KARL MARX: THEORY OF SELF-MANAGEMENT

KARL MARX: THEORY OF SELF-MANAGEMENT

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was born in Treves, town south of Rhenish Prussia, on the border of France, on 5 May 1818. The son of Herschel Marx, attorney and counselor of justice, Jewish descent, was persecuted by the government absolutist of Frederick William III. In 1835 he completed the junior high school at the Lyceum Friedrich Wilhelm. In the same year and much of 1836, Karl studied law, history, philosophy, art and literature at the University of Bonn.

At the end of 1836 goes to Berlin, where he spread the ideas of Hegel, German philosopher and idealist highlighted. Marx aligns with the "Left Hegelian" which seek to analyze social issues, based on the need for changes in the German bourgeoisie. Between 1838 and 1840, is dedicated to the preparation of his thesis, "The difference between the Philosophy of Nature in Democritus and Epicurus" (1841).

Marx is not accepted in universities and began to work as a journalist writing articles for publication excited for him and Arnold Ruge, the German Annals, but censorship prevents publication. In October 1842, he moved to Cologne, and became the director of the newspaper Gazeta Rhenish, but shortly after the publication of the article on the Russian absolutism, the government closed the newspaper. Is expelled from Germany and goes to France, with his wife Jenny and as Ruge founded the magazine "Annals Franco German", which publishes the Friedrich Engels articles. Marx published "Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right" and "On the Jewish Question." Logo is expelled from France, and later in Belgium, ending up living in London, England. Participates in the foundation and organization of the IWA - International Workers Association. Passes a period of his life in poverty and survives of the few resources of their articles in newspapers and the help of friends and colleagues. In England, he published part of his great work, Capital.

Karl Heinrich Marx died in London on March 14, 1883, as a result of bronchitis and respiratory problems.

MAJOR WORKS self-managed

Marx had a critical perspective against the utopianism. Critical of utopian socialism, he preached a new company, but did not observe the ways and agents to its constitution concretely, calling for imaginative solutions such as "education", "reason", etc., he wrote little about the society future. Another reason to be cautious when it comes to discussing the future society, is due to its thesis that human emancipation occurs via proletarian revolution and it is the proletariat show concrete way of its realization. In this sense, he devoted most of his work to understand the history of mankind and especially modern society and class struggles that tend to engender communism. In this sense, it produced fundamental works as The German Ideology, Communist Manifesto, The Poverty of Philosophy, The Eighteenth Brumaire of, among others.

His greatest work was The Capital, which was incomplete. He, in life, just published volume 01 and the volumes 2 and 3 were published by Friedrich Engels and Karl Kautsky by 4. In this work, perhaps the most important of modern society, he deepened the analysis of the capitalist mode of production, showing the essence of exploitation of production employed by capital through the surplus value extraction, as well as the process of capitalist accumulation and trends .

So he wrote little about the future society, with excerpts and observations scattered several works, such as The German Ideology, Paris Manuscripts, Critique of the Gotha Program, The Capital, the Communist Manifesto, among several others, including letters and short texts. The two works in which more develops his analysis of communist society are The Civil War in France and Critique of the Gotha Program. At first it looks at first self-managed experience of history, the Paris Commune, showing their self-managed character and its universal historical importance; the second criticizes the party nascent German social democratic program and observations about communism.

Marx did not use the term "self-management", which will only emerge in May 1968 in France, but used terms have the same meaning: communism, self-government of the producers, free association of producers.

The deformation of Marx's thought by pseudomarxismo and pseudocríticas and misguided criticism from political opponents served to create a dominant interpretation of his thought that links with its deformers (Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao Tse-tung, etc.), producers the pseudomarxismo with the state capitalism of the former USSR and the like (Cuba, China, Eastern Europe, Albania, etc.) and the "authoritarianism". This false and dominant interpretation only dims their struggle and contribution to the theory of social self-management, the deeper because by unless you have written about the future society, all made a deep analysis of capitalism and its trends, among others, that are fundamental to a theory of social self-management. The writings that makes references to communism, though few, are fundamental because they break with utopianism, such as pre-manufactured by ideologists and Utopians models, and highlight key elements, such as the need to think the agent of the revolution, the proletariat and their historical experiences, and be careful with the process of counterrevolution and its dangers and mechanisms to try to weaken this trend.

LINKS FOR BOOKS AND ARTICLES self-managed

MARX, KARL. The Civil War in France. Several editions.

MARX, KARL. Critique of the Gotha Program. Several editions.

See also: Recommended Reading and Texts for more bibliographical information from / on Marx and self-management.

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Radicalism And Humanism

Radicalism And Humanism

Nildo Viana

Humans are capable of the most beautiful acts and speeches and at the same time, concepts and more ignoble attitudes. They can act with extreme grandeur and generosity on the one hand, and extreme smallness and meanness on the other. This process is of particular importance in the field of revolutionary militancy in which extremism is often confused with radicalism and when this occurs there is a confusion between being revolutionary and be bloody. Therefore it is important to discuss the relationship between humanism and radicalism, as a revolutionary individual must unite the two into one, which does not always happen and thinking about it may clarify and help overcome this dichotomy in some individual cases .

