cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/45041279

Stolen from r/Marxism_Memes

Thumbnail is Marx's manuscript for The German Ideology. Summary below is a compilation of my notes I wrote when reading Materialism and the Dialectical Method by Maurice Cornforth, along with general knowledge from reading various Marxist authors.

Often times, Marxists use the term "material conditions," and "dialectics." What does this mean? Why do Marxists care so much about material conditions? The answer is that Marxists seek materialist explanations for observed processes as opposed to idealist, and do so dialectically, as opposed to metaphysically. In other words, Marxists apply dialectical analysis to find materialist explanations for phenomena. Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the proletariat as a class, and serves as the most vital ideological tool for overthrowing capitalism.

In order to understand dialectical materialism, we need to understand its component parts, materialism and dialectics, and their historical predecessors, idealism and metaphysics.

Idealism

Idealism is, in short, to put ideas prior to matter. Idealism has been used by feudal lords to justify their position above the serfs, forming the ideological basis for feudalism. The 3 major assertions of idealism are as follows:

1. Idealism asserts that the material world is dependent on the spiritual

2. Idealism asserts that spirit, or mind, or idea, can and does exist in separation from matter. (The most extreme form of this assertion is subjective idealism, which asserts that matter does not exist at all but is pure illusion.)

3. Idealism asserts that there exists a realm of the mysterious and unknowable, "above," or "beyond," or "behind" what can be ascertained and known by perception, experience, and science.

Early Materialism

Common idealist arguments are appealing to a supernatural "human nature," or "good vs. evil" explanations for processes. Materialism arose over time, as people grew to understand the world more deeply, and especially as a tool to overthrow the feudal aristocracy that justified its existence via the church. In other words, materialism rose to help the bourgeoisie. The 3 basic teachings of materialism as counterposed to idealism are:

1. Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature material, that everything which exists comes into being on the basis of material causes, arises and develops in accordance with the laws of motion of matter.

2. Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing outside and independent of the mind; and that far from the mental existing in separation from the material, everything mental or spiritual is a product of material processes.

3. Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are fully knowable, and that while much may not be known there is nothing which is by nature unknowable.

Shortcomings of Metaphysical Materialism

The type of materialism that overthrew the feudal lords was still underdeveloped, and metaphysical. The bourgeoisie needed an explanation for why the feudal lords were illegitimate, but still needed to support their own static, permanent rule. This was called mechanistic materialism, for the bourgeois scientists saw the world as a grand machine repeating simple motions forever. Mechanistic materialism, therefore, makes certain dogmatic assumptions:

1. That the world consists of permanent and stable things or particles, with definite, fixed properties;

2. That the particles of matter are by nature inert and no change ever happens except by the action of some external cause;

3. That all motion, all change can be reduced to the mechanical interaction of the separate particles of matter;

4. That each particle has its own fixed nature independent of everything else, and that the relationships between separate things are merely external relationships.

Moving from Metaphysics to Dialectics

This, of course, has proven false. History did not end with the dissolution of the USSR, despite what modern mechanistic materialists claim. Mechanistic materialism relies on metaphysics, seeing everything as a static abstraction, devoid of its context. It has no explanation for how new qualities emerge, and ultimately fell to idealism to explain the "first mover," ie "God." Dialectical materialism holds instead:

1. The world is not a complex of things but of processes;

2. That matter is inseperable from motion;

3. That the motion of matter comprehends an infinite diversity of forms which arise one from another and pass into one another;

4. That things exist not as separate individual units but in essential relation and interconnection.

Dialectical Materialism

This became remarkable for the proletariat, as it sees nothing as static, and therefore marks the eventual downfall of the bourgeoisie. Putting it all together, we get the following:

1. Dialectical materialism understands the world, not as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which all things go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away.

In other words, when analyzing events and contextualizing them, we must always viee them as a struggle between the rising and the falling, the old and the new, for example the concentration of capital in markets and the rise in socialize labor.

