[Buddha-l] Society

[jkirk]

Yes it's true that Marx was indeed deluded by the myth of
progress. 
He also did not foresee the madness that would be caused by
industrialization, which he thought was a good thing.  Commodity
festishism was already established by the time of the
Renaissance, it just had to be encouraged and extrapolated by the
invention of the assembly line.  He however was the first to call
it what it was and is.

Your mention of that old book by Orwell reminded me of when my
uncle, after he arrived home from being in WW2, read it and kept
talking about it, mostly to our reactionary parents, so I never
caught on to what it was about. (I'm sure dad was worried that we
might start asking questions.)

Still haven't read it. So many books, so little time.........

Joanna

-----Original Message-----
From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com
[mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Curt
Steinmetz
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 3:53 PM
To: Buddhist discussion forum
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Society

Marx foresaw what he called "commodity fetishism", which in very
crude (but obtuse) terms means that all use value is replaced (in
our minds) by exchange value. George Orwell summed this
phenomenon up very nicely in the preamble to his novel depicting
one artist's struggle with alienation and despair under
capitalism, "Keep the Aspidistras Flying":

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have
not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all
mysteries,  and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so
that I could  remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I
give my body to  be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me
nothing. Money suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not;
money vaunteth not  itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave
unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh
no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
beareth all things, believeth  all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things. . . . And now abideth faith, hope, money,
these three; but the greatest of these is money. "

But as a slavish devotee at the altar of Progress, Marx could not
understand the inherent problems of industrialism qua
industrialism, and thought that everything could be fixed up just
right by instituting the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Curt