Dear Naren,
You may not agree that classical political economy, is predominantly occupied only with the directly intended social effects of human actions connected with production and exchange. But if you see objectively, all around in public or private discourses issues are prices, wages, tariffs, investment policies, maritime rights, strategies for coalitions and domination in regions having natural resources and their exploitation, GDP and equitable distribution etc, all related directly or indirectly with production and distribution of goods and services.
When one wants to judge someone or something correctly, one needs to be objective and keep his prejudices aside. If you want to study Marxism scientifically you need to pay attention to the idea being expressed irrespective of who is the person expressing the idea. Since Marxism is a philosophy to begin with and is termed as scientific world outlook by all those who have tried to understand it, I shall be using text and ideas of such people but without giving their names, lest prejudice for a name may affect your objectivity. You judge yourself whether the string of ideas fits into your scientific outlook or not. If we agree on an idea we accept it and move on. If we disagree on an idea we dissect it into smaller strings and follow the same rule of accepting if agreed, if not, further dissect and discuss in parts.
There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.
Just because it is a living philosophy with innumerable concrete applications, its full power and importance can only be gradually understood, when we see it applied to history, science, or whatever field of study interests us most. For this reason a reader whose concern lies primarily in the political or economic field will come back to his main interest a better dialectical materialist, and therefore a clearer-sighted politician or economist, after studying how Marx and Engels applied Dialectics to Nature.
If your interest does not lie in political field, don't try to understand Marxism through political discussions. Trie to understand how dialectics of nature apply to your field of interest and see whether you get better concurrence between your preconceptions and results of practice. May be you are following the Dialectical analysis without realising it. Need is to apply it consciously so that you become conversant with the dialects which will help you not only in correctly understanding Marxism, but also in getting better concurrence in not only in your field of interest but in every other field also.
Marx had a very open minded approach to everything which he expressed thus, ‘Every opinion based on scientific criticism I welcome. As to prejudices of so-called public opinion, to which I have never made concessions, now as aforetime the maxim of the great Florentine is mine: ―Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti.‖ [Follow your own course, and let people talk – paraphrased from Dante]’
What makes living organisms different from non-living ones? Two basic characteristics, first the former take material from surroundings to preserve own body since birth till death and second they procreate their own replica before they die. Natural scientists agree that life evolved on earth from non living matter some 3.7 billion years ago as single cell organism and after a series of evolutionary process man evolved from ape some 3.5 million years ago.
Hand in hand with the development of the brain went the development of its most immediate instruments - the sense organs. Just as the gradual development of speech is inevitably accompanied by a corresponding refinement of the organ of hearing, so the development of the brain as a whole is accompanied by a refinement of all the senses.
This further development did not reach its conclusion when man finally became distinct from the monkey, but, on the whole, continued to make powerful progress, varying in degree and direction among different peoples and at different times, and here and there even interrupted by a local or temporary regression. This further development has been strongly urged forward, on the one hand, and has been guided along more definite directions on the other hand, owing to a new element which came into play with the appearance of fully-fledged man, viz. society.
Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.
The production of life, both of one's own in labour and of fresh life in procreation, now appears as a double relationship: on the one hand as a natural, on the other as a social relationship. By social we understand the co-operation of several individuals, no matter under what conditions, in what manner and to what end. It follows from this that a certain mode of production, or industrial stage, is always combined with a certain mode of co-operation, or social stage, and this mode of co-operation is itself a “productive force”.
The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals.
When, therefore, it is a question of investigating the driving powers which -- consciously or unconsciously, and indeed very often unconsciously -- lie behind the motives of men who act in history and which constitute the real ultimate driving forces of history, then it is not a question so much of the motives of single individuals, however eminent, as of those motives which set in motion great masses, whole people, and again whole classes of the people in each people; and this, too, not merely for an instant, like the transient flaring up of a straw-fire which quickly dies down, but as a lasting action resulting in a great historical transformation. To ascertain the driving causes which here in the minds of acting masses and their leaders -- to so-called great men -- are reflected as conscious motives, clearly or unclearly, directly or in an ideological, even glorified, form -- is the only path which can put us on the track of the laws holding sway both in history as a whole, and at particular periods and in particular lands. Everything which sets men in motion must go through their minds; but what form it will take in the mind will depend very much upon the circumstances.
With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one.
The value-form, whose fully developed shape is the money-form, is very elementary and simple. Nevertheless, the human mind has for more than 2,000 years sought in vain to get to the bottom of it all, whilst on the other hand, to the successful analysis of much more composite and complex forms, there has been at least an approximation. Why? Because the body, as an organic whole, is more easy of study [discernible because its size being within the capabilities of human senses] than are the cells of that body. In the analysis of economic forms, moreover, neither microscopes nor chemical reagents are of use. The force of abstraction must replace both. But in bourgeois society, the commodity-form of the product of labour – or value-form of the commodity – is the economic cell-form. To the superficial observer, the analysis of these forms seems to turn upon minutiae. It does in fact deal with minutiae, but they are of the same order as those dealt with in microscopic anatomy.
As early as 1871, N. Sieber, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Kiev, in his work ‘David Ricardo‘s Theory of Value and of Capital’, referred to Marx’ theory of value, of money and of capital, as in its fundamentals a necessary sequel to the teaching of Smith and Ricardo. This is why I asked you to analyse and understand your self, ‘what is value’ before you embark upon understanding Marxism as political economy - the science of human society. And you must understand the Dialectical relationship between ‘being and consciousness’ before you embark upon understanding Marxism as Philosophy - the science of human thoughts and ideas.
Looking forward to your reaction
With warm regards
Suresh
20 March, 2019
Perfect article
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