2. Dialectical materialism considers that matter is always in motion, that motion is the mode of existence of matter, so that there can no more be matter without motion than motion without matter. Motion does not have to be impressed upon matter by some outside force, but above all it is necessary to look for the inner impulses of development, the self-motion, inherent in all processes.

In other words, all movement is a result of contradiction. Your foot presses on the Earth, and the Earth presses back on you.

3. Dialectical materialism understands the motion of matter as comprehending all changes and processes in the universe, from mere changes of place right to thinking. It recognizes, therefore, the infinite diversity of the forms of motion of matter from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher.

In other words, dialectical materialism recognizes that development exists as a change of quantity into quality. Addition or subtraction gives way to qualitative change. A balloon is filled with air, until at a given point it pops due to pressure buildup. Water goes from liquid to gas at its boiling point, and back into liquid when cooling down to said point.

4. Dialectical materialism considers that, in the manifold processes taking place in the universe, things come into being, change and pass out of being, not as separate individual units, but in essential relation and interconnection, so that they cannot be understood each separately and by itself but only in their relation and interconnection.

In other words, everything is connected, and must be analyzed in context to truly understand it. A worker isn't just an individual, but instead part of a social class of many workers. Wages are not something invented brand new every time, but instead are set by societal standards, controlled by the ruling capitalist class.

Conclusion

Karl Marx created dialectical materialism by turning Hegel's idealist dialectic into a materialist one. Then, he applied it to the progression of society, creating historical materialism. By analyzing social structures and progress as a dialectical process based in materialism, we can learn from history and analyze where it's going. This is scientific socialism in progress. Human thought is shaped by our social experience, forming class consciousness and ideology. How we produce and distribute determines our ways of thinking.

Socialism and communism also have their own contradictions as well, and just because we progress on to socialism does not mean we cannot fall back to capitalism. The dialectical materialist world outlook understands that nothing is static, and there is always new contradiction and new movement from that.

If you keep these in mind, you can do your own dialectical materialist analysis. Always seek explanations based on the material, not the ideal, and always do so by contextualizing the processes, analyzing their contradictions, the unity and struggle of opposing tendencies. Quantitative changes lead to qualitative development, and progresses as a result of the conflict or struggle of opposite tendencies. There's much more to dialectical materialism, but this should help serve as a simple overview!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43729189

Stolen from r/marxism_memes

• 1936: The Rights the U.S. Still Won't Guarantee - Lady Izdihar (3 min 51 sex)

• Constitution of the Soviet Union - 8th All-Union Congress of Soviets

• This Soviet World / (Audiobook) - Anna Louise Strong (1936)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43728612

Stolen from r/Marxism_memes

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43726548

Stolen from r/Marxism_memes

[...]That the method employed in Das Kapital has been little understood, is shown by the various conceptions, contradictory one to another, that have been formed of it.

Thus the Paris Revue Positiviste reproaches me in that, on the one hand, I treat economics metaphysically, and on the other hand — imagine! — confine myself to the mere critical analysis of actual facts, instead of writing receipts [4] (Comtist ones?) for the cook-shops of the future. In answer to the reproach in re metaphysics, Professor Sieber has it:

In so far as it deals with actual theory, the method of Marx is the deductive method of the whole English school, a school whose failings and virtues are common to the best theoretic economists.

M. Block — Les Théoriciens du Socialisme en Allemagne. Extrait du Journal des Economistes, Juillet et Août 1872 — makes the discovery that my method is analytic and says: "Par cet ouvrage M. Marx se classe parmi les esprits analytiques les plus éminents." ["By this work, Mr. Marx ranks among the most eminent analytical minds."] German reviews, of course, shriek out at “Hegelian sophistics.” The European Messenger of St. Petersburg in an article dealing exclusively with the method of Das Kapital (May number, 1872, pp. 427–436), finds my method of inquiry severely realistic, but my method of presentation, unfortunately, German-dialectical. It says:

At first sight, if the judgment is based on the external form of the presentation of the subject, Marx is the most ideal of ideal philosophers, always in the German, i.e., the bad sense of the word. But in point of fact he is infinitely more realistic than all his forerunners in the work of economic criticism. He can in no sense be called an idealist.

