What you are describing is the failure of man's power over nature. For
example, if greenhouse gases continue to be poured into the natural
world it may very well make the earth uninhabitable. That would be the
ultimate in nature biting back and a complete loss of control and power
over nature. However, the main contradiction that humanity has always
faced before the rise of class society is the contradiction between
humanity and nature. It is truly a dialectical relationship too because
humanity is a part of nature. For example, it is the nature of our
natural bodies to become senescent and to die. Insofar as that happens
nature has triumphed over us. Insofar as we can maintain health and
continue to live, though, we have exerted power over nature. It is
nature that plagues us with unpleasant and dangerous weather, but
insofar as we have built houses and made clothing to protect us from the
weather we have exercised power over nature. Remember that a dialectical
relationship is a relationship in which the contradictions are inherent
in the relationship and cannot exist alone. If there were no nature
there would be no humanity. Without humanity there might be nature, but
its existence would not be an adversarial one and its objective
existence would have no meaning. Meaning is imbued by human
consciousness with human desires and needs. This means that as long as
humanity exists there will be a dialectical contradiction between
humanity and nature. When all efforts to exert power over nature is
abandoned then humanity will become extinct. Undoubtedly there will
continue to be internal contradiction within whatever form of nature
that will follow, but it will not matter to humanity because humanity
will have lost all power over that nature. Another word for nature is
reality itself. Remember that everything we get, everything we want,
every purpose we accomplish is accomplished by manipulating reality.
Insofar as we do get what we want we have successfully exerted power
over that reality. Insofar as we fail to get what we want or get what we
do not want then we have failed to exercise power over reality. If you
want a thorough explanation of dialectics I would suggest reading Hegel.
Unfortunately, though, Hegel fails to view dialectics with a completely
materialist perspective. In fact, he tends to view it with a distinct
idealist perspective. It was Marx who combined dialectics with
materialism, but Marx was concerned with a lot of other things and never
quite investigated it thoroughly. For a more complete explanation of
dialectical materialism go to Marxists.org and search for the phrase
dialectical materialism. Right now the names of the works that you
should watch out for do not come readily to my mind.
On 7/22/2016 8:12 PM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
maximize man’s power over nature? Sounds suspiciously like that mandate in the Bible about be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth and subdue it, or something like that…man’s power over nature, man’s ability to conquer nature and live full in the face of natural laws, also maximized at this point, is part of the tragedy of our polluted, tired old planet...man’s On Jul 22, 2016, at 11:15 AM, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:carjar82@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hi Roger and All,
"as Trotsky described it, our goals are to maximize man's power over
nature and to minimize man's power over man."
And yes, regardless of our "druthers", we all are involved in this
eternal struggle. To those who feel the hopelessness and drop out,
hiding behind many distractions offered by the Ruling Class, I remind
you, your very retreat is an expression of your involvement. No
action is actually an action.
Frustrating, huh?
Carl Jarvis
On 7/21/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:Whether it is corruption, greed, religion or a myriad other
manifestations of a class society the way to stop them is to remove the
objective conditions that make them possible. That is not done by waving
a magic wand nor by any other instant method. When the formerly ruled
class becomes the ruling class it rules. That is what a ruling class is,
a class that rules, and that opens the opportunity for corruption, but
the mere fact of the former ruled class being the large majority tends
to lesson that possibility. When there is a revolution where the full
productive capacity of capitalism has not been achieved there will be
shortages and that means that someone must be in charge of distributing
what there is not enough of. That is the simple explanation of the rise
of Stalinism and the rise of Stalinism itself should be a lesson in how
not to build a socialist society. The kind of situation that should be
striven for is one in which there is plenty of production and what is
produced need only be administered. As Lenin said, the state as an
apparatus for administering people needs to become an apparatus for
administering things. The trouble is that revolution does not and
virtually cannot work out just exactly the way we want it to. There are
just too many variables to keep track of. So undoubtedly there will be
corruption along the way that will have to be fought down. We can only
plan a forward line of march and always look to the past to avoid
mistakes that have already been made. To paraphrase someone else, the
price of socialism is eternal vigilance. If this sounds like a forever
war that you would not like to participate in then remember that even if
you do not participate you will have to deal with a forever war anyway.
Do nothing and the inequities of a class system continue and you are
caught in the middle whether you like it or not. Do something about it
and you are caught in a perpetual struggle in which you are helping
things to get better and it works too. Capitalism is a much better
system to live under than feudalism and feudalism was a much better
system to live in than slavery. The next stage will be even better, But
remember, as Trotsky described it, our goals are to maximize man's power
over nature and to minimize man's power over man. That goal does not
have an end in sight. There will always be opportunities to get closer.
On 7/21/2016 4:06 PM, Bob Hachey wrote:
Hi Roger,
I have finally decided that there is little or no hope for capitalism and
that it cannot serve well the majority of us. But I keep thinking about
what would happen if we really do achieve the socialist revolution often
referred to in the millitant. The theory sounds great, but it seems
dependent upon no humans who will try to corrupt the new system for
personal gain at the expense of the rest of us. Look what happened in
Russia, China and Cuba. I know that Cuba is not as bad as China and
Russia, but I can't help but be suspiscious when one leader, Castro, is in
power for such a long time. Carl speaks often and eloquently on this
issue.
It seems to me that most humans when put into positions of ledership would
try to exploit the situation. What sort of safeguards would you recommend
in a new system that would prevent or eliminate this tendency?
Bob Hachey
