Dialectics for the New Century Edited by Bertell Ollman and Tony Smith Dialectics for the New Century January2008 MAC/DAL Page-i 9780230_535312_01_previii This page intentionally left blank Dialectics for the New Century Edited by Bertell Ollman and Tony Smith January2008 MAC/DAL Page-iii 9780230_535312_01_previii Introduction, editorial matter, Selection, © Bertell Ollman & Tony Smith 2008; all remaining chapters © respective authors 2008 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 9780230535312 hardback ISBN-10: 0230535313 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dialectics for the new century / edited by Bertell Ollman and Tony Smith. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0230535313 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Dialectic. 2. Dialectical materialism. 3. Philosophy, Marxist. I. Ollman, Bertell. II. Smith, Tony, 1951 B809.8.D483 2007 146.32“dc22 2007051219 10987654321 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne January2008 MAC/DAL Page-iv 9780230_535312_01_previii Contents List of Contributors vii 1. Introduction 1 Bertell Ollman and Tony Smith 2. Why Dialectics? Why Now? 8 Bertell Ollman 3. Dialectics and Systems Theory 26 Richard Levins 4. The Dialectics of Nature and Marxist Ecology 50 John Bellamy Foster 5. I’ll Make You an Offer You Can’t Refuse 83 Bill Livant 6. Dialectics of Emergence 85 Lucien Sève 7. The Dialectics of Spacetime 98 David Harvey 8. Persistencies of the Dialectic: Three Sites 118 Fredric Jameson 9. The Dialectics of Walking on Two Legs 132 Bill Livant 10. Dialectical Transformations: Teleology, History and Social Consciousness 135 István Mészáros 11. Dialectics and Revolution: Trotsky, Lenin, Lukács 151 Michael Löwy 12. Dialectics and Revolution, Now 163 Savas Michael-Matsas 13. Towards a Systematic Dialectic of Globalization 179 Tony Smith v January2008 MAC/DAL Page-v 9780230_535312_01_previii vi Contents 14. The Hole in Hegel’s Bagel 199 Bill Livant 15. The Dialectic of Capital: An Unoist Interpretation 200 Thomas T. Sekine 16. Systematic Dialectic 211 Christopher J. Arthur 17. Marxist Feminist Dialectics for the Twenty-first Century 222 Nancy Hartsock 18. Dialectic as Praxis 235 Joel Kovel 19. Livant’s Cure for Baldness 243 Bill Livant 20. Dialectics and Wisdom 246 Ira Gollobin Index 260 January2008 MAC/DAL Page-vi 9780230_535312_01_previii List of Contributors Christopher J. Arthur, Department of Philosophy (Emeritus), University of Sussex, England John Bellamy Foster, Department of Sociology, University of Oregon, US Ira Gollobin, lawyer and independent scholar, US Nancy Hartsock, Department of Political Science, University of Wash- ington, US David Harvey, Department of Anthropology, City University of New York, US Fredric Jameson, The Literature Program, Duke University, US Joel Kovel, Division of Social Studies, Bard College, US Richard Levins, School of Public Health, Harvard University, US Bill Livant, Department of Psychology, University of Regina, Canada Michael Löwy, National Center for Scientific Research, Paris, France István Mészáros, Department of Philosophy (Emeritus), University of Sussex, England Savas Michael-Matsas, University of Athens, Greece Bertell Ollman, Department of Politics, New York University, US Thomas T. Sekine, School of Commerce, Aichi-Gakuin University, Japan Lucien Sève, independent scholar, France Tony Smith, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Iowa State University, US vii January2008 MAC/DAL Page-vii 9780230_535312_01_previii 1 Introduction Bertell Ollman and Tony Smith If one were to attempt to define in a single word the focus, so to speak, of the whole [Marx/Engels] correspondence, the central point at which the whole body of ideas expressed and discussed converges – that word would be dialectics. The applic- ation of materialist dialectics to the reshaping of all political economy from its foundations up, its application to history, natural science, philosophy and to the policy and tactics of the working class – that was what interested Marx and Engels most of all, that was where they contributed what was most essential and new, and that was what constituted the masterly advance they made in the history of revolutionary thought. (Lenin, 1973, 554) With such excellent press – for similar comments can be found in the works of Trotsky, Lukács, Gramsci, Luxemburg, Mao, and Sartre – one might have thought that, at least among Marxists, dialectics would be well understood by now and dialectical studies the norm rather than the exception. As we all know, this is not the case. In an 1858 letter to Engels, Marx said that if time permits he would like to write something to clarify his rational reconstruction of Hegel’s dialectical method (Marx and Engels, 102). With the urgent demands of his life as a revolutionary and his work on political economy spreading far beyond its initial confines, Marx never found the time to return to dialectics. It was left for his followers to construct this dialectic from his widely dispersed remarks on this subject and from the use to which he put dialectics in his theories. Without Marx’s guidance, however, the chief result has been a century and more of bitter disputes that has left some Marxist scholars – Althusserians a generation ago, those who call 1 October2007 MAC/DAL Page-1 9780230_535312_02_cha01 2 Introduction themselves ‘Analytical Marxists’ more recently – urging that we abandon dialectics altogether. But no idea can be grasped apart from its form, and the form of all of Marx’s theories is dialectical. Hence, so long as Marxism helps us understand the world, we will need to study dialectics in order to improve our understanding of Marxism. The present volume is not intended as an ‘Introduction to Dialectics,’ nor as a systematic restatement of what it is or of how to use it, nor as a survey of the main debates going on in this field, though something of each will be found in the following pages. It would be an exaggeration, too, to claim that the collection offers an adequate overview of the current state of dialectical thought, though several varieties of Marxist dialectics are represented here. Instead, we have simply tried to showcase some of the more important Marxist thinkers now working on dialectics. It is not surprising, there- fore, that – taken as a whole – what they have written also constitutes an unusual ‘Introduction to Dialectics,’ an uneven but still systematic restatement of what it is and of how to use it, a survey of the main debates in the field, and – through its variety – as good a picture of the current state of the art of dialectics as one is likely to find. Is a brief definition of ‘dialectics’ possible? In the history of Western thought the term has meant quite different things in different contexts.1 Dialectics in the Western tradition is customarily said to begin with Heraclitus. He insisted that the cosmos was in endless flux, in contrast to those for whom ‘true’ reality was immutable. For Socrates, dialectic had less to do with the dynamism of the cosmos than with the dynamism of intellectual discussion when pushed forward by challenges to the underlying assumptions of interlocutors. Aristotle then systematized Socratic dialectic, treating it as a form of argument that fell some- where between rhetoric and logic. While dialectical speech, like rhetoric, aimed at persuasion, Aristotle believed its efforts to overcome disagree- ments through rational discussion made it more like logic. Unlike logical argumentation, however, dialectical speech does not derive necessary consequences from universally accepted premises. Instead, by revealing the contradictions in particular arguments, it forces their modification or even abandonment, and moves the contending parties closer to a rational consensus. This notion of dialectics continued to hold sway in Western philosophy throughout the medieval and early modern periods. A major shift occurred with Kant. For him, ‘dialectics’ does not refer to a process