Socialism, Technology, Power

In 'Their Morals and Ours', Trotsky declares that Socialism serves two purposes: 1. "Increasing the power of man over nature"; and 2. "Abolition of the power of man over man".  Now, it is easy to take the latter as the essential clause, since it invokes the fundamental Marxist focus on the elimination of the source of that power--Private Property.  But #1 is the decisive one of the two.  For, it is an allusion to the achievement of the stage of technological development that enables the transcending of exploitation, i. e. because machines can perform the work of the Proletariat, and can produce enough goods to satisfy the needs of all.  At the same time, it therefore jettisons one of the cardinal premises of traditional Marxism--that Socialism is a stage of the Dialectical Historical development of human society.  Rather, according to #1, it is a function of the species' relation outside of itself, to the rest of nature.  Thus, contrary to the title of the piece, Trotsky's use of the word "power" in relation to the rest of nature suggests what Nietzsche calls an "extra-moral" context.

Two Invisible Hands

Marx-Engels do not deny the existence of Smith's Invisible Hand; rather, they interpret it as a manifestation of a General Will in alienation from its origin in the members of a society.  Now, that diagnosis provides evidence for a hitherto unexplored implication of Smith's image.  For, since hands come in pairs, if there is one Invisible Hand, there must be two.  In other words, the metaphor suggests that a society is governed by two principles not one.  So, the condition of alienation is one in which the two are distinguishable.  Accordingly, they can be characterized as a principle of Unity and a principle of Multiplicity, or, equivalently, Form and Matter.  Furthermore, the two can be conceived as interacting dialectically.  But, if so, then one error of Marxist analysis is to not recognize that Class Conflict is not an instance of a primary Dialectic, and that, instead, it is a symptom of a Multiplicity lacking Unity.  Furthermore, since, as the metaphor of two hands entails, the problem is to coordinate them, not to fuse them, the second error of  Marxist analysis is the concept of Synthesis, not coordination, as the resolution of a Dialectical pattern.  Likewise, on the basis of the premise of the existence of two Invisible Hands, insofar as Socialism is the result of a resolution of a Dialectical antagonism, the sublation involved is constituted by a coordination of the two principles, not by the negation of each..

Slave Morality and Capitalism

As has been previously discussed, Nietzsche's fundamental criticism of Marxism is not, as it is often taken to be, of its Egalitarianism per se, but of its concept of the latter as an objective Value.  The misinterpretation has contributed to the assumption, e. g. Rand's, that Nietzsche is, therefore, an advocate of Capitalism.  To the contrary, Human, All Too Human #45, and #33 of the Expeditions of an Untimely Man section of Twilight of the Idols, indicate that the Atomism that Smith promotes is itself an expression of Slave Morality.  Instead, any ascription to Nietzsche of an endorsement of an Economic system requires a methodical derivation from the Will to Power, not cherry-picked agitprop slogans.

Slave Morality and Socialism

Nietzsche is often interpreted as arguing against Marxism on the basis of 'Master Morality': 1. There are those who are naturally strong, and those who are naturally weak; 2. Might is Right; 3. Therefore, the strong have a right to enslave the weak; 4. Therefore, there are Moral grounds for rejecting Marxism.  Now, while that interpretation has textual support, his stronger argument against Marxism is on the basis of 'Slave Morality': 1. Slave Morality expresses the Values of Slaves; 2. According to Slave Morality, Values are objective; 3. The positing of the existence of objective Values is an expression of a desire to submit; 4. Marxism posits the existence of an objective History the goal of which is Socialism; 5. According to Marxism, Socialism is 'good'; 6. Thus, Marxism is an expression of a desire to submit. 7. Thus, Marxism is self-contradictory, because its presumed liberation of Slaves only perpetuates Slave Morality.

Slavery and the Market

It follows from Hume's thesis--Reason is the slave of Passions--that any successful manipulation of a Passion constitutes enslavement.  For example, working out of fear of immediate physical harm, or of irretrievable loss of income, is Slavery.  Furthermore, so, too, is doing so in anticipation of being able to afford a product the desire for which is the result of an effective advertising campaign, especially in the context of the pervasive acceptance of the marketing of a concept of 'freedom' as the having a choice between alternative products.  In other words, Slavery is business-as-usual in Capitalism, an unsurprising reflection of Smith's adherence to Hume's behavioral model.  Indeed, his only break with the latter is his positing of an impersonal Invisible Hand as the ultimate adjudicator of market activity, which is tantamount to a positing of a concept of Reason as potentially liberated from the Passions, as Kant well realizes.

Dialectic, Dialogue, Slavery

The literal meaning of 'contradict' is 'speak against', a reminder that Dialectic, of which Contradiction is a decisive moment, originates as the species of verbal communication associated with Socrates, i. e. as Dialogue.  Likewise, Synthesis, as the resolution of a Contradiction, expresses the fundamental function of Communication as an integrative factor among the members of the species.  Now, Kant's representation of Dialectic, entailing conflicting propositions, reflects that root, from which Hegel's definition of Contradiction as mere 'opposition', the terms of which are any mental elements, is, therefore, a double abstraction.  Thus, Marx's Materialist counterpart, in which Contradiction is any social antagonism, retains one of those abstractions.  In other words, he misses that Materialist Dialectic is fundamentally Dialogue.  Now, if Slavery were, as Hegel depicts it, constituted by such properly Dialectical processes, a Thesis uttered by the Master would be met by an Antithesis uttered by the Slave.  So, since the latter would likely result in physical punishment, in that context, Dialectic falls apart.  Thus, the proper Dialectical Materialist response to Hegel's passage is that it distorts the Dialectical relation that obtains between Master and Slave.

Slavery, Dependence, Dialectic

In the section of the Phenomenology commonly characterized as the "Master-Slave Dialectic", Hegel conceives Slavery as essentially Dependence.  However, his attempt to classify it as a moment in a Dialectically determined Spiritual development gets complicated, because the transition to the next stage, i. e. the self-liberation from the Master of the Slave, necessarily involves Matter, upon which the Slave works.  With that concrete detail incorporated, the representation of the transition that emerges less abstractly resembles that of an employee's becoming self-employed.  But, implicit in that portrayal is that of the Master as a benefactor of someone who is weaker because dependent.  It is thus easy to conceive Marx as judging the suppression, by that portrayal, of the force entailed in Slavery as Bourgeois apologism, therby inspiring a Materialist alternative, updated with a class of Slaves, i. e. the Proletariat, and with an industrial Means of Production mediating the relation between the two parties.  So, with that genealogy, the relevance of Dialectic Materialism, even if flawed, to the exposition of Socialism, seems less contrived than if Marx is interpreted as adopting it for some less specific reason.