KARL: I thank you for replying Kerry. Below is a response to your
reply.
KERRY:The point is to de-mystify the state not to validate it, if
one is using a Marxian framework.
KARL:The capitalist state, as state, cannot be demystfied. The state
is, in itself, a form of mystification. Demystification entails the
aboliton of the state.
KERRY: Marx's works are to illustrate that though we may see or
believe that institutions are things independent of human action the
truth is that they are not independent of social practices.
KARL: In general the thought of Marx does not suggest "that
institutions are things independent of human action". The reification
of human relations in the form of capitalist relations does not mean
that human relations are independent of institutions. As I have
already indicated in my last posting you discuss bourgeois
institutions within an abstract perpsective. You omit specificity,
the clas s character of institutions. A workers' soviet is an
institution but bears a different class character to an employers
federation of big business.
KERRY: Reification refers to the process whereby people PERCEIVE
that a said institution is a separate entity or a thing.
KARL: Reification cannot be reduced to a crude psychologism.
Reification is not illusion: It is concrete fact. The state is a
reification of the relations between "people". This is an objective
socia l fact. It is not an illusion, a subjective matter existing
independently of objective reality. If this were the case then all
that is required is the Bauerian transformation of consciousness by
crit ique.
KERRY: This limitation on people choices, given that they are or
have the potential to make any choice, is a product of reificataion.
KARL: People don't "have the potential to make any choice". The
choices people make are constrained by the specific historico-social
relations under which they conduct their lives. Capitalism is not an
abstract Sartrian society of infinite choice.
KERRY: Marx's GERMAN IDEOLOGY is my favourite work on this subject
matter, though I also like Lukacs's HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS.
KARL: There is irony to the above observation of yours since The
German Ideology effectively exposed the idealist subjectivist
perspective, your perspective, that claims reification has its
source in consciousness. Marx and Engles in The German Ideology
exposed the incorrectness of Bruno Bauer's transformation of
critique into a transcendental power. Indeed there is a very apt
story to be found in The German Ideology concerning your kind of
idealism:
"Once upon a time a valiant fellow had the idea that men were
drowned in water only because they were posssessed with the idea of
gravity. If they were to get this notion out of their heads, say by
a vowing it to be a superstitious, a religious concept, they would be
sublimely proof against any danger from water. His whole life long
he fought against the illusion of gravity, of whose harmful cons
equences all statistics brought him new and manifold evidence. This
valiant fellow was the type of the new revolutionary philosophes in
Germany."
KERRY: We are not incapable of creating new institutions, rather the
loss of control arises because we believe that we don't' have control
because we are alienated, separated from those practices, and have
reified our understanding of those practices.
KARL: Yours is a classic case of well intentioned subjectivism. It
is not a mere matter of whether we "believe" we have or have not
control: not a matter of consciousness as Sartre and Bruno Bauer be
lieved. It is a matter of the specific character of the institutions
and the consciousness that springs from them.
KERRY:To argue that we lack any control, in this case potential as
opposed to actual, means that: 1) no change is possible and thus
critique is futile, and; 2) that if we are so immeresed in this
system then how is it even possible that critique exists.
KARL: The above Aristotelian potential/actual formulation is a
mistaken metaphysical notion that lacks historicity. Its use here,
reduces history to the level of linearity. History cannot be reduced
to a naive dialectical interplay between potential and actual. Such
a transcendental perspective abstracts from specific objective
factors.
I never argued that the working "we lack any control".
KERRY: Granted, states have been institutions which have supported
inequatiable social arrangements, however, that does not mean that
it, the state, has to be an institution of inequality. The state, as
you noted, arose out of need to coordinate the activities of a large
agricultural society. It also allowed for the development of
specialization to become stratified viz-a-viz different occupations
within the society. My argument, is that there is a need for some
sort of coordinating institution which fulfills the roles that the
state currently occupies and at the same time does not support
inequality amongst it's citizenry. As I believe that humans are
capable of creating institutions of our own choosing this is a
possibility (and given what you have said in previous posts, I
believe you would concur with this sentiment).
My point, however, was that given that the state, as an institution,
has generally fulfilled the role of coordinating the activites of a
society and that its "character", the way that it does that, is a
product of human practices, then it is possible to create a new
institution
KARL: But in your previous posting you argued that "however, that
does not mean that it, the state, has to be an institution of
inequality." The state, as state, is always an institution of
inequality and, more significantly, an institution of class
oppression.
Furthermore in the above brief description of yours concerning the
character of the state you again engage in abstractions and miss the
specificity of the state as a political institution. The
distinguishing characteristic of the state is its existence as a
reification of human relations. This is why I made the following
comment in my last posting to you:
"You suggest that the state is a "coordinating institution". But you
miss what is specific to the character of the state: Its existence as
a manifestation o f the reification of human relations. Clearly the
state has a co-ordinating character and shares this in common with
certain other social phenomena. But this is not the point. The point
is its specificity: how it specifically differs from certain other
socio-historical phenomena. Capitalism is a system through which
human wealth is reproduced. It shares this feature in common with
other forms of production of wealth. However this would be to miss
the point. It is how the capitalist mode of production specifically
differs from a particular form of production that is of historic
significance. Marx and Hitler were human beings. However what is
significant is their specificity, not their commonality."
