Rosa, I think a lot of the frustration and confusion that users have with you is that you completely reject Marx as a dialectician, when he was, he admits he used the dialectic. Just not the psuedo-religion that is Dialectical Materialism.

I think fleshing out what Marx's Dialectical method actually WAS rather than saying what it was NOT would help.

Er, did you not read this (from my last post)?

In this passage, not one single Hegelian concept is to be found -- no "contradictions", no change of "quantity into quality", no "negation of the negation", no "unity and identity of opposites", no "interconnected Totality", no "universal change", no "internal relations" --, and yet Marx calls this the "dialectic method", and says of it that it is "my method". So, Marx's "method" has had Hegel completely excised --, except for the odd phrase or two, here and there, with which he later tells us he merely "coquetted".

In that case, once more, Marx's "dialectic method" more closely resembles that of Aristotle, Kant and the Scottish Historical Materialists I mentioned in my last post but one.

So, sure, Marx's method is dialectical, but it isn't dialectical in the same sense that the vast majority of Dialectical Marxists have assumed over the last 140 years.

But, to avod confusion, I prefer to call his method scientific, not dialectical.

[On other boards, whenever I have said things like this: "Marx's method is dialectical", opponents have jumped in and said, "Ah, so you admit it!", deliberately ignoring the other things I have said.]

So, where have I denied Marx was a dialectician?

But what about this?

I think fleshing out what Marx's Dialectical method actually WAS rather than saying what it was NOT would help.

Fortunately, others have already done this for us.

I think the best place to start is with Marx's own description of 'his method' -- which I added to my last post.

The next is to read Gerry Cohen's book: Karl Marx's Theory of History, A Defence (but ignore his technological determinism, and his functionalism).

Finally, move on to Alex Callinicos's book Making History (second edition), taking account of his criticisms of Cohen's theory (but ignore his theory of agency).

These three have done a far better job than I ever could.

The problem is that Hegel and his Marxist clones have ruined this word, so that as soon as I start criticising 'the dialectic' comrades think I am denying Marx was a dialectician, when what I am doing is trying to show that it is better to call his theory scientific to avoid confusion.

Hence, when I attack 'the dialectic', I am attacking the use of this word that has descended from Hegel (upside down or the 'right way up'), not the scientific study of history begun by Aristotle, Kant and the Scottish School, and perfected by Marx.

The only way around this 'dificulty' would be to entitle my work (and/or this thread and my signature) with a far more accurate: "Anti-The-Traditional-Hegelian-And-Dialectical-Marxist-Interpretation-Of-The-Word-'Dialectic'" -- but what a pig's ear that would be!

Hence, if I were to precis Marx's method, it would simply be a summary of historical materialism.

But, who needs yet another summary of that?

There are plenty of those already on the market. All comrades have to do is remember to ignore words and phrases like "contradiction", "unity of opposites", "negation of the negation", "internal relation", "quantity and quality", etc., when reading these summaries.

Much of what I'd have to say would then agree with the above.

Just to clear something up, the "other" thread is not a discussion of dialectics as a category in itself, but rather the dialectic that Marx establishes and demonstrates in his critique of capitalism. [This is made even more evident by the lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Unnatural's meta-dialectic.]

Nothing Rosa has said or will say has anything to do with Marxism as that critique of capitalism and analysis of class struggle.

You will notice that nowhere and at no time does Rosa ever use her analytic powers to explore or explain the facets of value, formal and real domination of capital, absolute and relative surplus value, the commodity and money, fixed capital, the labor process as and versus the value-ization process... etc. etc.

Thanks for that S.A, but you have yet to respond to:

1. My demonstration that Marx waved 'good-bye' to the mystical approach to his work that you wish to perpetuate.

2. Marx's point that two items that can't possibly coexist (and which thus 'mutually exclude' one another -- you know that part of his work you 'conveniently' forget about) can't contradict one another.

But what about this?

Nothing Rosa has said or will say has anything to do with Marxism as that critique of capitalism and analysis of class struggle.

I see, you seem to have purchased a crystal ball since last we spoke, for how else could you possibly know what I will or won't do?

If so, perhaps you can let us all know, say, next week's winning lottery numbers?

You will notice that nowhere and at no time does Rosa ever use her analytic powers to explore or explain the facets of value, formal and real domination of capital, absolute and relative surplus value, the commodity and money, fixed capital, the labor process as and versus the value-ization process... etc. etc.

Just as comrades will notice too that at no time do you even so much as attempt to justify your mystical use of 'contradiction', or tell us why you continue to ignore Marx's abandonment of 'the dialectic', as you understand it.

Or even where that passage has got to, written and published by Marx contemporaneous with or subsequent to Das Kapital, that supports your endeavour to re-mystify his work.

Oh, wait -- there isn't one...

What Rosa cannot do of course is find any record of Marx ever stating he "broke" with the analysis he had worked out prior to the publication of vol 1. Where Rosa claims there's the "pre-volume 1" Marx who is "confused" "limited" [words she used on revleft] by his addiction to Hegel, there's the volume 1 and post volume 1 Marx who has been through rehab and is now free of all that Hegel smack.

