POL320 - Lecture - March 17, 2009

Equality of Wages

• Even equality of wages would not solve the problem of wages
• work would still not be self actualizing
• crude communism - a more fundamental critique of capitalism

page 82-83

• it is silly to address the problem of inequality without addressing the underlying issues
• marriage is itself exploitative
• marriage is men exploiting women
• a capitalist trick - marriage is legal prostitution, women exchange sex for support
• end the norms of exclusivity - open communal sexual relationships - a community of women
• conventional marriage has a possessive connotation to it
• relationship is not dictated by a property based mentality

Mutually Constitutive

• the way we think and the way we live are mutually constitutive
• equality and dismantling notion of private property are superficial efforts to achieve socialism
• contrasting natrual relationships with relationships filtered through norms

true communism

• a return to transcendent natural state
• the return to oneself as a social being
• communism - fully developed naturalism - humanist - are all linked together
• genuine resolution of conflict between man and man and man and nature
• communism is the riddle of history - solved

Finding Ourselves

• humans will appropriate the world in a human way
• objectify ourselves without losing ourself to alienation
• how do we get there from here?

Developmental History

• what factors shape historical developments
• we live in a developed capitalist society
• why do we think about things the way we do?

Overview - German Ideology

• Basis of history is material production - what makes history go
• humans produce what they need to live
• they take advantage of the productive resources available to us
• we produce what we need to live
• in the act of production we multiply our needs
• history becomes developmental - progress
• first abstraction from production for the satisfaction of needs
• division of labour emerges

classes

• the ways in which human beings are related to the means of production
• human beings have certain relationships with the means of production
• he who controls the means of production - the technology - control the society
• a functional requirement - vaults them to dominance in a society

Politics and Leadership is Illusionary - it's technology that matters

• history is the history of class conflict
• politics is a mask, an illusion, - if you have the best technology you win, if you don't you lose, leadership, strategy, and bravery is irrelevant
• american civil war - industrial north vs. feudal, agricultural, ideas
• ideas are the product of the system of production

bourgeoisie

• it is defined as a specific way of relating to the means of production - capital
• before industrialization - the landed aristocracy dominated nad the bourgeoise were marginalized to the periphery in society

Even Ideas Reflect Dynamics of Production

• Ideas are one of the things that humans produce
• the idea of religious, intellectual, spiritual realm of life is filtered through the lens of production
• scholarly productivity - the language of production has seeped into academic life
• ideas reflect material realities - ideas grow out of material realities
• ideas of ruling class - reflect the interests of the ruling class and impose their ideas on society
• dynamics of production, dominate class, determines morality and right and wrong
• division of labour within the dominate class people tasked with producing ideas

Hegel

• who is the target of the german ideology = Hegel
• explcitly - the young Hegelians - leftist critiques -
• old Hegelians - right wing
• everything that exists is rational and we just have to understand it
• the only thing we have to believe is real is what is rational

Feuerbach

• a critique of consciousness
• Theses on Feuerbach - our ideas of god are projections
• we can't satisfy our needs, desire, and consciousness so we project the notion of god
• god's always look like the people that worship him
• god as a cultural production - cast out into the external world - internal requirments
• this challenge stays in the realm of ideas - religion is the alienated consciousness of humanity
• the solution is to have a true understanding of our condition

Page 149

• young Hegelians - critize consciousness
• changes in consciousness are the true avenues of social change
• old Hegelians say this is our bond that allow us to realize ourselves
• reform ideas, reform reality

Descriptive vs. Prescriptive

• philosophers have only interpreted the world
• the trick is to change the world
• interpretation is emphasized in post modernism
• we reform ideas by changing reality
• you have to start changing the way you live to change your way of thinking

Humans Produce their own subsistence in ways animals cannot

• look at the way human beings live and produce
• history presupposes
• active transformation of nature
• what is distinctly human? - culture?
• as humans produce their own means of subsitence in ways animals cannot

The role of Technology

• we collectively change our lives by the way we produce
• Rousseau - metallurgy and agriculture, a settled existence,
• Marx - technology is positive - it is a long transition but in the end improvement

Multiplication of Needs

• history starts with the production of means to satisfy needs
• the need for tools emerges
• culture emerges through the productive process
• development of new needs
• production is a means of expression and creation
• production vs. reproduction
• reproduction is necessarily social - it must be practiced by at least two - the family becomes important
• the first division of labour - just like Rousseau

Patriarchy

• a form of patriarchy emerges - men begin to dominate women
• material needs expand - so to do relations
• collective hunting

page 160

• division of labour and the development of production go hand in hand
• necessary but not benign
• wives and children are slaves to the husband
• the dominant class - primary role is to dispose the labour power of others
• they produce more because they are interdependent
• set free from the claims of production
• production should not be the basis of a society
• in communism - no one has one specific sphere of work
• hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle at night - and criticize after dinner

dynamics of production are intertwined with social relationships

• driven by the requirements of production
• there is a tight relationship between economic dynamics and the way people live - social relationships
• capitalism is inevitable outgrowth of social forces set into motions

Inculcating norms of Obedience

• a natural and social relationship
• inculcating norms of obedience
• the character of social relationships is derived in the character of the productive forces at the time
• study of history must be contextualized within the discussion of production

page 154

• social and political structure is derived from the productive relationship of society
• reality is how humans work and what humans do,
• the production of ideas
• communication is used to enhance material production via coordination
• notions of patriarchy are related to enhancing the productivity

Ideology

• mental production
• the way we think is a product of the way we live
• ideology teaches us that our behaviour is based on moral norms of right and wrong - ideas are in a vacuum
• real history is about civil society

