Marx's teleology and the inevitable collapse of capitalism?

Yeah, I've heard this as well. I always think Marx's prediction that it will be "socialism or barbarism" to be instructive: it's one or the other. Communism's not inevitable.

Usefull pamphlet from the SPGB against a capitalist collapse theory of Marxism.Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse

Well I consider Marx the proto-existentialist, discarding all capitalist social myths and exploding out into a new social paradigm, with the irritating transitional state to endure for a while anyway, considering the idea was a long-haul theory, to last millenia, because that's what we need urgently. He anticipated even the capitalist allegations that he was an idealistic utopianist, this is coming from god-fearing eschatologists. So for him their contradictions were obvious.
But I prefer the post-nazi neo-Marxist developements, Hitler plagiarized Marx so much.
We never hear of Marx's human qualities, of his compassion and sensitivity, which inspired him into his creative destiny.

I recommend Istvan Meszaros - Marx's Theory of Alienation

All good Avanti. However I think perhaps this may have something to do with Marx having lived in the time before the first World War, the Atom bomb and Climate Change. Humanity didn't exactly have the capacity to destroy itself when he was alive. Anyway, that's just a little thought I had relating to the general philosophy. On an economic level, it's worth investigating and developing theory as to whether capitalist will inevitably be destroyed by class contradictions, and socialism prevail, or be destroyed by class contradictions and some kind of other system prevail.

Firstly, we should remember that the most important aspect of theorisation in Marx is the absence of dichotomisation. This is a trap adopted by most forms of Marxism today. Also, systemic collapse at this stage of class society involves a synthesis of economic, social, social- psychological change at the same time. Thirdly, at this stage, we are not just talking about a sudden upheaval but also deep-seated historical transformation as the expression of qualitative and quantitative change, which involve both economic and social revolution.

Libertarian Marxist approaches to breakdown theory include:

Aufheben's series of articles on decadence theory:
http://libcom.org/aufheben/decadence

Also, in the 1930s within the council communist tradition, theories of the breakdown of capitalism received much attention. Paul Mattick supported Grossman's "objectivist" theory which was opposed by Pannekoek's and Korsch's more "subjectivist" approaches, e.g.,

Paul Mattick on Grossman's theory:
http://libcom.org/library/the-permanent-crisis-henryk-grossman-interpretation-marx-theory-capitalist-accumulation-paul-mattick

Anton Pannekoek:
http://libcom.org/library/theory-of-the-collapse-of-capitalism-pannekoek

Karl Korsch:
http://libcom.org/library/some-fundamental-presuppositions-materialist-discussion-crisis-theory-karl-korsch

Plus some of the articles linked in the sidebars of these.

See also discussion of the council communist debate of this topic in:
John Gerber, Anton Pannekoek and the Socialism of Workers' Self-Emancipation, 1873-1960, p.170 ff.

Probably quite a good thing. From what little I know of Marx's as a human being, he seems to be quite an objectionable thoroughly unpleasant fellow.

Devrim

I would disagree that this is true of his personality. Either way though, batswill is correct in that Marx's humanism is often down-played by his opponents and even Marxists themselves in relation to his theories.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch08.htm

I usually come to the conclusion that *most* of the old, dead guys we talk about were ones I wouldn't want to hang around with, but, and I think *more important* are 2 things.

Their personal assholiness has *nothing* to do with whatever research and/or theoretical contributions they left to us (unless you're into questionable psychohistory silliness), and

their personality flaws, which so exorcised their contemporaries, many of whom *we* ALSO regard as forbears, are utterly irrelevant to the possible objective value of the ideas left us, * and those whom they, in their time, they royally pissed off, couldn't quite grasp, most of the time, because of being so furious, the value of. And it worked both ways, in many cases. (And still does, most likely).

...Wait. what?

I'm actually about to be off to a Theory of History class where we discussed Marx and Foucault last week. While originally, The communist manifesto AND the 18th Brumaire were assigned, the teacher removed the 18th. We then had 2 foucault documents and a Barthes peice to understand post-structuralism. The teacher spent 15 min. relating how Marx was teleological, utopian, but that most smart historians have jettisoned his b.s. and simply appropriated his critique of capitalism, which is fortunately not tied to all his "teleology." When did the Communist Manifesto become the penultimate theoretical Marxist text?

I'm not anti-foucault, but at times I really feel like it's the most academic, bastardization of a reading of power's social operation in the "production of a knowledge." It's kind of just an over-complex warning of historians to not be too sure of their own accuracy when writing history. (Can that really be said to be a distinct school of historical thought? "And over here we have the historians who aren't proclaiming total and absolute truth in the face of limited and fractured present day knowledge!" Ahh it's good to have distinguished them from the others!)

I'm getting kind of whiney so I'll cut it out. I just can't believe I'm going in debt to watch this teacher butcher theory.

Avanti,

Some useful references from 'paul r' but in addition if you haven't come across them before try a look at Sander's articles on 'The Roots of Capitalist Crisis' in three parts and other articles on the concept of 'Decadence' in the archived earlier editions of 'Internationalist Perspectives' here:

http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-index.html

Foucault's work is complex because it jettisons easy myth-making. Foucault is, like Marx, a tactical reader of history. What forces are deployed where and when, by whom, upon whom, and what is the reciprocal relation (the feedback loop); what affects does that force (knowledge or power) have when it contaminates other fields of knowledge and other subjects.

It exceeds the idea that historians need to be careful, although that is definitely in there. It is that everyone, everywhere who is in a position to influence operations of power and production of knowledge needs to be careful ("my point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous"). And the point is that they effects are all structural, unpredictable and often not easy to see.

As to F. being a bastardisation of power- well, he is among the first people to discuss power as being more than simple repression.

Still, its true that a lot of people find his style unnecessarily complicated (even he admitted to this- he's known to have said that if you wanted to be read in France when he was writing you had to write that way or know one would bother). I quite like his writing, personally.