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Historical Materialism

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Andrew Cain Posted: Mon, May 18 2009 4:16 PM

I tried to upload a paper I drafted on the basis of historical materialism and its contradictions by neglecting the early Christian communist  sect pointed out in Rothbard's History of Economic Thought. I wanted to open discussion on the subject, does anyone know how I can put my paper up for some peer review?

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What format is it in?

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Its in word but I can find a way to convert it.

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If you can export it as a PDF that would be good.  IIRC you can add a PDF to your file library here (from your home community pages, it's either media or files).

Then you should be able to insert stuff from your media library into a forum discussion.

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Well tried to import it but its too big to add in.


I'll break it up.

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It just occurred to me that if you are going to all this trouble, maybe you should find out if anyone wants to read it.

If it is really long, people usually don't have the attention span for that.

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A valid point.

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Nitroadict replied on Mon, May 18 2009 10:38 PM

Laughing Man:

A valid point.

I would divide the actual paper into at least 2 or 3 parts / volumes, create a good abstract (or preface, intro, etc.) that summarizes the entire thing, & then make the abstract & volumes all separate PDF files.

That might ease the workload & make the entire thing more organized as well. 

Although I haven't really read anything on historical materialism, I would be interested in the paper regardless.

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Felipe replied on Mon, May 18 2009 10:48 PM

I would like to read it, Im always interested in refutations to marxist theory.

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You might find it worthwhile to email it if there are a handful of interested parties who can proofread it.

Alternately, if you can email it, I can host it temporarily at NoTreason.com and you can link to it.

If that is amicable, let me know.

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Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 We do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh; but setting out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process demonstrating the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. The phantoms formed in the brains of men are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, and all the rest of ideologies well as the forms of consciousness corresponding to these, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their actual world, also their thinking and the products of their thinking. It is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines consciousness.

-Marx: German Ideology

The windmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with industrial capitalist. The same men who establish social relations conformably with their material productivity, produce also the principles, the ideas, the categories, conformably with their social relations. Thus these ideas, these categories, are no more eternal than the relations which they express

-Marx: Poverty of Philosophy

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

 

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”

-Marx: Communist Manifesto

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The Rothbard essay "Marx as Religious Eschatologist" was rather good. Long though...

The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community.

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I was putting these quotes up for the 'Austrian-Marxist-Anarchist' who thinks that Marx didn't imply history's progress is caused solely by economic factors. But yes that is a good essay by Rothbard. Like of summary of his chapters on Marx.

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Anarchist Cain:

I was putting these quotes up for the 'Austrian-Marxist-Anarchist' who thinks that Marx didn't imply history's progress is caused solely by economic factors. But yes that is a good essay by Rothbard. Like of summary of his chapters on Marx.

I think you have ever so slightly misunderstood the quotes in question. They strike me far more as an advocation of structuralism than they suggest that economic factors are the only root of class struggle.

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Structuralism is just the Political economcy outlook based on Marxist/Socialist values.

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Sage replied on Fri, Jun 19 2009 4:15 PM

Anarchist Cain:
I wanted to open discussion on the subject, does anyone know how I can put my paper up for some peer review?

Send it to the Mises Institute Working Papers. Or post it on your website.

AnalyticalAnarchism.net - The Positive Political Economy of Anarchism

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To anarchist cain:

 

Wrong, do I really need to explain why?

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JimmyJazz replied on Tue, Jun 23 2009 1:24 AM

I would be interested.

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Lord Shore-Twilly:
Wrong, do I really need to explain why?

Please explain.

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Still waiting on that explaination.

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Anarchist Cain:

Still waiting on that explaination.

 

I do apologise, this thread had slipped my mind. Structuralism has nothing to do with Socialism or Marxism, structuralism was defined, and would become, an academic medium entirely independent of Socialist scholarship. Structuralism seeks to investigate a field by arguing that it is a structure comprised of many components. In historical research, for example, historians employing a structuralist thesis will argue that a development in this historical record can be explained through numerous smaller phenomenon that played a role in causing 'x' to occur. For example in the study of the holocaust the historian advocating structuralism will explore the many elements within the ideology of the Third reich, the actions of individuals within the Nazi Party, the effect of nazi foreign policy in radicalising policy towards Jews, etc. This in conflict with more traditional scholarship that saught to place the cause of the holocaust firmly on Hitler's shoulders and his shoulders alone, and date the germination of Hitler's desire to physically exterminate Europe's Jewish community to the earliest days of his political career.