I cannot answer the writer better than by aid of a few extracts from his own criticism, which may interest some of my readers to whom the Russian original is inaccessible.

After a quotation from the preface to my Criticism of Political Economy, Berlin, 1859, pp. IV–VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own. ... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx’s book has.

Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?

Of course the method of presentation must differ in form from that of inquiry. The latter has to appropriate the material in detail, to analyse its different forms of development, to trace out their inner connexion. Only after this work is done, can the actual movement be adequately described. If this is done successfully, if the life of the subject-matter is ideally reflected as in a mirror, then it may appear as if we had before us a mere a priori construction.

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of Das Kapital, it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre Ἐπίγονοι [Epigones — Büchner, Dühring and others] who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a “dead dog.” I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is once again approaching, although as yet but in its preliminary stage; and by the universality of its theatre and the intensity of its action it will drum dialectics even into the heads of the mushroom-upstarts of the new, holy Prusso-German empire.

• Afterward to the Second German Edition of Capital, Volume 1, Karl Marx, 1873

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/10368210

Credit: https://youtube.com/post/UgkxH5MfKu0iw011O64mQEl8xTfVdgH8afdc

From a video by Lady Izdihar, linked above! Great explanation of revolutionary theory and the utility of formalized parties.

Please see the basic course and advanced course, this guide is not maintained as frequently!

Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.

— V. I. Lenin

In the dying capitalist hellscape we occupy, it can often seem hopeless. However, a better world is possible. We can move on from the destitution, genocide, and privation of today's society and move onto one where we consciously decide to take a scientific approach to production. We can direct society in such a fashion that satisfying the needs of the people is the goal of production, and not satisfying the bottomless avarice of a handful of billionaires. What we need is socialism. What we need is Marxism-Leninism.

Who is this guide aimed at?

Anyone wanting to begin their journey into the world of leftist theory and organizing.

How long will this guide take to follow?

Aimed at about 60 hours of active reading time. This can be stretched out over a year, or condensed into a few months of hard study, depending on your availability.

Credits

Among many who have not engaged with Marxist theory, there can be confusion regarding the determination of systems as Socialist, Capitalist, and so forth. Are markets Capitalism? Is public ownership Socialism? Is a worker cooperative in a Capitalist country a fragment of Socialism? These questions are answered by studying Dialectical and Historical Materialism, and I will attempt to help clarify those questions here.

The idea that Socialism means only and exclusively full ownership in public hands is wrong, and anti-Marxist. To take such a stance means either Capitalism and Feudalism have never existed either, the sort of “one-drop” rule, or that Socialism itself is a unique Mode of Production that needs to be judged based on “purity” while the rest do not, a conception that has roots in idealism rather than Materialism.

Modes of Production should be defined in a manner that is consistent. If we hold this definition for Socialism, then either it means a portion of the economy can be Socialist, ie USPS, or a worker cooperative, or it means an economy is only Socialist if all property has been collectivized. Neither actually allows us to usefully analyze the trajectory of a country and who actually has the power within it.

For the former, this definition fails to take into account the context to which portions of the economy play in the broader scope, and therefore which class holds the power in society. A worker cooperative in the US, ultimately, must deal with Capitalist elements of the economy. Whether it be from the raw materials they use being from non-cooperatives, to the distributors they deal with, to the banks where they gain the seed Capital, they exist as a cog in a broader system dominated by Capitalists in the US. Same with USPS, which exists in a country where heavy industry and resources are privatized, it serves as a way to subsidize transport for Capitalists. The overall power in a system must be judged.