But is there any substantial difference in Marx's treatment of the categories of capital, and the origin, connections, organization, reproduction, interpenetrations, of those categories pre-volume 1 and post volume 1? Of course not. Not a single substantive change in Marx's analysis of the critical categories of capitalism, and the origin of those categories, their interactions etc. as presented in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy and the same categories presented in vol 1.

Not a single "sloughing off" of the obsolete limitations, the encumbering baggage of "dialectic" in the development of the critique of capital between Marx's Economic Manuscripts 1857-1864 in which he provides the analysis that forms the basis for volume 1 and volume 1 itself. Not a single category changes, not a single component of the conflicts and antagonisms in the value, accumulation, process is altered. And yet....and yet we are supposed to believe that Marx broke with his younger self and renounced the components of dialectic as expressed by Hegel, and instead, patterned himself on the "dialectic" of the "Scottish materialists"-- the very political economists that he ripped apart from pillar to post.

What is the difference in Marx's analysis in vol 1 [non-Hegelian] as opposed to vols 2, 3, which were not published in his lifetime, and of course maintain [as vol 1 does] references to dialectic, to contradiction, etc. etc. Do the moments of capitalism Marx describes in vols 2, 3, on the conflicts and contradictions (as he calls them) of expanded reproduction, fixed capital growth, overproduction, the falling rate of profit not follow from the analysis of vol 1? Do they-- brace for the word-- CONTRADICT the critique Marx provides in vol 1?

Is the analysis Marx undertakes in the Grundrisse flawed, mistaken, inadequate or inaccurate based on its overt use of Marx's dialectical critique?

The contradiction between the labor process and the value-ization process that Marx analyzes in his Economic Manuscripts [pre vol 1 publication], does that not exist as a conflict and an antagonism sharing so to speak the same body, the body being the social organization of labor?

To all of this Rosa will only respond "I'll answer those questions as soon as you tell me why those things you identify as contradictions are in fact contradictions."

What bogus pseudo-Marxism. To any and every concrete issue, all Rosa can do is say "Fortunately, X has written about that." or "Why should I, when that's be examined by Y?"-- as if historical materialism is the responsibility of others.

So if Rosa can enlighten us... through her analysis of any concrete aspect of Marx's critique of capital; if she can resolve issues of the theory of overproduction, of the conflict between the labor and the value-ization processes... then do so. Otherwise as much as she may talk, she's absolutely nothing about Marxism, and loads about herself.

SA:

What Rosa cannot do of course is find any record of Marx ever stating he "broke" with the analysis he had worked out prior to the publication of vol 1. Where Rosa claims there's the "pre-volume 1" Marx who is "confused" "limited" [words she used on revleft] by his addiction to Hegel, there's the volume 1 and post volume 1 Marx who has been through rehab and is now free of all that Hegel smack.

But, what you can't seem to do is address me.

And I didn't use "limited".

But what about this:

What Rosa cannot do of course is find any record of Marx ever stating he "broke" with the analysis he had worked out prior to the publication of vol 1.

You appear not to not know this, but Marx very helpfully added a summary of 'the dialectic method', and something he called 'his method', to the Afterword to the second edition of Das Kapital (quoted above). In that summary, not one atom of Hegel is to be found -- no 'contradictions', no 'negation of the negation', no 'unity and identity of opposites', no 'quantity and quality', no 'internal relations', etc. etc.

Now, this is the only summary of 'the dialectic method' Marx published in his entire life.

So, if we listen to the available evidence, and not uncritically follow tradition, we are forced to the conclusion that Marx abandoned 'the dialectic', as you traditionalists understand it, by the time he came to write Das Kapital.

Of course, if you have any evidence to the contrary -- in the shape of a passage written and published by Marx, contemporaneous with, or subsequent to Das Kapital -- you'd be well advised to post it.

However, since I have been asking you to do this for over two years, and no such passage has been produced (in its place all you have done is attempt to divert attention away from this gaping hole in your theory -- indeed, just as you are doing in this thread), I think we can all draw the appropriate conclusion.

Or, at least, those not hide-bound by tradition can.

But is there any substantial difference in Marx's treatment of the categories of capital, and the origin, connections, organization, reproduction, interpenetrations, of those categories pre-volume 1 and post volume 1? Of course not. Not a single substantive change in Marx's analysis of the critical categories of capitalism, and the origin of those categories, their interactions etc. as presented in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy and the same categories presented in vol 1.

Not a single "sloughing off" of the obsolete limitations, the encumbering baggage of "dialectic" in the development of the critique of capital between Marx's Economic Manuscripts 1857-1864 in which he provides the analysis that forms the basis for volume 1 and volume 1 itself. Not a single category changes, not a single component of the conflicts and antagonisms in the value, accumulation, process is altered. And yet....and yet we are supposed to believe that Marx broke with his younger self and renounced the components of dialectic as expressed by Hegel, and instead, patterned himself on the "dialectic" of the "Scottish materialists"-- the very political economists that he ripped apart from pillar to post.

