From: Alex Future Bokov (alexboko@umich.edu)
Date: Wed May 20 1998 - 17:26:03 MDT
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I apologize in advance for my naivete, and also for perhaps going
off-topic.
Something that has always puzzled me about Marxism... whence the
_need_ for this thesis-antithesis-synthesis junk? I mean, as long as
they're talking about collectivizing and redistributing the means of
production, the what, why, and how of their ideology is coherent enough to
agree or disagree with. What did they hope to accomplish by tying their
straightforward core meme to shaky generalizations about history,
determinism, and the nature of contradiction? Did the peasants and factory
workers bust out cheering every time Vladimir Ilyich launched into his
quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes speech, or what?
For that matter, to me the thesis-antithesis doctrine begs the
question: "won't the opposites of communism and capitalism therefore
synthesize into a mixed-market economy?". Another vulnerability they've
introduced into their ideology for no reason I can see is the assertion
that the victory of communism is an inevitable culmination of unstoppable
historical forces... BUT as soon as communism wins history will come to a
screeching halt and nothing further will ever evolve. Now certainly nukes
made that a distinct possibility toward the end, but I don't think that's
what Marx meant.
In short, can someone please explain what the dialectic
materialism meme had to do with the "workers of the world unite" meme?
--Sincerely, Alex F. Bokov
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