements of the 1960s I
find it hard to ascribe all such processes and outcomes to
conscious and intentional agency without asking the question
"where do these agents come from?"

Laurence

========

Dear Laurence,

The message got to you via the magic Bcc: line.

I'm sharing your response with the 'World System Network'
list because I think they would appreciate it and I know you
well enough that I know you won't object.  You can subscribe to
WSN by sending a message 'subscribe WSN' to
     listproc@csf.colorado.edu

There is definitely something special about Marx.  People
speak of him either from dread or reverence.  And I just
can't get a handle on him, despite your efforts and others. 
What I want are specifics, and everyone speaks in
metaphors... Marx is 'like' this or 'like' that. I think
sometimes he is a right-brain phenomenon that people are
trying to describe in left-brain terms.  Perhaps in 1848
humanity needed a savior and Marx was the available focus.

I believe in long-term views, and I understand anonymous
forces (at least in principle).  On one side I see
capitalists arguing the inevitability of their agenda.  On
the other side, I see Marxists arguing inevitability of
another kind.  I argue agency only because that is the
underdog in the argument, the player whose efficacy seems to
be understated.  Truth is possible only with correct
balance.

rkm

Note to wsn:  Laurence is a professor in the Dept. of
Sociology at Maynooth, National University of Ireland.   He
runs the social movement list, which you can subscribe to by
sending a message to:
    social-movements-subscribe-request@listserv.heanet.ie

============================================================================