On dialectics

1. What follows is a summary of Kolakowski’s historical outline of the philosophical and theological development of dialectical modes of thinking (“The Origins of Dialectic” in Main Currents of Marxism).

2. I’ve always been at my happiest in libraries, and I first read this in the John Ryland’s Library in Manchester 25 years ago. It seemed to me inconceivably strange and esoteric. But it stayed with me, niggling at the back of my brain on and off ever since. So I’ve always wanted to pin down: What is dialectics? How did it help to inform Marx’s social scientific approach? Is there anything to it, anything useful about it other than that? Or is it just an interesting way of thinking, a kind of literary presentation with no particular appeal or power from the point of view of generating practical, political knowledge and advice?

3. The dialectical outlook before Marx finds its roots in the romantic reaction against the Enlightenment; the Enlightenment its origins in the reaction against Christianity, by which it is nevertheless defined; and Christian theology through its absorption of elements of ancient Greek thought.

4. A focus and stimulus of Greek philosophy was contemplation of the human condition: in particular, that we are subject to time and decay, to non-existence before we were born and to death at some point afterwards. For Aristotle, it is a quintessential feature of humans that it is possible for them not to exist (in contrast, the Divine can neither come into existence nor exit from it). For Plato, the most tell-tale marker of human life is the gap between our knowledge from experience that our lives are subject to short time spans and the innate knowledge that we come from and belong to the eternal, which is built into the soul: we experience this gap as a nagging sense of incompleteness, unease, of alienation, angst, ennui. 

But if god is complete and self-sufficient, never changes and is outside the vicissitudes of time, for what reason does he create human beings, who are subject to both?

These views of the human-divine relation and this last question strongly influenced Christian theology (medieval and then north European Protestant mysticism). However, before that, we must first look at how the relationship between mankind and the eternal was handled by Plotinus, one of Plato’s followers.

5. For those plagued by a sense of incompleteness and separation from the eternal, Plotinus has an explanation of how this came about and advice on how to address or solve it.

Humans are partial creatures, and only get a glimpse of the possibility of their wholeness by remembering their past and anticipating their future, even though they only actually exist in the moment; whereas the One is all of a piece, undifferentiated, homogenous, outside time.

Nonetheless, Plotinus reasons, to get from the complete, timeless unity of the One to the flawed reality of human society and life, there must have been a process of degradation, first from unity to division (this is the development of intellect, of the self recognising the self, so that it becomes both the perceiving mind and the thing perceived, the subject and the object, divided, split); then from eternity to time (this is the same as the contamination of the soul by contact with physical reality, with the consequent possibility of evil, ie of death); finally, from stasis to movement with our entanglement and domination by matter (from the immobile self-sufficiency of the One to dependency, lack of self-determination).

For Plotinus, souls have created time by deigning to concern themselves with sensuous objects. Therefore, he recommends withdrawal from the physical world and the world of ideas as a way of reducing distraction from contemplation of the authentic within us that contains the knowledge that could lead back to the path of reunification with the One, a return home.

From the point of view of the influence on (early?) Marx, the important bit is the movement through degradation and fragmentation, followed by a return to completeness and authenticity.

The key to all mythologies

Getting a bit disorganised again: overworked and spreading myself too thin: time to plan. What would you like to do? What can you do in the time? What's most important interesting?
Books to read/ study
i) Sperber’s Marx biog: plus a short review: by end of April 2013
Main Currents of Marxism, broken down into manageable bits
> Simple summary of pre-Marx dialects from Plotinus to the Young Hegelians by May
Old Greek philosophy
Capitalism and Modern Social Theory
The Violence of Abstraction
KMTH
On the Jewish Question, Paris Manuscripts
The German Ideology, 18th Brumaire
The Grundrisse, Capital I
Varieties of Social Explanation
Modern Marxism and international relations
Marxist theories of imperialism

ii) Class in Britain read and summary by end of June
Labour party pamphlet on "One Nation"

Belarus, a perpetual borderland
Aslund’s book on Ukrainian economy
Economic history of a) world in 20th C b) UK in 20th century

iii) Emerging market economies: read more on May hol
Langdana A week off in May: what’s practically useful
Evolution of Macroeconomics
LSE undergrad text
Penguin History of Economic Thought: read on May hol

iv) Statistics with Excel
Maths: textbook plus winecon
Manual on Excel, Word, Power Point

v) Russian & French
vi) Shakespeare, poetry, novels
vii) broad history, esp of europe
Topics/question/ subjects to look into
Is there anything still useful in dialectics, except in helping to understand Marx? What is useful? Outline on own words by end July
Is there anything still useful in Marx’s political economy? The approach? Any content?
Is there anything still politically useful in historical materialism?
Is the pay of chief execs etc justified by the small pool of management "talent", or is it ideological rent seeking, linked to social connections?
What is the relationship between the institution of private productive property and workplace arbitrary power structures, "workplace tyranny"?
Is there a tendency of the rate of profit to fall long term and how might this tie in with the current ongoing global economic crisis ala Brenner’s "consumption Keynesianism"/ endless monetary boosts/phases of QE either stuck in liquidity traps or leading to new phases of SAP bubbles??
In lieu of the labour theory of value not holding, does any other theory of value hold? What implications for the justice or otherwise of social distribution of the economic surplus? Eg does the "intellectual propery" argument hold if the "mixing my labour" argument doesn’t? What is the justification for my making an eternal living from a single invention, because my intellectual labour is being continually "mixed" with material, eg is certain kinds of micro chips or pharmaceutical; from the past (but still going/): "cats eyes"?

Practical criticism assessment, but constructive, of "One Nation" Labour; a more positive, less defensive but practical/sellable left programme than tired 70s Old Labour nostalgists like, say, Owen Jones; one that gives away less to the "neo-liberal" hegemony (why should we/ there’s no need to since it’s more or less intellectually damaged/defeated, if not in practice)

Work related
Main tipics for each country, to keep coverage focused
A list of issues/ arguments/ main theoretical connections/mechanisms by:
econ pol,
fiscal [govt spend and tax changes],
monetary [change growth of Ms],
GDP [G, C (related to disposable income, IRs, employment, wages, economic/jobs/labour market outlook) I (related to IRs, econ growth/firm profitability, econ outlook for product sales and profitability) and net exports (related to foreign and domestic income, real exchange rate)
inflation (cost push, demand pull, SAP bubbles, price administration)
exchange rate (related to demand for foreign elative to domestic currency, which is related to policy regime, domestic relative to international IRs, the outlook for the economy, the size of key financial variables (budget deficit, current account), credibility of govt policy, which is influenced by international backing, size of reserves, 
Work out: who is audience? Why would they read it? Work out this and more detailed outline/ proposal. By July 2013.