From: Michael Perelman (michael@ECST.CSUCHICO.EDU)
Date: Sat Oct 19 2002 - 11:56:28 EDT
Marx certainly believed that the transition to communisim could be interstitial -- at least in his discussion of the building up of infrastructure and the growth of joint stock companies -- unless insterstitial only means small developments. On Sat, Oct 19, 2002 at 09:31:44AM -0600, John Holloway wrote: > Mike, Allin, Jerry, > > Many thanks for the responses. Mike comes closest to what I'm looking > for. > > On Mike's question: Yes, I think part of the baggage of orthodox Marxism > is the assumption that the transition from capitalism to communism (unlike > the transition from feudalism to capitalism) cannot be interstitial. This > seems to me to be wrong, that in fact the only way to think of revolution is > as interstitial. This is not reformism or gradualism, but rather an attempt > to keep the concept of revolution alive and central to our thought. > > John > ---------- > From: "michael a. lebowitz" <mlebowit@sfu.ca> > To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu > Subject: [OPE-L:7838] Re: Help with interstices > Date: Fri, Oct 18, 2002, 1:31 PM > > > At 12:38 17/10/2002 -0600, you wrote: > Does anyone know who said when and where that the transition from capitalism > to communism was fundamentally different from the transition from feudalism > to capitalism, in the sense that capitalism grew up in the interstices of > feudalism, whereas communism could not grow up in the interstices of > capitalism? > > John > > John, > > There may be others who made similar points, but Evgeny > Preobrazhensky in his The New Economics (Oxford, 1965) in his argument for > 'primitive socialist accumulation' argues 'that socialist accumulation can > begin only after the proletarian revolution, whereas the process of > primitive capitalist accumulation begins and goes on before the bourgeois > revolutions (116).' It's a very interesting discussion of a process of > contested reproduction-- marred, I would suggest, by the tendency to > identify socialism with industry (regardless of its productive relations) > and to miss the point that primitive capitalist accumulation for Marx > referred first of all to a change in productive relations within > agriculture. I suspect this latter question is not what interests you, > though. Are you proposing that, within capitalism, we can identify the > emergence of new, communist relations (and, thus, such a contrast is > incorrect)? > in solidarity, > mike > > Michael A. Lebowitz > Economics Department > Simon Fraser University > Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6 > Office: Phone (604) 291-4669 > Fax (604) 291-5944 > Home: Phone (604) 872-0494 > Fax (604) 872-0485 > Lasqueti Island: (250) 333-8810 > > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael@ecst.csuchico.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Oct 20 2002 - 00:00:01 EDT