Jason, while i agree with everything that you said and i’d certainly agree that relations in pre-capitalist society weren’t ‘progressive’, but i’d argue that at certain times, when the people were rising, that there were progressive movements and moments in history.

When democracy (in the pre-capitalist, pre-liberal sense) was rising, there were indeed progressive moments in history.

And Marx couldn’t have anticipated Fordism or that powerful worker movements would be able to extract significant concessions from the ruling class. These concessions of course were limited, didn’t put any structural power in the hands of workers and with the decay of Keynesianism and the nation-state probably aren’t coming back in any significant form.

“does he think capitalism is good because it devlops land for profit? (and also devlops humans as profit making machines?) ”

Yes, Marx does, because he sees this as an advance over the muck that came before it and in it the potential for another, form of socialization that would be in the interest of the majority.

It’s simple enough to look at the bourgeoisie in China and see that they aren’t as reactionary and decadent as the aristocracy had become by the 18th and 17th century, on the contrary they are still a dynamic, progressive force. Obviously the growth is coming under the auspices of state developmentalism, but still.

furthermore, any calling of the capitalist class ‘as a dynamic force’ betrays your complete misunderstanding of the difference between capital, capitalists and the proleteriat. Capital may be a dynamic force in the world, (producing, distributating, exchanging and consuming commodities is still a very productive part of our lives). But the idea that the capitalists are a dynamic force betrays a yearning to be capitalist and shows a lack of interest in the actual dynamic force in capitalism: the workers.

Your understanding of the commons shows in fact how liberal your understanding of the world is… do you not understand that you are just barfing back centries of liberal capitalist ideology which calls the commons ‘stagnent’ (i.e. why would the commons be stangent? becuase it is not producing profit…. altough it was producing social surplus for the peasents who had the right of the commons!)

Your apology of capitalism continues: “Capitalism has created an astounding increase in social wealth…” sure, but who actaully is wealthy? the poor or the rich? (ie for a marxist the fact that the social wealth created by capitalism is not a neutral question, it lies at the very heart of a marxist analysis).

What is ‘eons of underdevlopment’? would a marxist uncritcally use the capitalist buzzword ‘underdevlopment’? Doesn’t marx call for the devlopment of the fully sided human being? does he think capitalism is good because it devlops land for profit? (and also devlops humans as profit making machines?) i highly doubt it…

Where is your examination of the iprovishment of the people that capitalism has wrecked in tis +/- 400 years of existence? What does the need of a labour reserve army mean?, it means that people have to be impovirshed in order to be at capital’s bidding, but that means that pre-capitalism, these people were NOT as imporvished!

Having said all that, yes, with capitalism ‘productive forces’ have been devloped that in many ways there is a possibility that human labour could be freer and more fully devloped then at any time before… but is this capitalism? NO! capitalism might create the possibility, but capitalism is the devlopment of the profit mehinism and as such has no interest in the devlopment of humanity other then as profit-producers!

ps, for someone who calls themselves gramsician, read more of his critique of ‘the manual’

There is no way to argue with this, because it’s patently false. The commons ensured stagnation, decay and commiseration. Capitalist social relations were a huge advance over feudalism and the growth of capitalist productive forces has created an astounding increase in socially created wealth that has done much to combat eons of underdevelopment.

And this isn’t just a tale of what capitalism has done in past centuries–look at the (fractious and yes uneven) growth of productive forces in China and India. The proletarianization of people who have been peasants since time immemorial, etc., tells me that the bourgeoisie in some parts of the world are still a dynamic force. Yearnings for pre-capitalism are reactionary and ahistorical. Just google earth Seoul then type in Pyongyang.

obviously, we must not oversimplify, but in looking towards the future, we must also honestly examine the past, becuase, if there was a commons (at least) that meant that the majority of people did not live in abject poverty, which is exactly how the majority of people live under capitalism.

furthermore, i’m not sure how mucha tv, iphone or imported food are better then the situation that usually existed pre-capitalist

I agree with Bhaskar’s view about capitalism being an advance on feudalism. I was surprised at a minority in my crowd who disagreed with me when I presented that concept. One person felt the systems were basically the same, and another participant felt that folks had certain rights as serfs and vassals had certain obligations which meant feudalism wasn’t that much of a step back. Of course, I disagreed. Their views, however, show that even among radicals there’s no real consensus of just how good or bad capitalism may be as a system.