modern day society and Marxism...

[Peter Kropotkin]

I am reading a book about existentialism and Marxism..
and one of the concepts struck me... that of the Bourgeois,
and there is the other Marxist concept like the Proletariat..
classes of people who hold like minded ideals...
but in thinking about it, does anyone today, fits into
those classes? Not at all...

today, we have the wealthy and we have the working poor... and they
themselves don't think of themselves in terms of the wealthy or working poor...
people today, don't seem to see themselves in such terms... the idea
of belonging to a "class" such as envisioned by Marx, seems to have
gone by the wayside...and yet, we must ask why?

as is quite evident by the events of the last two hundred years,
that modernism, the modern age has leveled the playing field...
old ideas that had currency for centuries were diminished to the
point of no longer existing... and new ideas were established only
because of the new conditions... that Marxism and existentialism,
were only possible because of the loss of the old ideals and the
new conditions that made this thinking possible...

among the old ideas that were diminished by the modern age include
the idea of Monarchy, of the aristocracy, the rights established by
god, that human beings were now and forever fixed into their
class, be it the lower class or the middle class or the noble class....
there was very little movement between the various classes...
one born a slave, always a slave.. once born poor, always being poor...
the class you were born into is the class you died in...

one of the things that the new age brought about was the
the idea of mobility between the classes... but that is one idea
that Marxism didn't really change... the class system was alive and well
within Marxism... but in reality, the class system was dying...
or who among you fit into the class system of being Bourgeois
and who among fit into being a Proletariat? and who among you
fit into being the worker class that is described within Marxism?
even the idea in America of "blue collar'' and
''white collar''... has faded substantially... a great deal of the jobs
in America and elsewhere is within the service industry... and can
that be described as "blue'' or ''white'' collar?

the world since Marx has fractured and splintered....what was
a certainty in Marx's time is not even around today...
what was a certainty in Marx's time was the idea of factory
workers.. and in them, was the Marxists thinking about class...
that is the class that Marx thought would lead the "revolution''
into communism...and today, most people like me, work
in a factory lite situation, but not actually in a factory...
we no longer have the factories we used to have...
manufactory jobs have gone away in modern day America...
and those people have transitioned into service jobs of some sort
or have retired...

if the class system as described by Marx no longer exists,
then what about his predictions about the final structure
of society/history, being a "worker paradise?"
that goes down the tube...

which leaves us with a "now what" situation?
the very grounds upon which Marx said would be the creation
of a new society, no longer is there...the working class, which
in Marx eyes, was the workers in the factories...they
no longer exists, now what does that say about Marxism?
that the creation of a ''workers state" was no longer possible...
and if the final goal is gone within Marxism, what is left of Marxism?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

in Marxism comes this thought;

...his ''materialism''
''The mode of production of material life generally dominates
the development of social, political, and intellectual life."

that Marxism is materialism is a statement of fact, it is opposite
of and opposed to the philosophical idea of ''Idealism''
that Idealism is where the world is found in the mind,
and materialism is where the world is found in the body,
in materials...

and within Philosophy itself, the two opposite have been
in battle for centuries.. idealism and materialism
can be considered to be the two main philosophical
ideas we have... idealism is the heart of and the basis
of the philosophers centered around Kant and thereafter...
German idealism is about the mind..... and Marxism is about the body,
materialism...Marx himself says so...

this modern dualism was created by Descartes in his philosophy...that the mind
and body were two different and distinct things that were not able
to find a middle ground.. but the idealism and materialism battle
can be said to go back to Plato and Aristotle... Plato being of
idealism and Aristotle being of Materialism...
thus we can say that the battle between idealism and materialism
has existed in Philosophy since day one of philosophy's creation...

if you are opposed to Marxism, then you fall into the camp of Idealism...
and if you approve of Marxism, you fall into the camp of Materialism....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

in Marxism comes this thought;

...his ''materialism''
''The mode of production of material life generally dominates
the development of social, political, and intellectual life."

