Question about historical materialism

Given time considerations and the breadth of your queries, I’d like to answer just one of your list of questions, in a bit of detail.

The ‘forces of production’ alone do not ‘determine’ the fundamental characteristic of a society: the ‘forces’ and the ‘relations of production’ have to be taken together in an attempt to make this characterisation.

Furthermore, your list above of the ‘forces’ is incorrect: your list is essentially only of the ‘means of production’; the ‘means’ are only one component of the ‘forces’: the other is ‘labour-power’.

Perhaps if I explain all these interrelationships in a bit more depth it will be helpful.

The basic concept of historical materialism is the ‘mode of production’.

The ‘mode of production’ consists of two lower level components: the ‘forces of production’ (also sometimes called the ‘labour-process’) and the ‘relations of production’.

The ‘forces of production’ themselves consist of the ‘means of production’ (your partial list) and ‘labour-power’.

The ‘relations of production’ themselves consist of ownership-control exploitation relationships or ‘class structure’ and economic and political power relationships or ‘class struggle’.

So, in short, we have:

Mode (forces (means & labour-power) & relations (class structure & struggle)) of Production.

To further illustrate the four lowest level concepts:

Means of Production: nature, raw materials, animal-power, instruments of production, tools, technology.

Labour-power: labourer with individual abilities, skills, techniques, methods, and labour organisation, social knowledge, motivation and science.

Class structure: what and how labour controls surplus production, and what and how the exploiters appropriate the surplus.

Class struggle: socio-economic power, coercion, surplus distribution.

Some advice:

Note that ‘humans’ and their creativity appear in right across the spectrum of ‘means’, ‘forces’ and ‘relations’ of production. Neither ‘means’ nor ‘forces’, especially, are narrowly non-human ‘things’, as they are often portrayed by opponents of the concepts of historical materialism.

All the concepts can be illustrated further in greater detail. My explanations are not exhaustive.

The 'Mode' is also sometimes referred to as the 'Base', so clearly my points above do not cover the 'Superstructural' aspects of society, like state, law, ideology, consciousness, morals, art, etc.

Everyone else will disagree on my explanations. I already agree that some concepts overlap: historical materialism is heuristic, not exact revealed truth.

Hope this helps, Oenomaus (though I can't help thinking that perhaps Amy would have preferred you to call yourself ‘Oenohaus’).

LBird, I couldn't criticise your response as a whole, but I'm struck by an inconsistency in it. Forgive me for nitpicking but it seems fairly important.

You say at first, in my view correctly, that

But then you go on to summarise, changing the content in the process:

For Marx, as we know, the mode of production is made up of the forces and relations of production, as you said in the first place. If the relations of production simply co-existed with the mode of production and did not form an aspect of its fundamental constituents, then there would be nothing that defined our current mode of production as capitalist, since according to your summary the mode of production consists only of the forces of production.

With regard to the original question, it is often argued that for Marx capitalism has the tendency to industrialise society and to thereby bring the non-property owning classes together into the same place (i.e. it proletarianises them where they might formerly have been peasant classes). Commonality of location is seen as a precondition for the forms of communication and organisation required for a communist revolution. Marx's revolution is very much a revolution of the industrial worker and in his view capitalism is the force that creates the industrial worker.

Here is a quote from Capital vol. 1, trans. Fowkes, Penguin Classics. On the subject of the “immense impetus given to technological development by the limitation and regulation of the working day”,(since with the governmental limitation of the hours workers can work, capitalists were forced to make those hours as productive as possible), Marx writes that

We find arguments similar to this occurring frequently in Marx's work. In this case he argues that the tendency of capitalism is to universalise the condition of the worker and to thereby intensify what he saw as the contradictions of capitalism.

