Re: [ox-en] Re: The new and the old
- From: Stefan Meretz <stefan.meretz hbv.org>
- Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:45:35 +0100
Hi Graham,
On 2007-11-21 14:52, graham wrote:
So in this Hegelian vision does the positive facet always win
(eventually)?
No, this is not thinking the hegelian way: If you have a positive facet
which is opposed by a negative one (because the positive can only be
thought, when there is also a negative), then none of both wins, but a
new has the previous function (or content or sense) of the old opposite
facets as moments. So, the old has vanished (the form) and was kept
(the function) at the same time. Not one facet wins, but the entire
system of both opposites was transformed.
The old marxism had the view that at each stage there are only two
options: to stay with the current form of society (even if 'too
late', as with absolutism), or to move to a new one; the new one
being a single possibility determined at bottom by technology. And
the new always being an improvement on the old (an increased amount
of freedom, even if the freedom is double-edged).
This sounds merely like picture of linear progress. However, I think,
also old marxism was inspired by Hegel, namely in dialectics. But
dialectics was reduced to some formulae (initially by Engels) and often
used very schematically. (I am not sure, that I am doing better, but I
try)
So for the old marxism, 'socialism or barbarism' was a basic belief:
either the (one possible) new form will win, or society will be
destroyed.
Yes, and the new form was represented by labor being the opposition to
capital. But as shown above in a general sense: this is not dialectics.
Not one "facet" wins.
Your scheme below has a similar pattern to the Marx/Hegel one: peer
production is presented as currently (in appearance, I guess) a
hybrid of bad old and good new; but essentially, a necessarily
victorious positive replacement for the old.
The new is only a new, when it does not dissolve completely into the old
and has a permanent discrepancy to the old, because its principles are
different, and, at the same time, it has function for the old, has a
positive relationship to the old. This can look like a hybrid, ok. But
when the principles of the old can not longer guarantee the
reproduction of the old as a system, then the new principle can evolve,
become dominant and replace the old principle. However, during this
transformation both have changed: the old and the new from the
beginning. Both do not longer exist (as they were) and are kept at the
same time (as functions they now fulfill in a new way).
When capitalism (=old principle) vanishes, production (=function) does
not vanish (hopefully). If peer production is a germ form, then peer
production will not be "the" principle, because the germ form also
vanishes, but the function (say producing directly social and no longer
mediated by alienations) will be kept.
Is this a necessary process? No, destruction or babarism is an option
too. Is peer production a necessary germ form? Nobody knows.
I do not see why this is necessary, and why there is only one
possible exit from current society.
Hm, when as exit was found, I assume, it is not of an interest, if there
had been more exits. When an exit was found, then this was the possible
one.
The changes made possible by
technology are not all positive. The possibility of tracking my every
movement using my mobile phone, of determining my future quality of
life by using my DNA to establish future illnesses, of reporting on
all my internet-based relationships etc are all potentially negative.
You could say that they have both positive and negative aspects, and
that the realisation of the negative aspects depends on their
overdetermination by the 'old' capitalism (something like Franz's
picture of absolutism as capitalism overdetermined by feudalism).
The essential question is: Has this something to do with a germ form?
Technology by itself can not determine a new. The new must be a new
social form of production. Therefore, peer production as a more general
term for the germ form is better then free software or GPL society,
because it addresses more the social character of the new.
But to me it seems evident that it is also possible to build a 'new'
society on these negative aspects, one which would not be based on
capital and value: a totalitarian dictatorship based on arbitrary
(non-value-based) assignment of prices, without personal ownership;
something actually quite similar to the old GDR but with far more
intimate control over the individual and without any of the
benevolent original motivation.
Well, GDR and others showed, that it was not a new. It was a
modification of the old. You can imagine a lot of types of
modifications of the old (as you described), but the are all old.
How do we know if the new is new and not a modification of the old? We
can never be sure, but we can start with criteria we already gain by
generalization from free software: no alienation, no discrimination,
beyond value-money-state, Selbstentfaltung, self-organisation,
globality. Etc.
Hegel, to come back to this guy, has two criteria: freedom and reason
(Vernunft). Ok, he died 1831.
In this view there is more than one way in which the old can be
subsumed by the new, not all are equally pleasant, and the 'enemy' is
therefore not only the old (which as you imply needs more to be made
irrelevant than to be fought), but also the bad forms of the new.
Agreed.
I don't know Hegel well enough to know if that is an anti-Hegelian
view or can be squashed into his forms... But it seems to me that if
you accept the Krisis/post-operaist view that the old opposition of
worker:capitalist has been made irrelevant you are already quite far
from Hegel/Marx anyway..
I don't think so. Far away from traditional marxism, that's right.
However, I think post-operaist is far away from my view (ironically
they share anti-Hegelianism with krisis/exit).
core contradictions should not just 'become
irrelevant' without subsumption...
Why? When those old contradictions, which is a form of a movement, find
a new movement form, where the old functions are fulfilled and the old
poles both vanished? Exactly this must be the goal in my view. The
picture is not replacement of the oppression of workers by capitalists
by vice versa, but making it useless to be a worker or a capitalist.
Yes, both.
Ciao,
Stefan
--
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