On Randy Groves big points (fwd)

Dear Emilio,

i totally agree with you. very good point. i would say the same, but you
are quicker than me. market is not necessarily an invention of capitalism.
_capitalist markets_ are products of capitalism and the modern world
sytem. then, the question is what sort of markets do we need? how can we
use the market to achieve fair distribution of wealth? do we need
capitalist markets at all if they already cause large inequalities?  are
there any marxist _economists_ around who can specifically answer these
questions? as you say, these questions need "further discussion with a
systemic vision in economics"....
 
>When I read Marx 1844 Manuscripts of youth in Erich Fromm's Marx Concept
>of 
>Man, I was impressed by his emotional defense of collective sense of
>life. 
>Orthodox called it later a young and immature Marx, but I still believe
>it 
>was the best Marx, in spite of his hegelian influence. After some years, 
>however, Marx came with Capital, where the need to explain everything as 
>deterministic and logic laws is present. IMO a big change occured, and 
>lament that he let the influence of positivism, enlightment and
>rationality 
>to take control of his whole work. I wish somebody explains it to me.

dear elio, marx was not a simple determinist. i can say that both the
orthodox and unorthodox marxists (starting with frankfurt school and later
althusser) largely misinterpreted marx and over-estimated his determinism.  
 
on the contrary, there is a logical continuity between the early and young
marx, not an epistemological breakthough with humanism to materialism.
marx always beleived that the essential defining feature of human beings 
is labor. labor constitutes our productive capacity because we are by
nature producing animals. labor is a social expression of practical
will, and only through labor " man makes his life activity itself an
object of his will and conciousness" (philosophical manuscripts). human
beings do not produce individually but cooperatively. marx criticized the
bourgeois notion that human beings are isolated individuals defined  
seperately from society and social relations. he came with the idea that
human beings are by nature social beings because we need social
intercourse in order to survive. social intercourse makes us human
species. what marx means by "social being" is our particular place in
society, our "emplacement" so to say, the role we occupy in social
relations. this is a general view of his human nature regardless of
capitalism.


however, marx also believed that our relations are definitive of 
particular historical circumstancse and economic systems. at a given point  
    
in history, human beings posses different methods and capacities to create
their social environment. the relations which constitute the production
relations are historically determined, and they are independent
of our will. some people take this as vulgar determinism and accuse marx
for reducing everything to economics. No. marx had a very dynamic vision
of human nature. he put "social relations" at the center of his analysis
and believed that every economic system, despite ther inner logic of
development (material forces), is limited and conditioned by social
relations. through employment of productive forces, individuals determine
their mode of life. what marx had in mind was not crude determinism but
rather "historical limitations" of all economic systems. since capitalism
is a particular social system, which did not come about naturally, but
through an enforcement of certain social relations (capitalist-worker), it
should perish one day,according to Marx, as it was born.

in capital, marx talks about capitalist laws of motion and predicts
the end of capitalism (declining profits, over-production). of course,
there is some form of determinism in his analysis about how socialism will
come. this should not be taken as blind determinism, otherwise his model
would not be open to CHANGE. we need some form of determinism to
understand the nature of capitalism and how it functions independently of
the intentions of individuals (workers did not chose to become a worker).
some reasonable deternism is always necessary. however, marx also
believed in the role of other factors-- working class organization, party,
class consciousness--in bringing about the revolution. marx's notion of
the inevitablity of the revolution did not entail the proposition that it
would happen "automatically". it means that we can not think about
inevitability if we can not "imagine" that revolution will occur. it
suggests "plausability" and counter-factual possibility. just like any
other system, economic processes may have non-inevitable results. it may
be open to contingency, interference and other counter-forces. may be,
marx did not eloborate this deeply, which, in my view, was later
eloborated by "theorists of political praxis and political foresight" like
Lenin and Gramsci. despite their differences, these people introduced the
role of conjunctural forces like party, collective will and
counter-hegemonic alliences in transforming the system into more
egalitarian forms of social practices. particulary gramsci
translated the political economic language of marxism into
politico-practical language and politically articulated materialism.

i think this helps for the time being... I  am vey busy at the moment. i
have got to go to study..


best,

Mine Doyran
Phd, politics
SUNY/Albany