Marx viewed capitalism as a constantly dynamic system. The capitalists are always in competition with other and at risk of failing to continue making a profit. Unlike in the case of the feudal lord, there is no legally enforced right for a capitalist to receive profit (or goods), but only the legally enforced right to own property with which it is possible to make profit. Feudalism by comparison to capitalism is a stable economic system which reproduces its own form of exploitation by legally enforced codes and social positions. Under capitalism, the law will be of no necessary assistance to a capitalist who goes under. Another quote from Capital:

I personally could not give a reason as to why a communist revolution would be impossible in a feudal country, but then quite possibly Marx would not have either. He argues that capitalism has the tendency to on the one hand greatly develop the forces of production, and on the other hand to deprive the workers of what is produced. The contradiction he saw between these elements led him to believe that capitalism is the economic system with the greatest tendency to engender a communist revolution. One final quote which illustrates this dynamic of productivity--deprivation:

Anyway, that is my attempt at an answer. There are many on this forum with great knowledge of Marx so hopefully you will be given some more.

Glad to be of service!

Ahhh…. We’re like ships passing in the night, mate!

Much of what passes as ‘Marxism’ is impenetrable nonsense, which I can only think many ‘Marxists’ want to keep opaque so that only they understand ‘the truth’. Apprentice priests, in my humble opinion! In turn, I’ve become much more interested in class-struggle Anarchism. But… not the ‘individualist’ nonsense of some ‘Anarchists’: they seem to think that their minds are full of their own thoughts, and not to realise that we are all products of social brainwashing and bourgeois ideology, like their own ‘individualism’. What a coincidence, eh! They see themselves as ‘individuals’ and the most ideologically powerful class just happens to stress ‘individualism’. History, society and philosophy mean nothing to these brilliant geniuses. Anyway, rant over…

I’m afraid I’m going to have to unpick your question a bit here, Oenomaus.

The ‘forces of production’ don’t ‘provide’ the ‘level of development’ or ‘necessitate’ anything. Humans make history…

The ‘level of development’ is the ‘mode of production’, and so includes both ‘forces’ and ‘relations’ of production. As I tried to stress in my previous reply to you, ‘humans’ are at the centre of historical materialism, not inhuman ‘forces’ or ‘means’.

To study the course of history and to explain what happened in that course, isn’t to say that that course was pre-ordained. Or that the future is pre-ordained. Your questions in themselves are very ‘deterministic’ – I think you should try to clarify your questions and their presuppositions before you move on to seeking answers; your assumptions (like ‘scarcity’) will pre-empt the answers that you will accept, but that’s only my advice.

I suspect that you have been influenced, as have generations of workers trying to understand Marx’s ideas, by versions of ‘Marxism’ that leave humans out of the equation. This is very handy for those who don’t see workers using democratic methods as constituting Communism, but Communism as an enlightened elite directing the ‘thickoes’, who left to their own devices will just get pissed and ruin society. If the vast majority don’t freely choose Communism, or they don’t have the capacity to choose, then Communism is impossible.

Mind you, Marx was at least partially to blame for this inhuman reading of his ideas, with his flippant comments like “The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist.”

We should be trying to explain, in as simple terms and concepts as possible, what historical materialism is. In the simplest form, it’s a heuristic method to help ask questions and point to potential answers, rather than the ‘truth’ of human development. There is no ‘formula’ for understanding humans and their development, a ‘shortcut’ to study.

And if I’m talking shite, at least the terms I use can be recognised, and then you and others can easily understand and criticise my views.

Perhaps you've misunderstood my notation, jonglier?

Mode (forces (means & labour-power) & relations (class structure & struggle)) of Production.

In this, the 'mode' does consist of 'forces & relations'.

But it also shows what both 'forces' and 'relations' themselves consist of. Perhaps my bracketing was unhelpful?

I thought I was simplifying the interrelationships into one short line, for comprehension and clarity.

Have I answered your query satisfactorily? If it's still unclear to you, I need to try again.

the way you put it does not suggest that the mode consists of the forces and relations. it suggests that the mode of production is the forces, which consists of the further subsets means and labour power. by saying mode + relations you overlook that the relations constitute the mode as much as anything else does. Wouldn't it be more accurate to include relations in the bracket along with forces, means, and labour power, since, along with these three, the relations make up the mode of production?

Hmmmm...and there's me thinking I'm being helpful, even too simplistic...

No, I'm saying 'mode = (forces and relations)'... perhaps if I emphasise and contrast my bracketing...

