| This question <15|15> overall <13|15> Martin: <86|20>. |
| Question 485: Explain carefully to what extent the relations of production are determinate, necessary, and independent of people's wills. |
| [14] Martin: Relations of Production As a lay student both of economics and of German I am particularly interested in this question, and value the opportunity of Hans's comments. I do not know how much care though I can bring to my explanation, but I will try. |
| As Hans's notes indicate there is much debate around the relationship between the productive forces (I am sorry but I cannot get my head around a further change of terminology at this moment) and the relations of production. |
| Much depends on the meaning of words like “determinate” and “conditioned” and whether the English is a faithful translation of the German with the right connotations. |
| A big prejudice against Marxism is that it describes an inevitable progress of history which does not respect individual will. |
| Now the questions. |
| a) to what extent are the relations of production determinate? |
| I am afraid I still prefer the traditional English translation of “definite” which may mean no more than definite as in “the definite article”. I wonder also if something like “certain” or “particular” might work. I think in essence it means concrete. |
| Now if the word determined is used, I agree with the notes that this should not be understood rigidly. There is a “tendency” for the productive powers/forces to progress. Similarly “economic relations have their own dynamic, but they thrive better in one technological environment than in another”. |
| Mathematicians and physicists use the word “determine” in a technical way. Some non-linear equations can produce results that are “determinedly indeterminate” - that is the variables definitely determine certain results but the precise value of those results cannot be known in advance. The have a tendency to fall within certain bands. It is interesting that Marx claims that the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, can be ascertained with the precision of natural science. If so I think the word determinate should be used in the determinately indeterminate sense. The scientific sense is different from the anthropomorphic sense, like I am determined to put my hand up, or I am determined to submit these answers before tomorrow. |
| b) to what extent are the relations of production necessary? |
| I think this implies necessary given the material productive powers. But at the risk of not answering the question, I think there is a fuzziness here, as shown by the different interpretations what is primary in this dynamic between productive powers and relations of production. I think it is a contradiction in which there is unity as well as struggle, and one side of the contradiction at one time or another may have the leading role. |
| Whether Russian or China could advance to socialism without an intervening phase of capitalism has been a major question in Marxist politics. Is it “necessary” for them to go through a capitalist phase? It remains a burning question now. |
| c) to what extent are the relations of production independent of their wills? |
| Vastly: Marx's analysis is that certainly under exploiting society humans live at best only in a state of semi-consciousness. Even when they think in our society that they are most free at present, they are absorbing and reproducing patterns of thinking characteristic of the civil society that emerged with the capitalist mode of production. Even with the struggle to achieve a deeper consciousness of what is really happening it is extremely difficult through even collective will to change the relations of production. These dramatic passages imply for Marxists almost a sort of fatalism that could be very optimistic or very pessimistic. |
| I see in the Dictionary of Marxist Thought, in the entry on ‘forces and relations of production’, that the English marxist economist, Laurence Harris, says that Cohen sees some optimism from a factor which lies outside the forces and relations of production: “this motive force is human rationality, a rational and ever-present impulse of human beings to try to better their situation and overcome scarcity by developing the productive forces.” |
| I prefer to see the seeds of some new relations of production emerging in connection with new productive powers, eg the collective power of cooperative working on the internet, and on the basis of such signs to hope for a change in the prevailing relations of production. But that means that the relations of production are still essentially independent of human will. Even with a political movement to introduce socialism, I think we will have to shape the relations of production and cannot just decree that they become socialist, and punish people for not obeying. So we are talking about an economic dynamic that is only partly dependent on human collective will at the best of times, and is virtually totally independent of the will of any one individual. |
|
|
|||||