[Marxism] Marx on the credit crunch?

[Charles Brown]

Chris Doss 


I think this depends on how you define "science."
Cosmology, paleontology, and many forms of geology are
all really varieties of history and all normally
considered sciences. Unless one wants to say that
"history" only refers to that story of the development
of human beings, and that for some reason human
beings, unlike everything else, cannot be described by
such a science.

^^^^
CB: There are roughly two branches of 
science-history: Natural history
 ( Darwinism, cosmology) and human
 history ( Marxism). Or we can say it's 
all natural history,with human history 
a branch of natural history of special
 interest to we humans. 

By the way, in the Soviet Union all
degrees were in history for this reason,
 I believe.

Does Angelus have trouble conceiving of
 natural history as science ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_history

The point I think Marx and Engels make 
when they say " there is only one science,
 the science of history"  is that science
 must be conceived of dialectically,
 that is in terms of development, 
change. _Everything_ changes,
 develops, has a history.  Even
 the physical universe ( "physics") changes. 
 Engels notes ( in _Anti-Duhring_) that 
Kant initiated a dialectical understanding 
of the solar system in saying that it has
 a history.

--- Angelus Novus 
> 
> Charles, how on earth is a "science" 
of history even
> possible?  Please do not take
 this as a rhetorical
> question.  I think one can do 
useful analytical,
> scholarly historical work, 
but there are no "laws"
> of
> history.  Using the word "science" 
makes exaggerated
> claims for scholarly historical analysis.
> 

CB: In a way Angelus is thinking of this
 backwards.  Marx and Engels are saying 
all "science" must be conceived of in terms
 of the history of its subject matter, that is dialectically. 

I'm gonna go with Marx and Engels over 
Angel as to whether there are scientific
  laws of history.  As Engels says at 
Marx's graveside.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/death/burial.htm



Just as Darwin discovered the law of 
development or organic nature,
 so Marx discovered the law of development
 of human history: the simple fact, 
hitherto concealed by an overgrowth 
of ideology, that mankind must first of 
all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing,
 before it can pursue politics, science,
 art, religion, etc.; that therefore the
 production of the immediate material means, 
and consequently the degree of economic 
development attained by a given people or
 during a given epoch, form the foundation 
upon which the state institutions, the legal
 conceptions, art, and even the ideas 
on religion, of the people concerned have
 been evolved, and in the light of which
 they must, therefore, be explained, 
instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.

But that is not all. Marx also discovered
 the special law of motion governing the
 present-day capitalist mode of production,
 and the bourgeois society that this mode 
of production has created. The discovery 
of surplus value suddenly threw light on 
the problem, in trying to solve which all
 previous investigations, of both bourgeois
 economists and socialist critics, had been
 groping in the dark




^^^^
Angelus Novus 

Carrol is absolutely 100% correct here.  While it may
be difficult to distinguish between Marx the scientist
and Marx the revolutionary at the level of
personality, I think it is entirely possible to
distinguish between the scientifically meaningful
parts of Marx's analysis versus
historical-philosophical prophesies that are an
expression of revolutionary hope.

The prospect for communist revolution has no bearing
upon the validity of Marx's analysis of capitalism. 
Some would even argue that Marx's analysis of the
fetishistic relations of bourgeois society
demonstrates the impossibility of revolution.  I don't
share this perspective, but I do not think it is
nonsense.

^^^^^
CB: This gives new meaning to "Marx 
was not a Maxist" . Fortunately, 
we have Carrol and Angel who understand 
Marx better than he understood himself.