Indeed, and that just shows how useless Hegelian concepts really are -- they add nothing "substantive" to his theory, but they do get in the way of a scientific analysis of capitalism.

No wonder then that Marx excised them from his work.

Now, if we remove, say, the mystical aspects of Newton's system, there will be no substantive scientific differences in his final theory.

Same with Marx.

The only difference is, of course, Newton didn't abandon his mystical approach to science, whereas Marx did.

And where precisely did Marx 'rip apart' Ferguson, Millar and Robertson? Or even Kant and Aristotle?

What is the difference in Marx's analysis in vol 1 [non-Hegelian] as opposed to vols 2, 3, which were not published in his lifetime, and of course maintain [as vol 1 does] references to dialectic, to contradiction, etc. etc. Do the moments of capitalism Marx describes in vols 2, 3, on the conflicts and contradictions (as he calls them) of expanded reproduction, fixed capital growth, overproduction, the falling rate of profit not follow from the analysis of vol 1? Do they-- brace for the word-- CONTRADICT the critique Marx provides in vol 1?

The contradiction between the labor process and the value-ization process that Marx analyzes in his Economic Manuscripts [pre vol 1 publication], does that not exist as a conflict and an antagonism sharing so to speak the same body, the body being the social organization of labor?

Once more, you have helped yourself to the word "contradiction" without once attempting to justify it -- except perhaps with yet another appeal to tradition.

Or, without once attempting to explain how items that can't co-exist (and which "mutually exclude" one another -- Marx's words, not mine) can possibly 'contradict' one another.

Is the analysis Marx undertakes in the Grundrisse flawed, mistaken, inadequate or inaccurate based on its overt use of Marx's dialectical critique?

Are you asking me this or your 'audience'?

To all of this Rosa will only respond "I'll answer those questions as soon as you tell me why those things you identify as contradictions are in fact contradictions."

Well, what we can now all see is:

1. That you're wrong even here!

2. That that crystal ball of yours needs to be returned to the clairvoyant from whom you borrowed it. It can't even predict successfully what I will do within hours of any such prediction!

What bogus pseudo-Marxism. To any and every concrete issue, all Rosa can do is say "Fortunately, X has written about that." or "Why should I, when that's be examined by Y?"-- as if historical materialism is the responsibility of others.

Oh dear, I am surprised to see you reject Marx's classic explanation of his own theory.

I don't.

Which of us is the 'pseudo-Marxist', then?

So if Rosa can enlighten us... through her analysis of any concrete aspect of Marx's critique of capital; if she can resolve issues of the theory of overproduction, of the conflict between the labor and the value-ization processes... then do so. Otherwise as much as she may talk, she's absolutely nothing about Marxism, and loads about herself.

No need to, you and others have done an excellent job (here, at RevLeft and elsewhere) -- if we ignore all that mystical stuff you/they keep trying to force onto Marx.

Unless, of course, you think your account is defective in some way...

Lenina Rosenweg wrote:His discussion of the commodity is chock full of dialectics.A commodity has use value and exchange value, These properties have a complex dialectical relationship. That is just for starters. What else would one call Marx's method, if not dialectical?

There's a problem here, at least for me. It might be that this is just a bad example of the dialectic as employed by Marx, but okay, no need to go into it right now.

You didn't even explain just how does a dialectical relationship differ from...a non-dialectical relationship with regard to use value and value. Is there even a non-dialectical relationship? And if there is, what makes these two properties' relationship dialectical?

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:rubbish.

the negation of you is anti-you. you should the form a synthesis of anti-you with you which cancles you out and leaves us without you. that would be the best proof of dialectics being useful for humans being. fuck

or just disappear withourt it and prove your case by proving it. as slong as i dont have to be plagued by your poopsmears im glad

why you did thanks your own post? parthetic lou

Rosa, I have two requests.

(1) Without resorting to quotes, can you explain the difference between what, I believe, you call the "scientific" approach as opposed to the "dialectical"? (Please don't split hairs over terms.)

(2) I am currently involved up to my neck in Occupy Wall Street; specifically, the Labor Outreach Committee. OWS is an entity fraught with, if you'll pardon a dirty word, contradictions. Now, what I try to do is something like determine the forces present, the nature of the forces, the relationship between the forces and, of course, forces outside OWS that are impinging on it. Uses this, hopefully, dialectical approach, I try figure out what the fuck is going on and what I should do or try to do about it. And then I do it. My ultimate goal, informing all my analyses and actions, is revolutionary overthrow of capitalism by the working class.

Now, having written that mouthful, how would you, using your approach, call it what you will, undertake such analysis, planning and action. Please highlight how it would be different from my approach. Hopefully, you need go into no more detail than I've gone into.

RED DAVE

Negation of the negation: The anti-dialectician won't be able to reply because she was banned. Life moves on.