Mode (forces [means & labour-power] & relations [class structure & struggle] ) of Production.

To be clear just what I'm saying (even if a bit less elegantly):

Mode = Forces and Relations

Forces = Means and Labour-power

Relations = Class Structure and Class Struggle.

Furthermore, to get ahead of the game,

Mode also = Base

Social Formation = Base(s) and Superstructure(s).

And finally,

LBird = Frustrated, Exhausted and Gritting His Teeth In Suitably Comradely Fashion.

Yes the key to the grouping is and was in LBIrd's brackets. Tricky little brackets, I missed that at first glance.

Yeah, it's my fault: I used to be a computer programmer, so I'm well used to looking closely at 'bracketing' in statements.

I suppose it's just as well I didn't expand into using ANDs, ORs and NOTs...

Using yours and jonglier's 'eye for detail', I'd logically be a Fascist Counterrevolutionary up against the wall by now...

'Don't shoot, Comrades! I'm on your side, honestly!'

Sigh! Perhaps Turing was right, and the computers will introduce Communism...

I do programming too, but I don't read your posts in vim so I don't get the benefit of syntax highlighting. Maybe I should start reading libcom in browser.vim.

Yeah, but what would any computer language make of Pareto's observation that "Marx's words are like bats, it is possible to see both mice and birds in them".

When 'AND' means 'OR', and vice versa, we've got problems...

I wonder if Oenomaus realises what a can of worms they're opening for themself in asking these questions...

Perhaps our 'dialectics' experts will make it all clear!

"Nature", eh? Anyway, carry on.

yes, LBird, you are absolutely right, I hadn't noticed the brackets going all the way round. Sorry for wasting your time, it was an honest misunderstanding.

OP you raise some good questions which i will think about. sweet dreams.

Unfortunately, I think that this ‘entrapment’ and ‘limiting’ is an inescapable feature of any human thinking. There is no ‘outside’ of ideology – the best we can do, as humans attempting to understand both the social and physical worlds, is to expose our ‘ideology’ as part of our account of that reality, and in this sense alone can claim to be ‘objective’. At least this displays a willingness to acknowledge our shortcomings, and essentially undermines any ‘authority’. Communists are not god.

The problem, mate, is that Marx is unclear, inconsistent and contradictory, and so ‘derivation’ of just what indeed he is ‘saying’ is a fuckin’ art form in itself! I think these problems are best addressed communally, rather than by ‘brilliant individuals’ who, with genius-like perspicacity, tell us ‘thickoes’ what Marx ‘really meant’.

To me, this method is best served by trying to simplify and explain in as plain language as possible one’s ideas to other workers, so that a collective, critically assessed view can be formed. Unfortunately, when we’ve tried here, on subjects like Marx’s concept of ‘value’ or his notion of ‘dialectics’, to follow this method, there often appears to be wilful obfuscation rather than collective clarity. I don’t pretend to really understand either, so I remain somewhat in the dark, even given my honest attempts to come to some understanding of them. However, historical materialism is a subject that I do think I can make a contribution, hence my attempts to simplify some difficult concepts and their interrelationships. Whether I’ve succeeded (and the problems with ‘brackets’ on this thread suggest not) is a judgment that has to be left to the other posters.

So, my advice with Marx and his epigones? If it sounds like bollocks, it quite possibly is. Not much use as advice, eh?

You’re getting there, mate! We’re Communists, not omniscient.

I’ll let Fred Engels field this one, if I may:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm

He’s right, of course, to point out that they were combating the dominant ‘great man theory of history’, with its elite emphasis on kings, generals and diplomats, by bringing ‘reality’ into focus, but unfortunately, as your current ‘understanding’ shows, their followers have often thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Just because economics is our starting point, it doesn’t follow that sociology, politics, ideology, science, art, philosophy, etc. don’t have some (sometimes a great) part to play in our historical explanations.

You and me both, eh? We Communists can all only help each other to come to some understanding.

Let's face it, no matter how crap our explanations, the alternative is 'bougeois individualism and the free market', so we've got to give it a try, at least, haven't we?

Thank you, Comrade!

