The BBC 1 'Prime Minister' debate

[Serial_Apologist]

It's not just the UK 2019 - it was always the case that Marxist analysis didn't reflect the totality of the economy. The Marxist class analysis is based around the relationship to the means of production - those who work and produce (proletariat) and those who own (bourgeoisie).

We've had similar discussions before about this, so I'll just leave this here -



- David Harvey

Also worth reading is this: https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...nist-manifesto


… where Yanis Varoufakis points out the contemporary relevance of the Communist Manifesto.

Really excellent articles, Joseph, for which thank you very much indeed.

I've noted down the URL to the Grauniad article by Varoufakis, as I'm sure it will always come in useful for reference and as a reminder. As regards Harvey's paragraph the question of roles within the person also connects with a Buddhist idea, found in the Madhyamika iirc, that as humans, what we we amount to is more and less than our roles: less since we are indissolubly linked in to our wider biological and genetic sphere by origin, evolution and literally the air, ground, and what we eat; more because who and what we are is a matter of identity, and identity falls into the area of description. However useful categories may be, they can never comprehensively encompass what they define because there are always factors, like sand escaping through a sieve - unknown knowns that get left out - and, in the Buddhist idea of impermanence, because what is described is always going to be provisional.

Buddhism developed its own version of dialectics more than two millennia before Karl Marx; it's principles closely accord with modern ecology, and I find its proportionalised approach to reality to be both a corrective to overthinking what better belongs within the realms of science and mathematics, and by demoting the absolutism of identity and contextualising the individual within a broader interconnected dynamic than specific historical determinants of class, a necessary adjunct to dialectical and historical materialism.

[Joseph K]

Really excellent articles, Joseph, for which thank you very much indeed.

I've noted down the URL to the Grauniad article by Varoufakis, as I'm sure it will always come in useful for reference and as a reminder. As regards Harvey's paragraph the question of roles within the person also connects with a Buddhist idea, found in the Madhyamika iirc, that as humans, what we we amount to is more and less than our roles: less since we are indissolubly linked in to our wider biological and genetic sphere by origin, evolution and literally the air, ground, and what we eat; more because who and what we are is a matter of identity, and identity falls into the area of description. However useful categories may be, they can never comprehensively encompass what they define because there are always factors, like sand escaping through a sieve - unknown knowns that get left out - and, in the Buddhist idea of impermanence, because what is described is always going to be provisional.

Buddhism developed its own version of dialectics more than two millennia before Karl Marx; it's principles closely accord with modern ecology, and I find its proportionalised approach to reality to be both a corrective to overthinking what better belongs within the realms of science and mathematics, and by demoting the absolutism of identity and contextualising the individual within a broader interconnected dynamic than specific historical determinants of class, a necessary adjunct to dialectical and historical materialism.

[Maclintick]

Actually, attributing "human nature" to evolutionary factors is something much beloved of conservatives since it "proves" that people are the slaves of their genes, whereas actually the mutability of human nature can be seen readily in the findings of palaeoanthropologists, taking place on a more "human" timescale.

If "human nature" is defined as "the way in which humans think and organise themselves in their worldly interactions", analysed by scientifically rigorous anthropological or palaeoanthropological study, rather than the purely physiological/anatomical characteristics of the human brain, which evolves over millenia, then I'd agree with your description of "a more "human" timescale". Darwin, who's regarded as the grand-daddy of palaeoanthropologists, though a contemporary of Gregor Mendel, had no access to Mendel's pioneering work on inherited characteristics, so I'm led to infer that your reference to the idea that "people are the slaves of their genes" presumably refers to "Dawkinsism", and his putative appeal to right-wing "thinkers" post-publication of that 40-year-old blockbuster. It was a popularising & often misunderstood concept, with an unfortunate title, appearing to deny agency at the human level, but I gather contemporary evolutionary biologists view it as a useful but limited "perspective".

For the rest I think Joseph's links ought to satisfy your curiosity about current Marxist thinking, and, given the policies you enumerate at the end of your post I wonder why you find the current Labour party so unpalatable since it's the only one that's committed to (I think) all of them!

I don't find those policies a problem, though late-to-the-party & opportunistic in terms of Green & feminist credentials. I'd add re-nationalistion of the water utilities to my list, since H2O is sort-of fundamental to human survival, & should not be left to the market. Today's news undermines further any faith I may have wished to place in the leadership...I'll reply to Joseph K in the fullness..

[MrGongGong]

Interesting

https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/06/27/theres-a-theory-about-boris-johnsons-bus-box-nonsense-will-blow-your-mind/

Still full of sh*t and lies
You really couldn't make this up

[Maclintick]

Your criticism of Jeremy Corbyn referred to his "Marxist critique of capitalism" being outmoded

Er, which post of mine does this refer to ? Yours, perplexed...

