Marxist Dialectics for Dummies?

Question

Please help me understand this...Philosophy makes my brain leak.

Answer 1

Okay. Let's start from the beginning. Dialectics of any sort is a means of trying to resolve a paradox.

It's important first of all to understand the difference between a paradox and a contradiction. Two things contradict if they CANNOT co-exist. A person cannot be male AND not-male. That is a contradiction. A paradox is something that SEEMS to contradict but which may possibly have some middle ground. A person might be male and female, for example, if they are a hermaphodite (they have both sets of sex organs).

That, in a nutshell, is what dialectics does. To learn about something, it considers something that is almost its opposite, and then tries to figure out what the compromise is between the two. So perhaps you'd figure out the meaning of life by comparing it to the meaning of death. But that's getting off-topic.

Marx was a materialist. To him, the only things worth considering were real, physical things that you could see and lay your hands on. So ideas and knowledge were pointless, unless those idea were put to work and produced results. This is why most of Marx's work has to do with money and work, instead of some of the more airy ideas that are usually associated with philosophy.

So if you're a materialist, one of the dialectics you are going to be really interested in is the contrast between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'. How is it the some people have lots of material stuff and some people don't? And what is the inevitable outcome of such a situation? Marx even went so far as to describe all of human history in the terms of this materialist dialectic.

Feudalism, to Marx, was a struggle between the aristocrats (haves) and the peasants (have-nots). Slave labour works to produce things to an extent, but skilled labour produces things better. A capitalist system recognises and rewards skilled workers more highly than unskilled ones, so in his view all feudal systems were doomed to eventually become capitalist ones.

But a capitalist system still has a dialetic. There are haves (the owners of the factories, which he called 'bourgoisie') and the have-nots (the workers). So how will this inevitably be resolved? Marx thought that eventually the workers would simply stop working for the bourgoisie and work only for themselves. All workers would then be owners, and there would be no more dialetic - a permanent, stable system that he called 'socialism'.

To him, this was inevitable. Trying to resist this transition would only make the transition harder. There are, however, many cricism of dialectics as a whole and Marx's conclusions in specific, so exactly how inevitable it really is can still be a matter of protracted debate.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Dialectical Materialism For Dummies

Answer 3

Marxist Dialectic

Answer 4

Marx essentially says in his manifesto that history is an evolving exchange relationship between people. The nature of the relationship depends on what materials people have to work with and how they work with them. For example, eastern cultures tend to be cooperative and collectivist. Marx would say the reason for this is because they farm rice paddies which have to be farmed in groups to be any good.

The reason it's an evolving exchange relationship is because many aspects of it change over time, like going from handmade to factory goods. These changes create a dialectic or a self-correcting discussion in which a tension develops between the economic reality and culture of a place and time and must be brought back into line with each other.
For example, at the beginning of human history, people lived in small, family groups. These groups took care of all physical needs and were the basis for all thought and culture. But then because of contact with other groups, new inventions etc new wants and needs developed that the old family system could not fulfill. Thus a tension had developed between economic reality and culture and because it's easier to change more abstract notions of culture than ignore a new physical need, society will adapt to the new economic reality. Marx sees this happening all through history.

Answer 5

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Marxist Dialectics for Dummies?
Please help me understand this...Philosophy makes my brain leak.

Answer 6

Sounds like a book that explains the philosophy, and dialect of Marxism.....