No problem, mate. If it makes sense to you now, then perhaps it's of some use.

As I said before, it's really my fault for assuming that my use of 'bracketing' was as obvious and readable as I first thought.

That sentence was just my attempt to simplify as much as possible some difficult ideas of Marx, but only as a starting point for others to orientate themselves before they go on to ask deeper questions of his ideas.

Thanks for your comradely apology. And it wasn't a 'waste of time', because hopefully I've learnt something from the exchange, too.

As far as I recall, Marx and Engels in TGI sometimes use "mode of production" as the umbrella term for forces and relations of production, and sometimes use it just for forces of production. I generally use it the way you do, but there isn't 100% terminological consistency.

That's a far more polite way of putting it, bzfgt!

As I said earlier,

Marx is 'suggestive', rather than 'accurate', and we need to collectively and critically use his insights, rather than just quote him as a simple 'authority'.

Wow. I like a simpler answer than what I see here.

In a hunter-gatherer society people clustered in kinship groups and "worked" at hunting and gathering. Since they did not settle in one place but had a tendency to wander they had no desire to create a "surplus" so they "worked" just enough to get the food and shelter they needed and spent the rest of their time dancing and fucking. All the members in the kinship group were in the same class so there were no class differences.

After people began planting their own food and keeping animals for food they developed settlements. The settlements eventually had "leaders" who organized the settlements and "priests" who guarded them from the perils of locusts and droughts and other acts of nature beyond their comprehension. The leaders decided who got what field and who tended what animals and naturally did not forget themselves in this division. This created the first class differentiation amoung human beings. Eventually some of the people who could claim that "this field is mine" would take advantage of those who either had no fields or animals and get them to do the work for them while they lay around and gave orders.

It wasn't that "class society" had to arise but rather that those who created a class society benefitted from a division of labor that made them more effective warriors and in contests generally "won" the battles over time.

-- --- -- ---- -- --- --- ---- ---- ---- ---- --- -- --- -- --- --- --- -- --- --- --- --- --- ----

Why can't you go from a tributary mode of production (what is called "feudalism" in Western Europe) straight to socialism.

You might be able to if the surrounding areas were capitalist and the workers first created a dictatorship of the proletariat. The problem is the class structure under the tributary mode of production. It is made up primarily of landlords and peasants. What peasants want is a more equal division of the land. Once they get that they are more interested in working their own land and selling any surplus in the open marketplace. A peasant without a landlord is no longer a peasant but a "yeoman farmer" as is in the United States. In theory if you could organize them into "collective farms" you might be able to create a kind of low grade agricultural "socialism" but it would be very localized and therefore likely to break up. Unless the surrounding area was either a workers dictatorship of industrial socialism they would be very vulnerable to attack by outsiders.

Now I'm in danger of becoming a primitivist

Not as far as I recall. Marx always uses mode of production to delineate and distinguish the social relations, the organization of labor, the relations between labor and the conditions of labor, that determine how society reproduces itself, how the classes in society are reproduced.

Why can't feudal production go directly to modern communism? Productivity of labor. There is insufficient productivity of labor to support such communism.

Re: post 24:

I take those as being cases where "mode of production" is counterposed to "mode of co-operation" or "form of intercourse," which I take to be basically ways of saying "productive relations."

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FWIW, I want to reiterate that I agree with bzfgt on this issue, but that doesn't mean that S. Artesian is 'wrong'.

The problem is that it really is no use quoting Marx to try to come to an agreement, because, in my opinion he can be seen to say both; but I've no doubt that, in the opinion of S. Artesian he can't be seen in such a way.

The problem is Marx himself. He doesn't often say anything very clearly, and his words are very open to interpretation. Furthermore, we have Engels' famous letter, which I quoted above, in which he says that both he and Marx chose to emphasise some things over others, often to the detriment of later understanding.

So, Marx is naturally an unclear writer and he chose to further reduce that little clarity which could have existed, perhaps for sound political reasons at the time.

My recommendation is to read different historians who use the different interpretations, and see which produces the more satisfying history. Of course, 'satisfying' is an opinion, too.

The is no final 'Marxist' account of any historical period.