[Marxism] -ismic doctrine or science? (was: Cockburn contrarianism )

[Haines Brown]

> On Jan 30, 2008 12:49 PM, Haines Brown <brownh at hartford-hwp.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > But if this point carries weight, Marx's interest in calculus
> > would only cast some light on his outlook, but not be of much help
> > to us (Marxists) today in an effort to represent things as
> > processes.
> 
> Which modern formalisms, do you think, are best suited to
> representing things as processes (and also, though not necessarily,
> more consistent with Marxism)?
> 
> Work in the fields of complex systems, autopoiesis, etc. comes to my
> mind as one candidate. (I am thinking of Maturana and Varela here,
> and also of the algorithmic chemistry project of Walter Fontana and
> Leo Buss.) Any other thoughts?

I actually hinted at an answer to this question, for I believe Marx's
discussion of the commodity (use and exchange value, etc.) actually
moves very far toward conceptualizing process. I've expressed my views
at length already in this forum, I suspect, and I've been working on
extracting the methodology of his treatment of the commodity (a
project which I had to drop a few months back, but will be able to
resume shortly).

The idea of autopoiesis I've never explored seriously because it seems
to incorporate an element of functionalism. The phenomena it
addresses, such as the spontaneous emergence of structure, I feel more
comfortable handing in terms of contradictions (in the sense of a
unity and interdepenence of two processes that are opposite with
respect to the direction of their change in entropy). Layzer has
followed somewhat the same line of thought in relation to
cosmogenesis, but Layzer strikes me as a bit inconsistent, and so it
makes a difference which of his works you happen to read.

Haines Brown