You write that "given that the state, as an institution, has
generally fulfilled the role of co-ordinating the activities of a
society and that its "character", the way that it does that, is a
product of human practices, then it is possible to create a new
institution". Here again is a manifestation of subjectivism. This
mistaken understanding suggests that the question of creating a new
institution is merely a matter of subje ctive choice. Consequently it
is a choice that can be made at this or that time: contingency. This
indicates a failure to recognize the significance of objective
conditions. The possibility of social revoution exists as a result of
the specific objective conditions that obtain under capitalism. In
the absence of the relevant objective conditions there can be no
possibility of revolutionary chang e. However in order that the
possibility is transformed into actuality correct subjective
conditions are required. This is where the dialectical play between
between subject and object is so central .
KERRY: My point, however, was that given that the state, as an
institution, has generally fulfilled the role of coordinating the
activites of a society and that its "character", the way that it does
that, is a product of human practices, then it is possible to create
a new institution
KARL: The possibility of creating a new institution is not a result
of the state existing as a product of human practices. The
possibility rests on the contradictory nature of the state and the
capit alist mode of production with which the latter is integrated.
It is the objective limits of capitalism and its statal institutions
that make emancipation from alienation a possibility.
Karl Carlile
4
> On Fri, 9 Aug 1996, Karl Carlile wrote:
>
> > Karl: The political state, by its very nature, "is a product and
> > manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions." It
> > is an expression and form of alienation. It is an expression of th e
> > fact that the social relations between the producers of wealth have
> > assumed a fetishised form. Social relations of production are
> > thereby mediated through "things". Consequently people cannot regul
> > ate their own affairs in a directly collective fashion .
> > Administration and regulation of social relations is thereby
> > mediated through a thing-like institution, the state.
>
> The point is to de-mystify the state not to validate it, if one is using
> a Marxian framework. Marx's works are to illustrate that though we may
> see or believe that institutions are things independent of human action
> the truth is that they are not independent of social practices.
>
> Reification refers to the process whereby people PERCEIVE that a said
> institution is a separate entity or a thing. This arises out of the fact
> that people are alienated or separated from the social practice whether
> directly or indirectly. In addition, for those who are participating
> within that institution or system their freedom of choice is limited by
> traditions or rules which govern how those people make choices. In other
> words, their "thinkable thought" about a given institution/system limits
> what they perceive has not only acceptable choices but choices are
> actually possible. This limitation on people choices, given that they
> are or have the potential to make any choice, is a product of
> reificataion. Marx's GERMAN IDEOLOGY is my favourite work on this
> subject matter, though I also like Lukacs's HISTORY AND CLASS
> CONSCIOUSNESS.
>
> > You say that you believe that "humans are capable of creating
> > institutions of our own choosing". But the point is that under
> > capitalist civilisation people cannot make such choices since they
> > are not in control of their the social relations.
>
> We are not incapable of creating new institutions, rather the loss of
> control arises because we believe that we don't' have control because we
> are alienated, separated from those practices, and have reified our
> understanding of those practices.
>
> To argue that we lack any control, in this case potential as opposed to
> actual, means that: 1) no change is possible and thus critique is futile,
> and; 2) that if we are so immeresed in this system then how is it even
> possible that critique exists.
>
> Marx's point was that the system is stable, for the most part, because
> people did not appreciate that are not things, reified, but are products
> of human effort. His work was to illustrate that society is a product of
> people's practices and thus if they were aware of that fact they could
> create a society that was more humane. His work is an effort to
> demystify our social practices and to show how those social practices are
> currently not constructed in the best interests of people.
>
> > You suggest that
> > the state is a "coordinating institution". But you miss what is
> > specific to the character of the state: Its existence as a
> > manifestation o f the reification of human relations. Clearly the
> > state has a co-ordinating character and shares this in common with
> > certain other social phenomena. But this is not the point. The point
> > is its specif icity: how it specifically differs from certain other
> > socio-historical phenomena. Capitalism is a system through which
> > human wealth is reproduced. It shares this feature in common with
> > other forms of production of wealth. However this would be to miss
> > the point. It is how the capitalist mode of production specifically
> > differs from a particular form of production that is of historic
> > significance. Marx and Hitler were human beings. However what is
> > significant is their specificity, not their commonality.
>
> I am not sure exactly what you point is in this section.
>
> My point, however, was that given that the state, as an institution, has
> generally fulfilled the role of coordinating the activites of a society
> and that its "character", the way that it does that, is a product of
> human practices, then it is possible to create a new institution (a
> better term may be process, as "institution" is a term which seems to
> have a conatation (sp?) which means that the practices are reified).
>
> It is important to illustrate how the current way that the state is
> organized and takes power away from people (a product of reification) and
> that as an institution it is only a product of social practices.
>
> kerry
>
>