PHIL3395: Marx
|
|
Novy SP09 |
A
few notes on Wood’s “The Communist Manifesto After
150 Years”
|
|
|
|
Manifesto: a public
declaration of a political program, a short and dramatic statement of purpose
& a call to arms |
|
|
|
Historical
Context: Revolutions
of 1848 |
|
CM: calls workers to
arms &foresees their emergence as a truly revolutionary force [&]
tells the triumphal story of the bourgeoisie |
|
Bourgeois
or Capitalist? |
|
1. “Narrative of
bourgeois revolution” |
|
2. Bourgeois society is
interested in civil equality and “careers open to talent” not really in
liberating capital |
|
a. Capitalism (a la
Britain) was not particularly bourgeois |
|
3. Does capitalism
actually bring into being the best of Enlightenment principles? |
|
4. Role of democracy |
|
Capitalism
and Historical Materialism |
|
5. HM: “simple proposition that human beings obtain the
material conditions of their existence through the specific and historically
variable relationships with nature and with other human beings. The most
basic fact about any form of social organization is the nature of those
relationships” |
|
6. Constant pressure
to enhance labor productivity by technical means |
|
a. Commodification of everything |
|
b. Effects of this
system on labor (estrangement/alienation) |
|
7. Positive effects |
|
Capitalism
and Socialism |
|
8.
Creates the capacity for massive material well-being |
|
9.
Also creates a social class to bring this about |
|
10.
Divide workers by race, nationalism, etc |
|
11.
Fragmented by the very organization of production |
|
12.
Pre-conditions for socialism to exist vs. the point of
socialism’s existence |
|
The
Manifesto and the Future |
|
13.
Account of capitalist expansion |
|
14.
Globalization |
|
15.
Aspects of the Manifesto’s program have been
implemented |
|
16.
Capitalism must restrict the scope of democracy |
|
|
On
Singer’s “Why we need a new manifest”
|
|
|
|
Manifesto: “Not a blue print,
not a detailed program. But a project, the vision of a different society, the
proof that history has not come to an end, that there is a future beyond
capitalism” |
|
17.
TINA is the “foundation upon which their mighty
propaganda machine rests.” |
|
Necessary
components: |
|
18.
Address “the allegedly vanishing work” |
|
19.
Globalization |
|
20.
Equality |
|
21.
Democracy |
|
22.
Realistic Utopia |