Air and Steel

On Engels

(the second head of Marxism)

Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx came up with a lot of the terminology used in forthcoming (including current) discussions about oppression, economics, politics, feminism, history, etc. Their definitions of terms is useful to know, so that you can fully understand many other (including current) authors' perspectives.

Quotes

Everywhere combined action, the complication of processes dependent upon each other, displaces independent action by individuals. But whoever mentions combined action speaks of organisation; now, is it possible to have organisation without authority? [...]

Let us take by way of example a cotton spinning mill. The cotton must pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in different rooms. Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed, must be observed by all, without any exception. Thereafter particular questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled in an authoritarian way. The automatic machinery of the big factory is much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have been. At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the portals of these factories: Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate! [Leave, ye that enter in, all autonomy behind!]

If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him, in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all social organisation. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel. [...]

We have seen that the material conditions of production and circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority. Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society. -- "On Authority" (1872)

The English bourgeoisie is charitable out of self-interest; it gives nothing outright, but regards its gifts as a business matter, makes a bargain with the poor, saying: "If I spend this much upon benevolent institutions, I thereby purchase the right not to be troubled any further, and you are bound thereby to stay in your dusky holes and not to irritate my tender nerves by exposing your misery. You shall despair as before, but you shall despair unseen, this I require, this I purchase with my subscription of twenty pounds for the infirmary!" It is infamous, this charity of a Christian bourgeois! -- "The Attitude of the Bourgeoisie Towards the Proletariat" (1845)

Keep this in mind when you see Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos in the news "doing good for humanity" while their companies keep employees, contractors, and other leveraged laborers working in dubious conditions and financial instability. Maybe they could "do good" by not extracting the surplus value created while providing and maintaining public resources and infrastructure (eg. Amazon, the cloud infra that AWS/Azure provide to run much of the internet, ...). Maybe we can organize ourselves in various capacities (eg. unions) to show em.

For now, I'll link some works (in a logical order) and post some of my own notes for quick takeaways:

For physical copies, check out RedPrintsPublishing

TODO: more of a bio, links to the naturey sciencey stuff

TODO: gotta probably get the temperature quotes in here, and some quantitative -> qualitative stuff. maybe link the vihart vid that's a good example of dialectics in nature.

On Authority notes

On Authority - Friedrich Engels (1872)

  • present-day society tends more and more to replace isolated action by combined action of individuals.
  • "All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy... The automatic machinery of the big factory is much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have been."
  • "Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel."
  • "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists... Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction."

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific notes

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - Friedrich Engels (1880)

  1. The development of utopian socialism
  • France in the 18th century. Utopians (Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen) focused on equality in order to emancipate everyone. Having found rationality and reason in the idealized understanding of the 18th century bourgeoisie lifrstyle, they made this the standard. Oppression by sword turned into oppression by gold.
  • "Politics is the science of production, and foretells the complete absorption of politics by economics" ~Saint-Simon, 1816
  • Robert Owens formed communism based on a business foundation in order to reconstruct society for the common good. Three obstacles which especially blocked the path to social reform were private property, religion, and the present form of marriage.
  • The utopians believed their truth, reason, and justice of their solutions would overtake the world. But these are subjective. To make a science of socialism it must be placed upon a real basis.
  1. Dialectics
  • Metaphysics discusses ideas and things isolated, whereas dialectic considers both thesis and antithesis (both positive and negative hypotheses) until truth is found.
  • Hegelian philosophy was founded on the eternal change observed. The whole world (natural, historical, intellectual) is abstracted as a process. Hegel wanted intellectuals to follow this process and regarded the world as a culmination of ideas.
  • Old materialism looked upon history as irrational and violent; new materialism observes in it the evolution of humanity. Instead of seeing production and economic interests as incidental elements in the history of civilization, we now realize history has been composed of class struggle. Earlier socialism critiqued the failings of capitalism but could not explain how the exploitation arose.
  • The discovery of surplus-value explains the secret of capitalistic production to constantly heap increasing masses of capital into the hands of the possessing classes.
  • The understanding of the materialistic conception of history and of surplus-value explaining the exploitative nature of capitalistic production (thanks Marx) turned socialism into a science.
  1. Historical Materialism
  • Proposes that production of the means to support human life and the exchange of things produced is the basis of all social structure.
  • The capitalist production and its upholder concentrate and enlarge scattered/limited means of production. They transform individual means into social means of production only workable but a collectivity of men. Production turned from individual to social products such that nobody could say "I made that; this is my product."
  • The reduction of individual production's relative efficacy showed the incompatibility of socialized production with capitalistic appropriation - it presupposes the private production of individuals who owns his own product and brings it to market. The relative worthlessness of individual production turns almost all workers into wage-labourers for life. The contradiction (of capitalistic appropriation and socialized production) manifested as the antagonism between proletariat and bourgeoisie.
  • Now, the contradiction between socialized production and capitalistic appropriation presents itself as an antagonism between the organization of production in the individual workshop and the anarchy of production in society generally.
  • The extension of markets cannot keep pace with the extension of production. The collision becomes inevitable, and as they do not break apart the capitalist mode of production they become periodic in the business (boom/bust) cycle.
  • When the state becomes a true representation of the whole of society and takes possession of the means of production in the name of society, this is its last independent act as a state. It is not abolished; it dies out
  • The oppressive dynamic of production was necessary in times of deficient development due to the division of labor forming a division based on classes. But this historical justification (insufficient production) no longer exists under modern social conditions in the present period.
  • Socialization of the means of production does away with the anarchy in social production and the struggle for individual existence, as well as the extravagance and political control of the ruling class.

index tags: Philosophy, Communists, Reading List, Reading Notes, Marxism, Dialectics, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Engels, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Principles of Communism, On Authority, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, RedPrintsPublishing, The Attitude of the Bourgeoisie Towards the Proletariat

category tags: Famous Communists

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Hi! Aaron, nice to meet ya. This site is where I'm documenting as I go, in order to keep my learnings and thoughts in an easily accessible digital notebook. My purpose in life is organizing (engineering, if you will) and building the change I want to see in the world; to help as much as possible, while I've got the chance to do it.