File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1996/96-10-21.153, message 77


Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1996 17:30:14 -0500
From: rmbayi-AT-po-box.mcgill.ca (mbayiha cyuma)
Subject: Re: The Nature of Power.


Woaow, Benjamin!

you state & ask:


>I ever thought that marxist intellectual tradition would mainly be aiming to
>abolish societie's alienation and objective antagonisms, which are based on
>private property as a presupposition for accumulating capital. (Did I get it
>*this* wrong?)
>I would be very surprised to find thoughts like this in F's works.

_______

OK:i agree with the fact that Foucault distanced himself from both the
discussion of Capitalism's socio-econ monstruosities and of ways outta that
s(h)y(t)stem.

Now lemme quote some1 who recently beautifully distinguished 3 departments
within <marxism> the following way:
--------
QUOTE ON:
--------
the "Marxism" of Marx has only three elements:
first, an "analytics" of social evolution (or a quasi-theory thereof,
which can only be rendered truly informative by historical analysis of
a particular social formation); second, a system of "hermeneutic"
norms for interpreting social phenomena in a demystified way; and
third, an application of these interpretative norms to the
demystification of the "wealth of nations," i.e., the object of the
ideologically tainted social science of political economy.  Marx
called these: (1) "the materialist conception of history," (2) "the
dialectical method", and (3) "the critique of political economy."

---------
QUOTE OFF
---------

In the light of the above, i can safely believe that in your opinion, to be
characterized as <mxist>, 1 has to qualify for (1) & (2) & (3).

Well, not IMHO. My definition is a bit looser: to belong to the <marxist
intellectual tradition>, 1 has to fulfill AT LEAST (1), OR (2), OR (3).

i am not sure of having won your persuasion. Still, i hope to have
clarified the locus of our disagreement.

cyuma

PS: thinking again, to the extent that (1) & (2) & (3) are interrelated,
they form a <nexus> together. It is 4 this reason only that i can see your
point and ... reluctantly agree with U.





   

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