M-L-M Mayhem!

At the conclusion of The Communist Necessity  I wrote: "the window in which we can make revolution is closing as the world approaches the armageddon promised by the logic of capital."  The intention of this claim was to point out the necessity of organizing in the face of capitalism's depletion of liveable existence, arguing that we needed to get our shit together because, due to capitalism's internal logic, it might be too late to continue waiting until the current mode of production has played its course.  At that time I had not read Robert Biel's The Entropy of Capitalism ––though I had helped edit the second edition of his earlier manuscript, Eurocentrism and the Communist Movement ––and he was nice enough to write a blurb for the back of The Communist Necessity … I really wish I had read his most recent book, however, considering that The Entropy of Capitalism dove-tailed with the conclusion of my book. Yep, same picture as last post.  Um… I thought I'

It is interesting that an institution that was once invested in demonstrating the superiority of capitalism to communism during the cold war has now released a study that proves the opposite.  I am speaking, of course, about the NASA-funded study that pretty much agrees, though not with the same language, with one of the axiomatic claims of historical materialism––that capitalist forces of production are being hampered by capitalist relations of production. Even though this study does not define itself according to a slogan such as "socialism or barbarism" this is pretty much what it argues: the production of surplus and "overconsumption of resources" in the current global system will destroy civilization unless we "reduce economic inequality."  Moreover, not only does it argue that market forces are incapable of producing equilibrium (thus rejecting the parascientific claims of bourgeois economists), but it asserts that groups of "Elites"––th

Several weeks ago an interested reader emailed me about my entry on Charlie Post's review of Zak Cope in order to ask for clarification about my complaints of "crude empiricism".  Generally speaking, s/he wanted me to expand on my claim that historical materialism, and indeed all science, was not reducible to positivist empiricism (i.e. the simple mobilization of statistics and quantitative data) and why this sort of positivist exercise was actually, as I implied, contrary to a materialist understanding of the empirical method.  This question made me consider my usage of the concept of science in connection to marxism and how, in this day and age where the term "science" has now been reduced to being synonymous with the hard and "natural" sciences.  Thus, my initial attempt to explain why it is important to accept that Marx and Engels initiated a scientific methodology––to reclaim this language despite its unpopularity amongst academics (some "p

In a previous post I cited Samir Amin's comment from Class and Nation  regarding the value of ideas.  That is, Amin's claim that people who want to change society generally have better ideas than people who want to preserve society as it is––this is because, as Amin goes on to note, "society changes."  And thus, those who refuse to recognize change and turn their back on historical progress are also those who are out of step with reality.  I like this quotation and I think about it a lot whenever I encounter ideas that are either reactionary––that are so out of step with social development that they really belong in a by-gone era and are thus utterly valueless––or ideas that are banal reflections of status quo ideology.  The quote sometimes reminds me that I shouldn't be too annoyed by common-sense liberal ideas because, being unremarkable, they'll hopefully be relegated to the proverbial dust-bin of history. For example, I recall reading a debate in which

…In figuring out that IQ is a bullshit theory .  After all, critical leftists have been pointing out that a standardized test designed to reveal a concrete and universal intelligence quotient was about as "scientific" as phrenology and other para-sciences for decades.  One almost wonders why it took so long for neuro-scientists to discover what we had already proven without a laboratory and brain-scanners: that there is no such thing as an "intelligence quotient" and that there can be no objective measurement of intelligence unaffected by the conflict of social classes. Not that a bunch of brain-scans are capable of explaining how intelligence is also a social phenomena, not something simply found in the brain, but at least they can tell us that all of this IQ nonsense is a just that–– nonsense ––because, lacking an understanding of the social aspect of intelligence, it also lacks any basis in crude biology.  There is nothing in the brain that can be measured as a

Since I discussed, in an earlier post , the problem with hasty marxist dismissals of what is generally termed "postmodernism" (which includes post-structuralism and post-colonialism), I feel that it is important to discuss what is needed for a proper historical materialist critique of this phenomenon.  For though I argued that most marxist critiques of this phenomenon haven't been very helpful, and that there is much that postmodernism can teach us as marxists, I also feel that in order to have a helpful critique of this phenomenon that can possibly utilize some of the postmodernist insights it needs to be placed within a proper historical materialist framework.  After all, postmodernists have accused marxists of being totalizing  and, since we marxists think this totalizing aspect of our theory is its strength, then we should begin by doing what only historical materialism can do––to all phenomena including itself––and that is to examine postmodernism's social and hi

All talk of some supposed "Fourth International" has always annoyed me, even before I gravitated towards the maoist realm of revolutionary communism.  This annoyance has less to do with my feelings about Trotskyism and more to do with rationality.  Look: you can't call yourself an International  if your "internationalism" is about as international as a successful academic conference.  And you especially can't call yourself an International when there's about fifteen competing "Fourth Internationals", all led by sectarian groups who think they're the legitimate heirs to this bullshit venture. Anyone who thinks that there is such a thing as a legitimate "Fourth International" really needs to stop and consider history in a rational manner for more than one minute.  Such a consideration would make them realize that this supposed "International" suffered from two primary flaws at the moment of its inception: a) the fact

As a follow-up to my entry on science , I want to talk about utopianism.  More specifically, I want to interrogate the charge that communism is a form of utopianism ––the product of some naive "idealist" thinking, the opposite of the scientific mindset that I have claimed is essential to marxism.  Indeed, communism is accused of being utopian, imagining that "human nature" is essentially "good", and often treated as fantastic ideology. Although it is true that some communists might be utopians, it is important to note that Marx and Engels established the revolutionary communist project by delineating themselves from utopianism.  They were not interested in idealist moralizing, in abstract notions about returning to some root human essence, or in defending the necessity of communism according to abstract philosophical arguments.  Rousseau, after all, was a utopian and Marx and Engels, though influenced at one point by Rousseau's philosophy, had alread

Due to the fact that I've often thrown the term science  around on this blog in reference to the historical and dialectical materialism initiated by Marx and Engels, I have decided that it might be worthwhile to discuss what I mean.  Considering that we live in a time where this concept is prevalent, and where it is applied to a variety of disciplines, I realize that when those of us who are committed to communism speak of a revolutionary science , or a science of history , we are often misunderstood. To be clear, when I apply the word "science" to the methodology of historical marxism, I am not attempting to conflate it with those scientific disciplines that are now, thanks to a long post-enlightenment history of experiment and technology, considered to be the  sciences.  That is, I do not think that historical and dialectic materialism are completely identical to biology, chemistry, physics, or the queen of the sciences, mathematics.  These sciences, obviously, have b