Some issues

I usually post on Holla Forums, and have never even been on Holla Forums before, but I've been studying Marxist theory for a couple years now, and there are some critical issues that I've been grappling with for some time now that I'd like closure on. Wondering if you guys have anything to say on these points:

First off, it seems classical Marxists were visibly confused about the causal relationship between politics and economic development. Marx briefly treats the subject of political development effecting economic growth in late 19th century Britain in Capital, but prematurely drops the subject, probably because he was worried of the implications. Political will is demonstrably antecedent to the sociological materialism that comes with classical Marxist thought, I would say. I think this is most empirically evident in times of crisis, where a distinctly political will takes, by necessity, priority over parochial or even class interest. Crisis resolution is clearly a case where economic stabilization is preceded by political action.
Bearing on this theme, I feel that Marxism is not stress-testable on an international scale. In terms of Marxian theoretical orthodoxy, the international arena is one of imperialist competition between states seeking to expand material dominance. I do not disagree. But while the Marx-Engels literary corpus dismisses imperial development as part of an automatic "logic of history", I would argue (as in my last point) that imperialist state development constitutes a conscious political program rather than a colorless economic trend. Given this, I would like to make the point that in a competitive international environment, no one class can survive naked and without context in the modern world. An anarchic socialist commune would for instance still need an army (again, one that by nature takes priority over any sub-state category, class included) for defense from capitalist conquest, and a mercantile class to negotiate the natural economic dislocations that come with a chaotic international environment. So I mean that Marxist theory is in this sense rather narrow-minded.
Productive economics (like imperial conquest), rather than distributive economics, would in the long run net greater gains for a community and permit greater socio-economic shades than Marxist theory would permit.
All of this has pretty critical implications for Marxist class theory so I want you guys' input.

Bump

TBH Marxism is pretty shithouse. Bakuninism was always more popular… but the Marxists forced themselves into relevance not only while Marx was alive but in every single revolutionary action that came to be.

The failures of Socialism/Communism in the past century have all been entirely due to Marxists.

There are barely any Marxist left on Holla Forums, your thread is a good thread and I suggest you post it on /marx/ once it comes back up.

You seem to take the dogmatic marxist approach to history, one that Marx imo never meant. Engels and Marx never denied the role and need of political action, they just have to be in sync with the base to be successful.

This post might be to short answer but il return in few houres…your completely right, early marxism was completely deterministic. Economy or base conditions all social activity. Wirh later publication of marxs early work theres volontaristic element (pol eco manuscripts and theasis on feirbach for example). And later lenin and gramsci develope elements that go beyond pure economic mehanics.

This is more of a complaint about Communism than Marxism. Marx was more of a critic of Capitalism than a supporter of Communism and gave little thought towards what form Communism should take. In fact, he described those that did as "Utopians" and instead that socialists should focus entirely on dismantling capitalism rather than on any future vision. So Marx just kind of sidestepped this question, which later communists attempted to fill. But different theories have different answers.

Why are you people bumping this word salad by a fascist pol advocating imperialism.


The problem of agency and determination by structure were addressed most prominently in the 60s by the New Left. These are not problems that have been left unanswered.


what the fuck does that even mean? lel


First of all Marx and Engels does discuss imperialism, and there are too many implied things here. Capital has done without labour standards for hundreds of years.
Marx and Engels saw the problem of imperialist and global nature of capital and created the Internationales. You don't seem to know much about the history of Marxism.


Yeah right. You make several false claims about Marxism then claim it's narrow minded.


Imperial conquest is not "productive economics". Implying production is not labour related. Imperial conquests are purely conquest over natural resources. We are already living in societies that have moved past resources extraction economies.


No. You don't understand Marxian economics or its history, or even general economics.

Because, he at least came to us with an argument in good faith. OP's much better than the "Look at muh graph, why aren't you race realists?" fuckers.

I did not know that. Hence why I made this thread. The only experience I have is with basic reading material. Do you have any reading recommendations on that?

I mean that Marxist economics are fragile when it comes to out-of-system pressures, like an invasion or an international economic depression.
Marxist economics are structured on rising rates of consumption being matched flatly by rising rates of production. But crisis situations like those can't be resolved by more equitable levels of consumption, but instead a deliberately political program of capital and resource accumulation.

That however implies the area of economic expansion is infinite and thus the imperialist state of affairs can be maintained forever, which is obviously impossible..