The goal of a revolutionary is obviously the revolution. Undoubtedly, you can not fall into the mistake of believing that everyone who is said to be the only revolutionary for having said such a thing. Not analyzing an individual by the consciousness that he has of himself, as Marx said (1983a). Not least because what is meant by "revolution" and "revolutionary" varies according to the people. A revolutionary in the sense used here which obviously excludes many cases is that individuals who aims at revolution and understand this as a process of human emancipation via emancipation of the workers, or more precisely, of the proletariat. So accordingly excludes those who think that a revolution is a seizure of state power, replacing a government, among other ways of thinking only in the sense of a "political revolution" because human emancipation can only occur through a revolution social, ie the radical transformation of all social relations. If the goal of the revolutionary is the revolution that liberates humanity as a whole, then there is a humanist basis that goal. There is therefore dichotomy between the radicalism of a revolutionary who wants a radical transformation of social relations to free human beings from exploitation, domination, oppression, and humanism. However, precisely this dichotomy often appears and that's what we have to reflect.

The word humanity can also be seen in various forms. It is not up here a conceptual discussion and not address all its manifestations, just expose the two basic forms of existing humanism. One is the romantic humanism, or "abstract", which, as Rousseau (1989), believes that man is "good by nature" and attributes this quality to all human beings without distinction, based on this principle. The human being here is a core value and this is positive, although problematic. To understand its problematic character it needs to move to the radical humanism, which is a concrete humanism.

As opposed to the abstract (in the metaphysical sense), concrete is "a result of their multiple determinations" (Marx, 1983a). In this conception, the human being is neither good nor bad by nature. What characterizes the human essence is work and sociability, as Marx already pointed (Marx, 1983b; Marx, 1988; Marx and Engels, 1991). The human being is active. He, unlike the other animals, acts on the world, transforms nature and humanizes her and himself. It does this in association or cooperation with other human beings, also being a social being. Thus, the conscious teleological work, praxis, and the association with other human beings are human needs, are part of its essence. However, with the emergence of class society, this essence is denied. Work and sociability are perverted, distorted. Work becomes alienated, directed by others, founding the exploitation and domination and sociability becomes, because of this conflict. In capitalism, more specifically, the operation at work and domination occurs through the extraction of surplus value and sociability shall be controlled, in addition to the conflict classes by competition. In this sense, class societies deny human nature and capitalist society leads to such extreme denial.

In these societies, and more broadly in capitalism, the human essence is denied and distorted. Monstrosities emerge from those practiced by individuals to the collective, as can illustrate the case of a psychopath, in the first case and Nazism in the second. So the romantic humanism is illusory. The radical humanism is one that does not ignore the history and the denial of human nature under capitalism, source of psychic imbalances, but also has no illusions with the world of appearance falling into anti-humanism, thinking that human beings are "selfish" by nature, understanding the broader social process based on class struggle. However, the radical humanism also does not confuse existence with essentially no illusions with "empirical" and knows that behind the psychic destruction of human beings and all other problems such as deformed values, reified consciousness, etc., the essence exists, stifled and repressed, but it's there. Everyone has psychic need for association with other human beings and fulfill their potential and if this does not materialize, there are effects, including the revolutionaries are products that. Revolutionaries are the individuals for expressing the desire of human emancipation, of others and of themselves, although many also know that may not live to see it. No doubt this is different from revolt or rebel. The first only dreams of outright destruction in the background do not want to change anything, just want to destroy what he identified as the cause of their ailments. The rebel is one who only asks what it achieves and instead of radically transforming social relations or, in the background, change its position within that society, so it is easily co-opted and corrupted.

Thus, the radical humanism maintains the unity between humanism and radicalism. As it was for Marx, "to be radical is to go to the root, and the root for man is man himself" (1977). Radicalism without direction there is pseudorradicalismo. It can not generate human liberation becoming inhuman. Humanism without radicalism is romanticism and the "radicalism" without humanism is inconsequential extremism. The romantic humanism generates reformism or sentimentality and extremism generates authoritarianism, morality, nihilism. For revolutionary praxis or abstract humanism or extremism are appropriate. Only the radical humanism is corresponding to such a practice. The radical humanism prevents naive actions derived from romantic humanism, such as thinking that a popular demonstration during radicalized social struggles can appeal to the kindness and non-violence of the repressive state apparatus (police, army). Likewise, also avoids the practice of the Jacobean terror. As Rosa Luxemburg put,

"The proletarian revolution does not need terror to achieve its goals, it hates and abhors the murder. It does not need these means of struggle because it does not combat individuals but institutions, because it does not enter the arena full of naive illusions that lost, would lead to a bloody revenge. It is not the desperate attempt of a minority to mold the world forcibly according to its ideal, but share the great mass of the millions of men of the people, called to fulfill its historic mission and to make the historical need a reality "( LUXEMBOURG, 1991, p. 103).

Accordingly, it can not fall into the romantic humanism misconceptions and derivatives (sentimentality, pacifism, reformism) nor the reckless extremism (authoritarianism, morality, nihilism, aggression or unnecessary violence), both in revolutionary moments as in periods of retreat the labor movement, these two types of action only hinder the advancement of the struggle for radical transformation of society. It is for this reason that both the romantic humanism as extremism must be overcome by radical humanism.

References

FROMM, Erich. The Dogma of Christ. 5th edition, Rio de Janeiro, Zahar 1986.

LUXEMBURG, Rosa. What Whether Spartacus League? In: LUXEMBURG, Rosa. The Russian Revolution. Petrópolis, Vozes, 1991.

Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich. The German Ideology (Feuerbach). 3rd Edition, São Paulo, Hucitec 1991.

Marx, Karl. Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. 2nd Edition, São Paulo, Martins Fontes, 1983a.

Marx, Karl. Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Introduction. Magazine Themes of Humanities. Sao Paulo, Grijalbo, vol. 2, 1977.

Marx, Karl. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. In: FROMM, E. The Marxist concept of man. 8th Edition, Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1983b.

Marx, Karl. The capital. Vol 1. 3rd Edition, São Paulo, New Culture, 1988.

ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men. Sao Paulo: Attica, 1989.