but what does this actually mean? The ''mode of production"
and what is the ''mode of production today?
what is mostly being "produced" today? well, frankly its
paperwork.. we are being drowned in paperwork today...

in any contact with any official organization, be it the union or
the state or corporations, the organization has miles and miles
of paperwork to be filled out to even begin to have a conversation
with that organization...if you call an organization, and ask them
something, you may not fill out the paperwork, but the person
you called will fill out paperwork of some sort...paperwork
is the heart and soul of the modern world....and my guess
is that the end of the world won't be the bomb or any virus or a meteorite,
nope, it will be paperwork misfiled or filled out with the wrong information...
that causes the end of the world...the world will end with a whimper, not a bang...

so, the means of production dominates the social, political and economic
and intellectual life we have today.. and we mostly produce paperwork,
so what does that say about our world? That Kafka was a prophet unparalleled
in modern history...and his statue should be on every street corner in America...

Kropotkin

[Skepdick]

if you are opposed to Marxism, then you fall into the camp of Idealism...
and if you approve of Marxism, you fall into the camp of Materialism....

Way to misunderstand Marxist reification.

Objectification/reification is the very process of turning subjective ideas into objecive material facts. e.g idealism is reified as materialism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(Marxism)

[Peter Kropotkin]

if you are opposed to Marxism, then you fall into the camp of Idealism...
and if you approve of Marxism, you fall into the camp of Materialism....

Way to misunderstand Marxist reification.

Objectification/reification is the very process of turning subjective ideas into objecive material facts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(Marxism)

K: and does reification actually work? and how does this process work, exactly?
there is no process that can turn subjective ideas into objective, material facts
despite what Marx may have told you... now you might say science?
but what "facts" are actually "objective?" therein lies the problem,
as far as I can tell, there is no such thing as "objective"..
you might say, it is objectively true that the earth is 93 million miles
from the sun...and the fact is that isn't even true...the earth's orbit
around the sun isn't a perfect circle.. it is more of elliptical in nature...
that the 93 million miles number is simply an artificial number to give
us some idea of the distance, but isn't the actual distance...

you seem to think that facts are objective, they are not....
they are subjective as to what they mean....and facts are subjective
to being changed... we say that Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth..
that is a fact... but what does that fact actually mean? that is
an interpretation.. which is subjective...was Lincoln assassination
good, bad or indifferent? depends on which side your bread was buttered...
the ''fact'' that Lincoln was assassinated by Booth, tells you nothing...
it is in fact, a meaningless tidbit that has no point,
until you put it into context...what did that assassination mean?
and now we are talking... the name of the game is context and not
facts...

Kropotkin

[Skepdick]

there is no process that can turn subjective ideas into objective, material facts
despite what Marx may have told you... now you might say science?

I don't care what Marx said.

The process of reification is as simple as me imagining punching you in the face annd then proceeding to do it.

Imagine the future. Reify the future. Very simple.

[Iwannaplato]

if you are opposed to Marxism, then you fall into the camp of Idealism...


Kropotkin

You can't oppose Marxism and be a materialist??? This will be news to a lot of physicalists who are capitalist, whether libertarian or liberal, right wing or...really whatever. Marx was a materialist but not all materialists are Marxist.

and if you approve of Marxism, you fall into the camp of Materialism....

This will be news to dualists, for example like many of the Liberation theologists, who were not in denial of the material world but were not materialists (not were they Idealists)

Here's one of them talking.

I have left the privileges and duties of the clergy, but I have not ceased to be a priest. I believe that I have given myself up to the Revolution out of love of neighbour. I have stopped saying mass to realise this love of neighbour, in the temporal, economic and social fields. When my neighbour has nothing against me, when I have achieved the Revolution, I will offer mass again, if God allows me to do so. I believe that in this way I follow the command of Christ: "If you bring your offering to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come and present your offering" (Saint Matthew V, 23-24).

— Camilo Torres, "Mensaje a los cristianos", Frente Unido, no. 1, 26/08/1965, Bogotá.[18]