I'm incredibly unsurprised. The British Bourgeoise didn't will itself into existence by really, really wanting to dominate the Proletariat, economic conditions allow for the emergence of a class, and through that class's emergence so too emerge the conditions for that's class's political will, but as you see the "will" does not come first, but is a manifestation of the economic conditions that proceed it. Also, to answer some of your later points, Marx isn't making an arbitrary system based around hypothetical class formations, he's trying to retroactively understand the very real emergence of the international Bourgeoise that exists as a global hegemony of Capitalists in a world-system of Capitalism, so I don't really know what you mean by "stress-testable when it's literally just an observation of reality as it exists, Capital is essentially an anthropological text trying to delve into the origins of money and commodities. Aside from that everything else you've said in this post is mostly laughable, but typical, psudo-mystical Nazi nonsense about Weltgeist, you're just retroactively mystifying and mythmaking the development of Capitalism, which was arbitrary, unplanned, not in anyway blueprinted by the Bourgeoise, into the grand arch of history which produced Empire.

Look into Althusser's idea of overderminism, it explains pretty much all the issues you have.

fuck off you bourgeois retard

*overdeterminism

How is Marxism prone to economic depression when it has no markets?

Also under Socialism rates of consumption is likely to drop due to no more advertisements making people buy thinks to keep the economy stimulated.

Why do you resort to name-calling instead of refuting his point? Sounds like you too have some more researching to do.

Why haven't you died from choking on cocks? Sounds like you have more cocks to gobble.

Hit me up when your insults start making sense mate, this is getting quite ridiculous.

Yeah Debord brings up these same points against Marxism, i.e. that it's a pseudoscience at its core.

I've read lots of Debord and I don't remeber him saying anything like this. Where does he talk about this?

I'll take a look, thanks.


That's true.


I was specifically referring to an international depression. Imagine if Ghana or something went socialist, they'd still need to rely on imports from more industrial nations in order to remain economically stable, and therefore would be at the mercy of international capital. A single depression could eat them alive, no matter how perfectly Marxist it's economy would be.
In this situation, I can only conclude that orthodox Marxian economics would be a detriment, because Ghana would be left without a means of peacefully distinguishing more productive individuals, techniques, etc. As I said, crisis or pressure situations like these illustrate the priority of political action over the mechanistic economic sociology of classical Marxism.

just kill yourself already you fucking idiot

Are you trying to say that Socialism in One Country cannot work?

Well this comes down to the debate of if Socialism in one country can work or not. Maybe you're a Trotskyiest and you don't know it.

I think it's worth pointing out though that during the 1930's depression, as the USSR had no private industry, they were largely untouched by the depression. Maybe other countries without as much natural resources wouldn't be as lucky though, idk.

You don't have to be a Trotskyist, before Stalin literally everyone agreed that communism can only work on a global scale.

Quit your schizobabble and leave this thread if you have nothing to contribute, shitposting faggot.

Even Stalin would say Communism can only be global.

We're talking about Socialism here.

the only faggot here is you, worthless fucking imbecile

Same thing, everyone was working for a world revolution

Arguably so was Stalin.

If I remember correctly Lenin wrote about the issues you have on how imperialism is developed after capitalism.

Seems like you're analyzing Marxism merely as an economic thought, which is why your critique is a bit lacking. As you've noticed, Ghana would be still an shithole embedded in the global capitalist economic system and to REALLY eliminate the problem of capitalism it would have to spread its economic system beyond it borders, as that would be the only way to get rid of that dependance. Marx stressed that the revolution must be international because the system said revolution would be overthrowing is also international by its very design.
Also it would be better if you said "planned economy" than "Marxist economy", Marx didn't even bother to write how would post-capitalist economy run other than saying it wouldn't be based on market exchange, as going further would be an utopian idiocy.

I'm not even the same poster. Unless you post something meaningful, leave this thread or I'll summon the mods to lynch your ass.

Marx did support nationalization of all property (by the proletarian state) though.

I kind of implied that with "it wouldn't be based on market exchange".

Chapter 4 of Society of the Spectacle.

My original point may have gotten muddled here. I'm not critiquing Socialism in One Country models per se, so much as I'm making the point that contrary to classical Marxist theory, there are clearly imaginable scenarios where economic development is preceded by willful political action.
As extreme sociological positivists and materialists Marx and Engels frequently make the point that politics is, at best, reactive, fated to follow mechanistic economic trends rather than influence them.
The hypothetical Ghana example was meant to illustrate a scenario where a deliberately political program of productivity and capital and resource accumulation are clearly better suited than economic models based on equitable rates of consumption being matched flatly by production rates.
After that, the question becomes where political will comes from. And I think that gives the lie to sociological positivism.

I was wondering what you actually read, because on many points you sound confused.

