In neither of these quotes does he say this. I can’t even imagine how you got this from what you quoted. And if he did, all the worse for it, because this does not hold up at all.
You can nit pick this semantically or whatever, but semantics aren’t Marxist.
I don’t care if semantics are or aren’t “Marxist”; you need to get into semantics if you want to analyze the meaning of a sentence. There’s no nit pick, Marx isn’t saying anything close to this.
but, because the working class is the vast, vast majority, we create a more just and democratic society
You can’t just smuggle in the concept of justice. Wrt democracy, Engels said that the communist aim of overcoming the state also implies the overcoming of democracy. Wrt Marxism, democracy is not some virtue to be maximized nor does communism have anything to do with the concept of justice.
But you are going to have to provide something more substantive on your theory of individuals as pseudo-subjects. […] I think you’re being overly mechanical, and dismissing my point without evidence. It seems like you’re just chucking subjectivity out the window, and giving into determinism. There is a deterministic element to Marxism, the world dictates the limits and possibilities, but people change it. I really don’t buy what your selling here, and you’re not supporting your argument, on this very load-bearing point.
Oy vey. How could you misread my words so completely?
I’m not getting rid of goals. To me the goal is to determine what is happening here and now, and make predictions and plans based in concretion.
Here is where semantics would come in handy.
But I don’t see how something in the far flung future defines us, and you aren’t convincing me.
It’s just been established that you didn’t actually read what I said with any attention so this isn’t a very big issue for me.
Anyways, this is Marxism 101. This grand calculus is what justifies everything (you see this in the draft ch.6 of Capital quote). Without this view, what justifies the call for global proletarian revolt? Within Marxism there is no universal (real) justice or morality, so it cannot derive legitimacy from this; it can’t be immediate self-interest, because Marx wasn’t a proletarian (why not side with the bourgeoisie?). Who’s to say this world we know nothing about will be “better”? Who’s to say the global terror won’t backfire tremendously and lead to a world far worse than the one against which people revolted? Capitalism contains contradictions? Why don’t we work to alleviate them as much as possible? If you think about this for two seconds you realize there is no other option than that Marxism relies on the image of the future communist society/the historical necessity it traces from capitalism to it for the legitimacy of communism as a movement. If that’s idealist, then Marxism is idealist. This is the backbone of the movement, this is what defines it.
Marx’s theories about “communist society” are concrete enough to believe
I don’t think so. You didn’t seem to either: “The ‘comprehension’ of ‘communist society’ does not even reach the level of contemplating single individuals! Only an abstract civil society. So it does not even reach the level of bourgeois materialism, it’s not scientific, its pre-modern conception.”
“Since we can’t possibly imagine what those experiences will be in ‘communist society’ we can’t imagine a communist individual existing in that society.”
“while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic” (The German Ideology).
In neither of these quotes does he say this. I can’t even imagine how you got this from what you quoted. And if he did, all the worse for it, because this does not hold up at all.
I don’t care if semantics are or aren’t “Marxist”; you need to get into semantics if you want to analyze the meaning of a sentence. There’s no nit pick, Marx isn’t saying anything close to this.
You can’t just smuggle in the concept of justice. Wrt democracy, Engels said that the communist aim of overcoming the state also implies the overcoming of democracy. Wrt Marxism, democracy is not some virtue to be maximized nor does communism have anything to do with the concept of justice.
Oy vey. How could you misread my words so completely?
Here is where semantics would come in handy.
It’s just been established that you didn’t actually read what I said with any attention so this isn’t a very big issue for me.
Anyways, this is Marxism 101. This grand calculus is what justifies everything (you see this in the draft ch.6 of Capital quote). Without this view, what justifies the call for global proletarian revolt? Within Marxism there is no universal (real) justice or morality, so it cannot derive legitimacy from this; it can’t be immediate self-interest, because Marx wasn’t a proletarian (why not side with the bourgeoisie?). Who’s to say this world we know nothing about will be “better”? Who’s to say the global terror won’t backfire tremendously and lead to a world far worse than the one against which people revolted? Capitalism contains contradictions? Why don’t we work to alleviate them as much as possible? If you think about this for two seconds you realize there is no other option than that Marxism relies on the image of the future communist society/the historical necessity it traces from capitalism to it for the legitimacy of communism as a movement. If that’s idealist, then Marxism is idealist. This is the backbone of the movement, this is what defines it.
I don’t think so. You didn’t seem to either: “The ‘comprehension’ of ‘communist society’ does not even reach the level of contemplating single individuals! Only an abstract civil society. So it does not even reach the level of bourgeois materialism, it’s not scientific, its pre-modern conception.”
“Since we can’t possibly imagine what those experiences will be in ‘communist society’ we can’t imagine a communist individual existing in that society.”
“while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic” (The German Ideology).