the Communist Manifesto: critique

> I think it is not only, or even primarily, a matter of personal
> identity. It is, for me, more importantly a question/sense of loyalty
> to (the memory of) acquaintances, friends and comrades with whom one
> may no longer agree, but on whom one has not turned one's backs, whom
> one is not seeking to denounce.

 

My two cents on this:

 

What has been questioned is the reified, unified and most times simplied concept of capital/capitalism. Personally, I find it intellectually very unrewarding to take the thoughts of Marx on capital in the 19th century, and then apply it indiscriminately to both previous and following historical times. First of all, because towering as his theoretical achievements have been, Marx remains one of many social thinkers, and by no means the holder of the truth. Second, and much more importantly, because Marx lived and wrote in the 19th century, in a western society. Are we really supposed to think that the notion of "capital" (and all theoretical work on it) in the 19th century remained the same through two world wars, a cold war, and technological revolution after technological revolution? After social structures mutated greatly, after economic structures evolving, after the rise and fall of "socialist states", after countless historical twists and turns - is capital still a valid notion? When we use the word today, what exactly do we mean by it? Is there a consensus? Is there a clear-cut definition? Can it be equated with its earlier versions? THOSE are the questions to be raised, i believe.

 

This by no means descredits the lives, efforts and memories of those who have fought either for or against "capitalism". To make a parallel... When you use the word "warfare" today, i guess it is indisputable that it means (and is perceived) as something radically different from what it meant 50, 200, 5000 years ago. New definitions have come up, the very nature of that specific phenomenum has been greatly transformed. It is on the verge on a new revolution today, edging towards "4th generation warfare". However, if we question the concept, if we analyse military doctrine, if we try to discern patterns of change, if we question it's validity as an analytical category - how does that equate with forgetting or disrespecting the millions of victims of war throughout time?

 

Cheers,

 

Daniel Pinéu
danielfrp@hotmail.com

 

BA Hons. Political Science & International Relations
Universidade Nova de Lisboa