Marxism 101: Dialectical Materialism in Under 10 Minutes

(I no longer fully agree with all the points in this video, I may make some adjustments in the future but if you really want to understand it fully it would take many pages of Kant, Hegel and Marx and not just a 9 minute video)

Dialectics and Materialism were quite separate ideas until Marx applied the two of them in union in his early writings. Dialectical Materialism in general may function as merely a synonym for Natural Science. However, after investigating the way in which humans relate to the natural world, it becomes clear that society is a clear product of material conditions. Not only does society result from human relations to material conditions and the exploitation thereof, but society also appears to follow the same dialectic process which Hegel had pointed out, albeit only in relation to ideas.

Although Marx and Engels never used the term Dialectical Materialism, it will be evident that it is a useful way of summarizing and analysing Marx's work and applying it ourselves to an analysis of the world.

Some of Marx's works suggestive of Dialectical Materialism are the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, the German Ideology, and a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right... amongst others.

This is not a model of historical determinism, it is merely an analysis. This is not a law of history or society, but a pattern which follows the same patterns that nature does.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Marxism
• Dialectical
• Materialism
• Communism
• Lenin
• Engels
• Mao
• Socialism
• Capitalism
• Feudalism
• Slavery
• Politics

[RosaLichtenstein01]

By the way, thesis, antithesis, synthesis is part of Kant's and Fichte's method, not Hegel's. Marx and Lenin both ridiculed it, as did Hegel.

[TheCommunard]

@RosaLichtenstein01 It is not significant in Kant, he never uses the three together, but yes, it is found in Fichte.

Thankfully I am not aiming to give an exposition of Hegel! That would be above the heads of YouTube users - this is for popular consumption.

However, to say that Marx engaged in ridicule of it is to rely only on secondary sources. Go to Poverty of Philosophy, Chapter 2, and read the whole thing. In the only instance Marx uses the terms, he doesn't go so far as to ridicule it.

[TheCommunard]

@TheCommunard Marx disregards Proudhon's use of the terms in that he uses them in abstraction, without specific reference or analysis of the full picture. It does, in fact, provide a large degree of insight into why Marx wrote the way he did. So the task for you, is to see if his critique applies to my simple, popular, presentation.

I'm open to argument over the matter, I think that you might be pointing out some important flaws here.

As for Lenin, I'm not concerned, he's rather base anyway.

[RosaLichtenstein01]

@TheCommunard Thanks for that, but I have read Poverty of Philosophy, many times, and it is certainly arguable that Marx is ridiculing this banal triad there. Plekhanov and Lenin certainly ridiculed it -- as did Hegel -- as wooden and formulaic, and not at all consistent with the fluid nature of the dialectic.

Sure you need to keep this at a basic level, but there is a world of difference between basic and misleading.

[TheCommunard]

@RosaLichtenstein01 Perhaps you should make a video response. ;)

[chris96kalonji]

@amamerc How were they mass murderers? Are you "elected representitives" not mass murdereds. I'm assuming you're American, because only in America do they put such dogmatic statements on YouTube, or anywhere for that matter. You allowed your country to go into the middle east and kill Tens and Hundreds of Thousands of innocent people. The rest were peasants standing up to the American corrupt government. I mean what about Vietnam, Iraq, Korea, etc. Were those not mass killings?

[TheCommunard]

@amamerc The society is the basis of the state, and the state is not independent of society - you cannot have some sort of state with different bases than those of society. And, as you pointed out, vice versa.

Hence the enigma that is Marx.

How to transition to communism? Can one? How is it's economy arranged?

These questions which seem impossible to answer, and thus present the impasse which faces modern Marxists. Even if that is so, I would say Marx's economic analysis still works.

[RosaLichtenstein01]

@TheCommunard Maybe one day...

[RosaLichtenstein01]

@TheCommunard I'm not sure what you mean by Lenin is "rather base".

But, let's suppose you are right; that would simply detract from Marx's stature as a great theorist, since the 'dialectic', howsoever it is presented, makes not one ounce of sense, as I have shown at my site.

anti-dialectics.co.uk

[RosaLichtenstein01]

For anyone interested, I have taken 'dialectical materialism' apart (and, believe it or not, from a Marxist angle, too) at my site.

I can't post links, but just search for 'anti-dialectics.co.uk', without the quotes..

[Veovis523]

Great video, except the robot voice is sometimes hard to understand.

[amamerc]

@amamerc As an aside, the idea of dialectical materialism is that synthesis occurs from time to time. This cannot happen, however, if political repression is used to prevent "synthesis." And it's also problematic because while there is democratic socialism in the world, how do we know that this is Marxism synthesized, making the system obsolescent?

Also, technology seems to be the maker and breaker of these so-called values (addiction to stuff vs. greater efficiency).