From: "michael pugliese" <debsian-AT-pacbell.net>
Subject: RE: Re: AUT: capitalist cuba?
Date: Wed,  6 Mar 2002 12:07:16 -0800



  Sources on Cuba, Left and Right and Center... Jeanette Habel,
French Trotskyist (USFI?), "Cuba: revolution In Peril?< " Verso
Books, early 90's, o.p. K.S. Karol, "Guerillas In Power, " Hill
& Wang, late 60's. "Cuba: Is It Socialist?. " by Rene Dumont,
French left agronomist. "the New Cuba, " edited by (future renegade,
neo-con), Ron radosh, circa 1974, from a collection of articles
occasioned by his trip to Cuba that appeared in the anarcho-pacifist
magazine, Liberation. Afer his trip, slide show by Radosh in
Proyect's pal, david McReynolds apt. in NYC. "castro's Final
Hour?, " by Miami Herald reporter, A. Oppenheimer, Simon & Schuster,
mid to late 90's. Extensive material on the Ochoa affair. Articles
by , "Kautskyite ;-), Sam farber, on the website of the Shactmanite
quarterly, New Politics. Also books by Susan Eckstein, and Arthur
MacEwen and Frank Fitzgerald from Monthly Review Press. M.P.---
Original Message ---
>From: commie00 <commie00-AT-yahoo.com>
>To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Date: 3/5/02 10:25:02 AM
>

>> The problem with aufheben is that their articles are written
at such a
>high
>> level of abstraction that one honestly can not reply to them.
For example,
>> in issue #9, they say things like:
>>
>> "What is a commodity? The simplest answer is that a commodity
is something
>> that is produced in order that it may be sold. But by itself
this simple
>> definition is inadequate for an understanding of the commodity
as a
>> distinct social form. It is necessary to probe a little deeper
to grasp
>the
>> implications of the commodity-form.
>>
>> "Any society requires that individuals act on and within the
material
>world
>> in order to appropriate and produce the material conditions
necessary for
>> the reproduction of themselves as social individuals. As such
social
>> reproduction necessarily entails the constitution and appropriation
of
>> material objects of social needs. However, in a society dominated
by
>> commodity production this process is carried out in a peculiar
manner that
>> gives rise to specific social forms."
>
>this is only problematic if you don't understand intellectual
abstraction as
>a necessary componenet of practical action. we abstract from
our
>experiences, and then use those abstractions to help guide us
in future
>activity. so....
>
>> I wouldn't dream of trying to respond to something like this.
>
>this is a total co-out.
>
>> >and marx pointed out that any instance of hierarchy institutionalized
>into
>> >anything like a state means that a ruling class must exist...
this is
>> >something that lenin, natually, glazed over quite a bit.
>>
>> I don't think that Marx ever expressed himself that way. It
is only Ivy
>> League professors who prattle on about hierarchy.
>
>marx did say this in the grundrisse:
>
>"The social relation of individuals to one another as a power
over the
>individuals which has become autonomous, whether conceived as
a natural
>force, as chance or in whatever form, is a necessary result
of the fact that
>the point of departure is not the free social individual."
>
>and its not hard to figure it out (you know, if the abstraction
doesn't
>offend you):
>
>"The social relation of individuals to one another as a power
over the
>individuals which has become autonomous..."
>
>that is: a social relation of institutionalized hierarchy.
>
>"...is a necessary result of the fact that the point of departure
is not the
>free social individual."
>
>that is: if there is instituationlized hierarchy, then clearly
the point of
>departure is not the "free social individual" (which marx considered
>requisite for communism)... and thus, not only does communism
not exist, but
>it can not come into existance by this means.
>
>the implications of this is easy to put together when you know
that marx
>understood communism as a movement, not an endpoint (and certainly
not as
>something to be transitioned to) (see a whole shite load of
his writings
>from the german ideology on), and understood communism as the
negation of
>alienation. and given that marx believed that all forms of oppression
and
>repression eventually get "realized and supressed" by the class
dialectic...
>
>we get institutionalized hierarchy as another form of alienation,
which must
>eventually become part and parcel of the class dialectic, that
puts breaks
>on the communist movement.
>
>its not much of a jump from here to say that: institutionalized
hierarchy
>(which, of course, includes the state) is a function of the
class dialectic
>and is actively and necessarily anti-communist. thus, state
= existance of
>ruling class.
>
>of course, this is prolly more abstraction at such a high level
-- or some
>sort of logical leap, by your calculations -- that you'll not
want to deal
>with it.
>
>
>
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