 

While certainly elements of structuralism are appealing to Socialists and Marxists (for example it contradicts scholarship that fetishises the role of the individual), but they didn't come up with it they and they don't have a monopoly on it.

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Torsten replied on Fri, Jun 26 2009 11:46 AM

That's quite a funny example that you are using there, oh Lord. But I think you did make the point concerning structuralism.

Historicial Materialism means that the course of history is determined by social and material relations. This the Marxist deduct from their dogma that (materials/social)existence determines consciousness and not the other way around. It is basically the stance that materialism determines the course (stages) of history.

Here is an explanation about it from a Marxist Source:

http://www.marxist.com/History-old/historicalMaterialism.htm

And here is something on the issue from an Anti-Communist source:

The whole process of human history is the workings of dialectical matter through biological evolution, economics, and the social order. The struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat on the economic-social level is basically the same struggle involved in the atom and in the evolutionary process of living matter. Historical materialism is dialectical materialism wrought in history. It is historical determinism with a vengeance. While Marxists seek to make man significant in some ways, impersonal, dialectical matter is the only critical aspect of the equation. Life, man, mind, love, ideas, and consciousness are all secondary to the great forces determining nature and history.

http://www.schwarzreport.org/Essays/M-L_Summaries/history.htm

http://www.schwarzreport.org/Essays/M-L_Summaries/philosophy.htm

http://www.schwarzreport.org/Essays/whyckill.htm

http://www.schwarzreport.org/yct/10ycttc.htm

Do we need to discuss this more.

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Torsten:
That's quite a funny example that you are using there, oh Lord.

It was an example I thought people would be most familiar with in conjuction with historical discussion, the debate is commonly taught in high school class rooms as well a university seminars.

 

Torsten:
Historicial Materialism means that the course of history is determined by social and material relations.

In elements. However the communist manifesto establishes the central thesis of historical materialism when it states that "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle." In other words things happened in the past because elements of society are in constant competition.

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Lord Shore-Twilly:

I do apologise, this thread had slipped my mind. Structuralism has nothing to do with Socialism or Marxism, structuralism was defined, and would become, an academic medium entirely independent of Socialist scholarship. Structuralism seeks to investigate a field by arguing that it is a structure comprised of many components. In historical research, for example, historians employing a structuralist thesis will argue that a development in this historical record can be explained through numerous smaller phenomenon that played a role in causing 'x' to occur. For example in the study of the holocaust the historian advocating structuralism will explore the many elements within the ideology of the Third reich, the actions of individuals within the Nazi Party, the effect of nazi foreign policy in radicalising policy towards Jews, etc. This in conflict with more traditional scholarship that saught to place the cause of the holocaust firmly on Hitler's shoulders and his shoulders alone, and date the germination of Hitler's desire to physically exterminate Europe's Jewish community to the earliest days of his political career.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1235184/structuralism

'Structuralist ideas are rooted in Marxist analysis and focus on how the dominant economic structures of society affect (i.e., exploit) class interests and relations.'

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Anarchist Cain:

Lord Shore-Twilly:

I do apologise, this thread had slipped my mind. Structuralism has nothing to do with Socialism or Marxism, structuralism was defined, and would become, an academic medium entirely independent of Socialist scholarship. Structuralism seeks to investigate a field by arguing that it is a structure comprised of many components. In historical research, for example, historians employing a structuralist thesis will argue that a development in this historical record can be explained through numerous smaller phenomenon that played a role in causing 'x' to occur. For example in the study of the holocaust the historian advocating structuralism will explore the many elements within the ideology of the Third reich, the actions of individuals within the Nazi Party, the effect of nazi foreign policy in radicalising policy towards Jews, etc. This in conflict with more traditional scholarship that saught to place the cause of the holocaust firmly on Hitler's shoulders and his shoulders alone, and date the germination of Hitler's desire to physically exterminate Europe's Jewish community to the earliest days of his political career.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1235184/structuralism

'Structuralist ideas are rooted in Marxist analysis and focus on how the dominant economic structures of society affect (i.e., exploit) class interests and relations.'

 

Two points, firstly that is only part of the entry and unless we can see the rest of the entry it is somewhat worthless because it lacks context. After all immidiately after that line it states "Each of these perspectives is..."

 

Secondly in the academic version of Britannica, the version which scholarly institutions purchase, none of the articles on 'structuralism' mention the word 'Marxist'.

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"Structuralism" is associated with Saussiere, not Marx.

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