Rick Reuben wrote:rick reuben wrote:It is socialism that exalts the will of the collective
big_dave wrote:Socialism doesn't acknowledge that a collective exists. Socialism is concerned with the interplay of lots of smaller social groups.
Idiot. What organism do you think is created by the 'interplay' of smaller groups? A collective. Marx is laughing at you, Davey.
It was Marx who finally fettered the two ideas of Socialism and Democracy together because he developed a theory which made the synthesis possible for the first time. The heart of the theory is this proposition: that there is a social majority which has the interest and motivation to change the system, and that the aim of socialism can be the education and mobilization of this mass-majority. This is the exploited class, the working class, from which comes the eventual motive-force of revolution. Hence a socialism-from-below is possible, on the basis of a theory which sees the revolutionary potentialities in the broad masses, even if they seem backward at a given time and place.
Where did you get that quote from. It seems pretty inaccurate/weirdly translated.
"Socialism-from-below"? What is that? "Mass-majority"? These are not terms used by Marx.
You seem to be confused by the Marxian idea of the "totality", that is the entire structure of society, the sum of all classes and effects. This is not the same as "collective".
Socialism doesn't acknowledge that a collective exists.
Well see, it doesn't because Socialism is the discussion of different social groups, not a collective. The article you quoted is someone's description of Socialism to fit your (ahistorical) definition, and even that doesn't use the word "collective".
Seeing as you are dead-set on the "Marxism = Socialism" line of thinking, Marx divides society up into classes. He divides the psychology of men into Hegelian drives, objects and awareness (dialectics). He finally (and crucially) divides the economy into a "base" and a "structure". His politics is the inter-related-ness of these factors. Which is to say, he is denying that there is one collective unitying a nation, or one collective being to society. What
is objective and singular to Marx is the material history of the world.
Do not take this as my undying love of Karl Marx, or that I think he was correct. I am just trying to sum up how his works differ from the collectivism you may have read about in science fiction novels and websites about free energy and UFOs.
If you want to go ahead and pretend that the socialist/marxist term "totality" = "the collective" = "the masses", go on. It doesn't hurt anyone, just makes it painfully clear that you haven't read anything that isn't on a website stuffed to the gills with comics sans and photoshops of Dick Cheney's head on Stalin's body.
If anyone is interested in a non vulgar-Marxist version of this, I recommend Raymond William's "Culture and Society" and "The Long Revolution".