Re: [ox-en] Re: The new and the old
- From: graham <graham theseamans.net>
- Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 12:34:31 +0000
Hi Stefan,
carrying on..
Stefan Meretz wrote:
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 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.
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.
Where does this 'must' come from? And why is the social form of
production separated from technology?
I think, both come from the choice of Hegelian dialectics to describe
the change process. That fits most naturally to a process involving two
opposing facets, both of which will be subsumed in the 'new'. So in this
case, the social aspect of peer production versus the antisocial aspect
of capitalism within the system of capitalism ('the old'). Peer
production 'points outside' the old, and can lead to a 'new' which
subsumes both.
In the older view, the struggles of workers opposed to the oppression of
capitalists 'pointed outside' the system to a 'new' remarkably similar
to the peer production one.
In both cases the structure lends itself to describing a single
contradiction around which other lesser contradictions can be organized.
In know it's a cliche' to say Hegelianism works with pairs/triads, but
in practical uses it really does.
In the 1910s, 1920s and 30s supporting workers' struggles was just about
viable as a way of structuring an overall vision. Even so, to work at
all it needed to be complemented by a secondary contradiction between
imperialism/colonialism. And it failed completely with stopping fascism,
which turned out to involve a mass of contradictions which
interpenetrated the supposedly principal one. But it was still a 'good
enough' approximation to reality to let people build movements,
organizations, alliances, which had a chance of overcoming the system:
there was a bridge from the theory to a practice which was coherent with
the theory.
But now? A single opposition between peer production and capitalist
production as the contradiction around which all else is structured?
Clearly it is a contradiction, and an important one. As is the
contradiction between the new 'immaterial' technology and the old
'material' one. As is the contradiction between the Chinese workforce as
world producers and capital. As is the contradiction between production
for all and the world ecology. These four contradictions seem to me
completely inseparable, but as far as I know the Hegelian approach just
can't deal with that.
That leads to quite concrete problems. If you take the Hegelian
approach, you end up with an emphasis on the one contradiction, and
concentrate on peer production. At most you talk about how peer
production can be reconciled with material production (but in a way
which assumes peer production as given and so skips most of the real
problems; hence the emphasis on fabbers regardless of materials usage,
ecological impact,minimization of resources etc).
But it seems quite obvious to me that peer production cannot be the germ
of the new unless it is as a part of a subsumption of all the other
contradictions. If only because peer producers are a tiny fraction of
the population (minute proportion of women involved, for a start). I
guess this is actually obvious to everyone, which is why there is a
permanent temptation to fall back on technological determinism; peer
production has to win because of the way technology has become. But it
really doesn't, which is why I keep emphasizing there are very
unpleasant outcomes possible based on exactly the same technology. And
peer producers cannot stop those unpleasant outcomes unless somehow in
alliance with people trying to overcome the other contradictions.
Which is exactly what we have no theory of at all. The word 'alliance'
makes it sound as though there are already people who have movements
based on overcoming their particular contradiction of interest; a lot of
independent mini-Hegelian triads emerging which just need to be
combined. But there aren't, because the hard problem is how the
contradictions relate to one another, not as independent pairs. Which is
a theoretical question as much as a practical one.
<snip>
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.
This is not very new. "Not 'a fair days pay for a fair days work' but
'abolition of the wages system' must be the watchword" (Marx, more or
less). Then as now the question is still 'how'.
Best
Graham
Ciao,
Stefan
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