Wez
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I don't know why you're using the print version above – complete with A4 cropping marks!? Use the online version I sent you.
This is quite interesting on Adam Smith and his views on the 'free market': http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b052ln55
I can see it would be pointless in continuing a debate with you Ms. Lichtenstein as you are contemptuous of any ideas you don't agree with. This forum is a strange place. I've been informed here that Marx was not a materialist and now that he was not a philosopher – it's like a parallel universe. At least the old boy would be pleased that we're still talking about him – whatever he was or was not. I still believe that without Kant and Hegel there would be no Marx and that politics is a synthesis of economics, history, science and philosophy. I take my leave of you before the moderator gets me.
We started out by talking about Marx and philosophy and now we've been switched to Marx and dialectic. My post about bolshevism was a response to Ms Licthenstein's website which suggests they had something to offer in that original debate. She asked me why the compartentalising of intellectual Endeavour was 'so heinous'. I just think that specialisms sometimes mask the truth that a wider multi disciplined approach can reveal. Such a division of intellectual labour always strikes me as rather 'bourgeois' and unhelpful – Ollman has interesting thoughts on this – courtesy of a dialectical approach. Why, Ms Licthenstein, do you have such contempt for philosophy? Surely it's just one of a number of approaches to life's challenges?
I've never really understood why intelligent people have any interest in the works of Lenin or Trotsky. The Bolsheviks were political opportunists who, when not persecuting workers, spent their time justifying their coup d'etat as some kind of socialist revolution. Their theoretical works offer nothing to the traditions of socialism and their actions have only served the purpose of alienating the working class from socialism. Unfortunately because of the anniversary this year of this non-event we'll have to endure endless coverage of this anti working class movement that ended in an historical dead-end – yawn.
There you go again: 'Marx's 'dialectical method' is what we would now call 'Historical Materialism', which is a scientific theory, not a philosophy' – compartmentalising intellectual endeavor. It's very old school to believe in such divisions and although Engels made a big fuss about the 'scientific method' I don't believe Marx really shared his enthusiasm even 'back in the day'. Anyways we have moved on and recognise the ideological element within every discipline. As for Mr. Ollman's 'opinion' (you, in contrast, do not admit that your ideas are also 'your opinion') I can say that his work gave me a better understanding of Marx. By the way, why do you end your posts with 'The emancipation of the working class will be the act of the workers themselves'? Does this imply you have an elitist belief that 'workers' can never achieve the intellectual level of philosophy?
I don't think that debating which intellectual division of labour Marx did or did not belong to is helpful; he contributed to all of them. As for Ms Lichtenstein's ' dialectics detox programme' I can only respond with a quote from Bertell Ollman: 'All of Marx's theories have been shaped by his dialectical outlook and its accompanying categories, and it is only by grasping dialectics that these theories can be properly understood, evaluated, and put to use.'
I found Bertell Ollman's book 'Dance of the Dialectic' particularly helpful with aspects of Marx's epistemology.
Castro is dead – long live Castro (Raul, that is). Such nepotism is obviously an intrinsic element within Socialism otherwise the Cuban regime would resemble just another dictatorship.
Forget all these anachronistic identities in terms of nation states/cultures and embrace class conscious socialist globalism – the only relevent identity for the 21st century.
It is to the credit of comrades that they continue to indulge Mr. Bird. However when he rises from his keyboard and feeds his body, looks both ways before crossing the road and puts on an extra layer for the frosty mornings he becomes, miraculously, a materialist. Even his/ or is it her imagination would be unavailable without the help of some grey material called a brain.
How about: 'Harvest for the World' by The Isley Brothers and 'Wake Up Everybody' by Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes? And I'm just gettin' warmed up.
Of course, our publications have a class bias, but at least we realise it and are honest about our perspective (propaganda?).
I think you over estimate most scientists concern with the philosophy of science (what constitutes scientific method etc.). Most are wage slaves like the rest of us who just perform alienated intellectual labour for their masters with no ideological questions asked.