For the latter, this “one drop” rule, if equally applied, means Feudalism and Capitalism have never existed either. There is no reason Socialism should be judged any differently from Capitalism or Feudalism. To do so is to add confusion, and the origin of such a desire is from idealists who believe Socialism to be a grand, almost mystical achievement of perfection. The truth is more mundane, and yet because it's more mundane, it's real, and achievable, as it already has been in many countries.

What Socialism ultimately is is a system where the Working Class is in control, and public ownership is the principle aspect of society. If a rubber ball factory is privately owned but the rubber factory is public, the public sector holds more power over the economy. In the Nordics, heavy industry is privatized for the most part, and social safety nets are funded through loans and ownership of industry in the Global South, similar to being a landlord in country form. In the PRC, heavy industry and large industry is squarely in the hands of the public, which is why Capitalists are subservient to the State, rather than the other way around.

As for the purpose of Socialism, it is improving the lives of the working class in material and measurable ways. Public ownership is a tool, one especially effective at higher degrees of development. Markets and private ownership are a tool, one that can be utilized more effectively at lower stages in development. Like fire, private ownership presents real danger in giving Capitalists more power, but also like fire this does not mean we cannot harness it and should avoid it entirely, provided the proper precautions are taken.

Moreover, markets are destined to centralize. Markets erase their own foundations. The reason public ownership is a goal for Marxists is because of this centralizing factor, as industry gets more complex public ownership increasingly becomes more efficient and effective. Just because you can publicly own something doesn’t mean the act of ownership improves metrics like life expectancy and literacy, public ownership isn’t some holy experience that gives workers magic powers. Public ownership and Private ownership are tools that play a role in society, and we believe Public Ownership is undeniably the way to go at higher phases in development because it becomes necessary, not because it has mystical properties.

Ultimately, it boils down to mindsets of dogmatism or pragmatism. Concepts like “true Socialism” treat Marx as a religious prophet, while going against Marx’s analysis! This is why studying Historical and Dialectical Materialism is important, as it explains the why of Marxism and Socialism in a manner that can be used for real development of the Working Class and real liberation.

Marxism isn't useful because Marx was prophetic, but because he synthesized the ideas built up by his predecessors and armed the working class with valuable tools for understanding their enemy and the methods with which to overcome said enemy.

The theory that large segments of populations are manipulated through indoctrination holds little water, and serves to stem real revolutionary efforts to change the minds of people. Roderic Day makes the case in this essay I consider to be required reading for any self-respecting leftist that instead of brainwashing, propaganda instead works by providing a narrative that is easy to "go along with" as tacit benefactors of present systems. Propaganda does not need to hold under scrutiny to be effective, because it serves as justification, it "licenses" the populace to adopt stances that align with state interests.

Because these narratives are easy to go along with and stem cognitive dissonance, this means that we can convince others, primarily through focusing on positives in the primary and debunking negatives in the secondary. We can convince the proletariat of the benefits of adopting Socialist stances and subvert that way, rather than focusing on debunking atrocity propaganda which gets ignored due to a still-existing belief that the present is the best that is possible.

In current discourse on Lemmy, there is much fearmongering about “tankies,” yet this term is frequently ill-defined and moreover used as a thought terminating cliché. Roderic Day goes over the term, and offers contextualization and explanation for those who uphold and defend Actually Existing Socialism, in this short 8 minute article. My favorite paragraph is as follows:

“Anyway, the basic point is that socialist revolution is neither easy (as the Trotskyists and ultraleftists would have it) nor impossible (as the liberals and conservatives would have it), but hard. It will require dedication and sacrifice and it won’t be won in a day. Tankies are those people who think the millions of communists who fought and died for socialism in the twentieth century weren’t evil, dupes, or wasting their time, but people to whom we owe a great deal and who can still teach us a lot.”

If you consider yourself a Socialist, you have a duty to try to better understand and contextualize historical Socialist movements. It is only through correct analysis based on fact and not fiction that we can move onward.