From: "Nate Holdren" <nateholdren-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: highest form of capitalism
Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 18:06:04 -0500


Thanks for the info Carrol.
"Imperialism is the current example of capitalism" doesn't make me cringe as 
much as "Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism", and it allows one 
to avoid the arguments about historical necessity, in order to discuss other 
matters with more political importance (like is it true that imperialism is 
the current stage of capitalism? and how should we organize?)

The idea that developments in history are contingent doesn't seem 
incompatible with an order to history, it's just that it's an order of 
events that could very well have turned out otherwise.
The only notion of order I think contingency conflicts with is an idea of 
pre-ordering, that events had to turn out a certain way. Pro-ordained-ness 
was the overtone I associated with the "highest stage" talk. The idea that 
historical events had to happen the way they did happen is quite close to 
the idea that currents events have to unfold in one certain (pre-ordained) 
way, which undermines the importance of subjective action.

Thanks again.
Nate

>From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-ilstu.edu>
>Reply-To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Subject: Re: AUT: highest form of capitalism
>Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 14:51:16 -0600
>
>
>
>Nate Holdren wrote:
> >
> >  What I
> > don't like about the higher/lower model is I think it implies that only
> > after the highest stages have been reached can revolution occur. Am I
> > misunderstanding this or no?
> > thanks.
> > Nate
>
>
>Possibly this goes back to an ambiguity in Russian, the word which has
>been translated as "highest" could also have merely meant "latest." And
>"stage" is a tricky word in that it _ought not_ to be a technical term
>but merely a common noun to be interpreted according to context. Then in
>some contexts (and I think Lenin's) it merely means "what's happening
>now," and has no greater theoretical purchase. Many, both pro- and
>anti-Leninists have tried to make a big deal of it.
>
>There is far more room for contingency in historical materialism than
>many will acknowledge. Actually, Stephen Gould's _Wonderful Life_ (as
>well  as many of his essays) is good on the matter of contingency, and
>of its _easy_ compatibility with seeing order in either history or
>biology.
>
>Carrol
>
>
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