Imperialism, “Anti-Imperialism,” and the Continuing Relevance of Rosa Luxemburg
Marxism
Fictitious Capital for Beginners |
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Want to get a grip on analysing the current economic slump?Take this course!About the Course |
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"In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or ‘ this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms ‘ with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.
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"Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity |
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Here is a link to an excellent online lecture course on Marx's CAPITAL volume one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Baldwin Highly recommended. Bakunin was so excited about CAPITAL volume one that he wanted to tranlate it into Russian. That he didn't quite get around to it is another matter. This is a book for all workers and this series of close readings will help anyone wishing to, to digest it and better grasp this, most excellent critique of the wages system.
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You could live under Stalinist police-State capitalism, as opposed to the lower stage of communism. Failure to abolish the wage system, was precisely what Marx was criticising the Social Democrats of the Gotha Programme for i.e. attempting to run capitalism as opposed to overthrowing it and what he was slamming Proudhon for in his 'equality of wages" scheme, enforceable only by employing the most brutal methods of party dictatorship, and this from an anarchist. The "real world" was what was supposed to be changed as a result of the Russian Revolution, because the "real world" was class ruled, slavish, submissive and sadistically dominated by the few who controlled the wealth produced under the wage system. The 'real (capitalist) world' was supposed to be supplanted by a free association of producers using the means of production for themselves to create use values based on their needs. It didn't happen. And a lot of the reason why it didn't happen is directly connected to the wages system, a social relation of Capital, in this case a generalised Capital as opposed to private Capital. |
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