From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Fri Oct 01 2004 - 03:10:00 EDT
I put the transition directly to communism in because that was the sequence suggested by Marx in Critique of the Gotha Program where he mentions 2 stages of communism the first of which is directly reachable from capitalism. This first stage was later identified with socialism by Soviet orthodoxy, but if one examines what he said about it, one sees that it was somewhat different from the socialist mode of production operating in the Eastern block. It thus seems to me to be an open question in marxism that such a direct transition is possible. -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L on behalf of Gerald A. Levy Sent: Fri 10/1/2004 3:18 AM To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: (OPE-L) explaining transitions among modes of production Allin, I asked Paul C: > > Why not [examine] the following? > > capitalism => feudalism > > capitalism => slavery > > socialism => feudalism > > socialism => slavery You replied: > Because these are a bit silly? (That is, of such low probability, > given our current understanding of things, that they are not worth > discussing). Yet, one of the arcs that Paul suggested that we focus on was: communism => capitalism If it is silly to speculate that there can be a transition back to feudalism and slavery from either capitalism or socialism, how would you rank the probability of a transition to capitalism from communism, a mode of production that has never existed? If you don't want to discuss 'silly' questions, how about addressing the following question: How would you determine the transition arc and probability for capitalism => socialism in the UK in the first half of the 21st century? I think we can all agree that is a question of some importance. In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Oct 03 2004 - 00:00:01 EDT