[Joseph K]

Er, which post of mine does this refer to ? Yours, perplexed...

Reply 228?

[Richard Barrett]

If "human nature" is defined as "the way in which humans think and organise themselves in their worldly interactions", analysed by scientifically rigorous anthropological or palaeoanthropological study, rather than the purely physiological/anatomical characteristics of the human brain, which evolves over millenia, then I'd agree with your description of "a more "human" timescale". Darwin, who's regarded as the grand-daddy of palaeoanthropologists, though a contemporary of Gregor Mendel, had no access to Mendel's pioneering work on inherited characteristics, so I'm led to infer that your reference to the idea that "people are the slaves of their genes" presumably refers to "Dawkinsism", and his putative appeal to right-wing "thinkers" post-publication of that 40-year-old blockbuster. It was a popularising & often misunderstood concept, with an unfortunate title, appearing to deny agency at the human level, but I gather contemporary evolutionary biologists view it as a useful but limited "perspective".

When "human nature" is used as an argument against the kind of transformation of consciousness that would be necessary to arrive at a society characterised by equality, what is meant is something more like "a biologically determined tendency towards selfishness". There are good reasons to regard that as untenable from the start, for example the egalitarian nature of the first urban societies (inferred from the remains of their cities consisting of buildings all of more or less the same size), which must have been the result of a tendency towards cooperation at least as strong as the opposing one. The former view of "human nature", held by the school of evolutionary psychology, is what I was referring to when I suggested that this school of thought regarded people as "slaves of their genes". I wasn't specifically referring to Dawkins, who was an exceptionally insightful and subtle scientist before he got put off his stroke by attacks from creationists who had no interest in understanding what he actually wrote. His concept of the "extended phenotype", for example is IMO a more powerful and indeed beautiful idea than the (widely misinterpreted, as you say) "selfish gene" one. Darwin of course was highly exercised by the existence of altruism, and failed in his attempts to explain it; and evolutionary science still hasn't explained it satisfactorily to my mind. So maybe the explanation doesn't lie in that domain at all.

[Conchis]

I wonder if Corbyn has read Marx? I somehow doubt it.

I'd think John McDonnell has, though.

Few British politicians have actually read Marx. Harold Wilson boasted about how he gave up Das Kapital on the third page (or something) and Tony Benn only read the Communist Manifesto (OK, Engels, not Marx) for the first time when he was in his early fifties.

People think they know what 'Marxism' means but, if pressed, few would be able to come up with a definition.

I would imagine no-one on the current Labour front-bench knows what 'dialectical materialism' is, either.

[Richard Barrett]

To all your points, Conchis: so what?

[Joseph K]

Darwin of course was highly exercised by the existence of altruism, and failed in his attempts to explain it; and evolutionary science still hasn't explained it satisfactorily to my mind. So maybe the explanation doesn't lie in that domain at all.

Kropotkin's 'Mutual Aid' might have something to say about this. (I don't know because I haven't read it).

[Conchis]

To all your points, Conchis: so what?

My points illustrate that 'Marxism' has become a portmanteau word to describe 'generalised left-wingery' but hardly anyone in public life (and virtually no-one outside it) really knows what it means.

Yet, the phrase 'Marxist', usually used pejoratively, has never been more au courant. Isn't calling a person of left-wing beliefs a Marxist a bit like calling a vacuum cleaner a hoover?

[Bryn]

My points illustrate that 'Marxism' has become a portmanteau word to describe 'generalised left-wingery' but hardly anyone in public life (and virtually no-one outside it) really knows what it means.

Yet, the phrase 'Marxist', usually used pejoratively, has never been more au courant. Isn't calling a person of left-wing beliefs a Marxist a bit like calling a vacuum cleaner a hoover?

I am pretty sure I have never heard Jeremy Corbyn say anything that suggested to me he was a Marxist (but there again, neither was Marx). He's a fairly classic democratic socialist. His brother Piers certainly used to consider himself a Marxist but these days he's more interested in sun spots and their potential as weather trend predictors.

[Maclintick]

Don't think I specifically fingered JC as a Marxist in that post, as it were, though his nostalgia for Clause IV, expressed as a wish for its reinstatement certainly identifies him as one sympathetic to the cause -- if it walks like a duck, & quacks like a duck etc, then the odds are that it's a duck. I have problematic issues when it comes to the idea of him running the country, based on his current stance on certain issues and his voting record in Parliament.

[DracoM]

But the power of Momentum behind the scenes is what frightens many. How many of JC's gestures / words / ideas are generated by them?

[Bryn]

But the power of Momentum behind the scenes is what frightens many. How many of JC's gestures / words / ideas are generated by them?

Very probably, none. He is, as ever, very much his own mensch.