False Consciousness

• distinction between appearance and reality
• false consciousness
• gap between what people think and what is
• example: history is full of people being sold a bill of goods, persuaded they are happy when in actuality they are serving others

page 165

• criticizes the notion that ideas shape history - history shape ideas
• the illusion of what really matters
• the political acts of princes and states - the evolution of ideas
• social and economic history - how people lived, and why there were changes in how people lived

the influence of the subconscious

• distinction between appearance and reality
• interpret the world through the lens of how people experience certain events
• outside interpreter - much like freud - talks to people - what you are aware of vs. subconscious/ unconscious threatening ideas
• Marx likes freud thinks this power of the subconscious applies to ideas as well
• challenging subconscious notions

abolishment of slavery

• 169 - slavery cannot be abolished without the spinning jenny, steam engine,
• struggles
• slavery was not abolished because people came to their senses
• at a certain point it became more productive to organize labour around wages not slaves
• wage slavery is and improved more technological form of slavery
• high minded moral ideas had little influence

when do ideas have purchase?

• feminism -
• rights of man - Thomas Paine
• rights of women - Mary
• subjection of women - Mill
• right wing republicans now defend feminism
• Marx is skeptical of moral and political ideals ability to bring about substantive social change

tutorial

Page 84 - paris manuscript

• material of astranged human life
• realization of the reality of man
• Marx starting point - sensuous man - the human being not as an abstraction, not mind or ideal abstractions - embodied human being - no distinction between mind and body a la Descartes
• what we think is an expression of who we are
• Hagel starting point -

Private Property is an obstacle to freedom

• positive transcendence of private property is the appropriation of human life
• social mode of existence
• alienation - abstracted from real social interactions
• you don't own your production
• recovering our species being - a notion of who we are as human beings
• species being - distinction from human nature - or natural man
• species being - is utopian - not being alienated -
• critique of Hagel - property is necessary for freedom
• For Marxs - the role of religion, family, the state, morality is part of the superstructure
• they are a reflection of the core - and can only be understood in context with the core economic strucuture
• Marx - suggests that property is an obstacle to the realization of human freedom

Turn Hagel Upside Down

• idealists - abstract - consciousness
• material conditions - practical - historical materialism - political and economic manuscripts

Page 71 - Estranged Labour

• historical materialism -
• Marx - private property is the means of production
• Hegel - abstract right - private property and contract in the abstract - what does it means conceptually
• in discussing civil society - it is property and contract in practice - engaging in contract regulated by justice

Paragraph 190

• Hegel division of labour - appreciation -
• division of labour creates interdependence and - interdependence is necessary for solidarity
• you are not fully aware of interdependence in civil society
• modern economies are inadvertently fostering interdependence
• at the state level we have to realize our interdependence

Conflict between Private Interest and the Common Good

• adam smith - assumption that economic agents in capitalist systems
• those who pursue private interests and pursue the common good is to assume humans to be schizophrenic
• Marxs picks up on this idea
• offset to the division of labour - increases unskilled labour
• increased unskilled labour - makes them easily replaceable with technology
• a rabble of poppers is risked

Commodification of labour

• for whom civil society is a domain of astrangement
• labour not only produces commodities it also commodifies the labourer
• the objectification of labour
• realization of labour - appropriation as astrangement
• devaluation of the role of man
• Why do workers experience a loss of reality?

Wage Slavery

• how does a worker become a commodity
• workers as means to an end
• selling the labour power
• workers become commodities because they are compelled to sell their labour in a wage labour system

Choosing Your Activity Freely

• England was heavily industrialized
• condition of the working class
• increases poverty and the human condition
• Engels - the working class
• alienation vs. choosing your activity freely

Alienation from the Product of Labour

• 2 moments
• means of life
• the external world belongs to you and this belong ceases when you are alienated from the product of labour
• a steel worker is no longer the worker using nature to satisfy his needs
• it is abstracted from nature,
• harvesting fruits for subsistence
• harvesting steel for money in order to trade for subsistence
• doubly mediated and abstracted
• he produces a product but does not get the product he gets a medium of exchange
• you produce for someone else

Productive Activity

• you can no longer choose freely -
• who is in the position to make choices?

Capitalism Fragments Life

• at home when he is not working
• working when he is not at home
• coerced labour
• a means to satisfy a need that is external to it
• is it natural to not work? - leisure is a necessary component of existence
• production is essential to the realization of human freedom
• negative vs. positive will - Hegel - constant state of meditation without making a choice
• in order to realize your individual free chosen productivity is essential

Species Being and Non-alienated Production

• understanding yourself in the world
• natural man independent of the core economic structure
• universal production - an example of productive expression for the entire species

the ratio between the cost of labour and the cost of production

• free choice -
• creating freely independent of the market economy
• removal of products from exchange value
• exchange value is no longer a criteria for evaluating the worth of a product.

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JUP460 - Please Ignore
boots on the ground bearing witness
troops demonstrate commitment in a way attack helicopters or lethal force do not

Imagine for a second that the US was not an intervening power but the sovereign regime - would its actions warrent intervention by the international community by advocates of R2P

my point is that even in circumstances of intervention humanitarian catastophe was not averted.

I really like the idea that institutions and norms are mutually constitutive, if that is indeed what you are suggesting

On the one hand,
boots on the ground bearing witness
troops demonstrate commitment in a way attack helicopters or lethal force do not

I challenge the basic assumption that intervention, in any capacity is necessary or sufficient to halt humanitarian catastrophe.

I challenge the link between morality and social change

I encourage you to look at a theoretical foundation for this link - Historically Marx suggested that changes in morality follow changes in the economic core. - contemporarily Malcolm Gladwell in his work on the power of awareness suggests that awareness if epi-phenominal at best

inherent problem with the phrase giving higher priority to the other - they are the other because of their priority - we need to make them less other