Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1997 14:05:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: What went wrong in the former Soviet Union



On Sat, 18 Jan 1997, hariette spierings wrote:

> Of course, to have this outlook, one must have a thoroughgoing Marxist -
> i.e. dialectical materialistic - outlook, and not an idealist one.  I would
> therefore like to posit the question that socialists should be asking in a
> reverse fashion as it has heretofore been done in this list:

I would like to suggest that we avoid the metaphysical construction (and
obfuscation of Marxian theory and method) of "dialectical materialism." I
think it is more appropriate to follow Marx's formulation of *historical
materialism*, rather than its naturalization in dialectical materialism. I
would also suggest, and the reason will become evident below, that we stay
away from oversimplications of the dialectic which posit out "reverse" 
thinking, or perfectly polarized oppositionals. The dialectic is a
nonlinear way of conceptualizing social change as novel emergence, not an
objectively existing, trans-social bi-polar logic (this actually regresses
the dialectic to its more Hegelian form, although this is still an
oversimplification of Hegelian logic). 

> Marxism is indeed a contradiction - like everything else.  Therefore it is
> not strange that the farther it seems to some people to be from its goals,
> the closer it is in fact to achieveing those very aims, and this is because
> it is a contradiction with a point - to carry on the struggle of the
> proletariat until final victory!  We should never forget that essential point!

This is an odd argument. It reminds me of Mandel's example of Soviet
authors trying to confirm the truth content of Marx's theory of the
tendency towards a falling rate of profit being confirmed by a tendency
towards a rising rate of profit. The understanding and deployment of
the dialectic as operating through its negation is a vulgar metaphysical
idealism that should be purged from our conception of social reality as
dialectically unfolding. This is ontologizing a badly formulated
analytical system.

Andrew Austin



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