Classes aren't sub-state, whatever you mean by that. Marxists believe that states started when class societies began based on the partitioning of property and as such remain tools for the (conservation of the) ruling class.

Your sharp dichotomy of politics vs. economy is completely invalidated by Marx (hence political economy): the two can't exist separately, they are intimately tied together. Maybe you could argue your point more accurately if you used the terms "base and superstructure" instead.

I don't think anyone would disagree with that statement, added that the "conscious political program" is aimed at garnering support for (economic) expansionism.

Historical materialism is not as mechanistic and rigid as you portray it. "Unfolding of historically contingent possibilities" would probably be a more accurate description. If you do political philosophy the sound approach in determining our actual freedom as historical actors is to first try to demarcate the conditions of possibilities of said freedom.

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue."

...

First, define will.
Then, define political will.
Finally, tell us

Well, my personal theory is a little experimental, very philosophical and of course pretty Fascistoid, but here goes.
Will is defined as the capacity for a consciousness to voluntarily "select" a particular thought.
I've been operating off of a theory that the philosophical will is best conceptualized as a dialectical process, in which one thought or idea is inveighed against its conceptual antithesis. Thus producing the motion necessary of thinking. When I say "political will" I mean to say that the individual will, against its negation, the will of the totality, produces a synthesis that is a fundamentally cooperative, formative law that is immanent.
That's just me personally. When I made this thread I wanted to illustrate a scenario where an appeal to an immanent, pre-material, and developmental law can recommend itself.

You have successfully pointed out a rule flaw in Marx, as always when it comes to talk of how to fix the contradictions he so accurately describes, his theory is sorely lacking. Enter the Anarchists

While Engels was not a economic determinist (indeed check out his letters from the 1890's - he vehemetly argues against this view. Marx has bits like "Communism is the end of history" in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, and while I think they're open to interpretation (i.e. I believe Meszaros interprets that as the "end of history" and the beginning of a "real history" where man can seek after his creative self) the epistemological break between Marx might've had concerning Hegel's "teleology" is one I can support), I think a lot of the blame for what Michael Heinrich calls worldview Marxism is situated in "Anti-Durhing" which more or less founded "dialectical materialism". I have yet to see proof that Marx abandoned his starting point in 1844 (mans relation to nature which is natures relation to itself - Marx based the PhilEcon of 1844 on this naturalism which he used interchangeably with Feurbach's "new materialism") and as a result, I think people give unsupported importance to the "material base" as opposed to the "superstructure". But like was said before, this has been addressed - first by the Marxist-Humanist, then by the New Left in the 60's. The Post-Marxist school is more or less full of people who are specifically opposed to traditional Marxism.


While I understand the issue you raise, socialism in one country is not a thing. Socialism is supposed to be a new epoch in history, the reason Marx thought it was necessary (note: he did not think it was impossible for it to happen otherwise) for revolution to happen in developed nations is because the forces of Capital are. concentrated there. I think the critiques of socialism as a constant "shortage economy" are better.

Clarifying, what I mean is that I support a sort of dialectical idealism. The Will is a process, not a static thing. I would cast the philosophical Will as thinking, as an action. In order to provide motion of thought necessary for thinking, I would argue that one thought is in this model dialectically inveighed against its negation. Individual Will, against the Will of a community, produces a sort of pattern of immanent behavioral norms that is immanent and is "solidified" in the state, hence my argument that politics (ideally when developmental and vertically bound) precede material consideration.

are there any other good marxist boards? i remember /marx/ being pretty dead last time i went

So, what I mean in the OP, and subsequent posts, was that there are clearly visible theoretical scenarios and historic examples where political superstructure takes priority over material base. The most obvious cases (though not the only examples) I can think of would be scenarios in which out-of-system stressors threaten the viability of a given system. Another theoretical example would be the Socialist Ghana hypothetical, in which deliberate productive development would constitute a political program (necessary to effect industrialization and to, through self sufficiency, avoid economic predation by foreign capitalism) rather than Marx's constant dismissing of development as being "part of the logic of history". In such a scenario, Ghana's classical anarcho-socialism might actually harm the system, because there would be no ideological means to nonviolently distinguish superior industrial methodologies and more productive laborers that would be ideal for industrialization.
I mean to draw attention to my observation that raw sociological positivism in these scenarios is unwieldy as a justificatory argument for these broad and anticipatory political efforts.
I also wanted to argue that a political Will to Power is therefore ideally prior to materialist conceptions of development.

Since

And

Have pointed out that the New Left has already grappled with these issues, I have more research to do. But that was basically what I was getting at.