#Karl Korsch

[autokratorissa]

I shall now enumerate what seems to me the most essential points of Marxism in a condensed form: 1. All the propositions of Marxism, including those that are apparently general, are specific. 2. Marxism is not positive but critical. 3. Its subject-matter is not existing capitalist society in its affirmative state, but declining capitalist society as revealed in the demonstrably operative tendencies of its breaking-up and decay. 4. Its primary purpose is not contemplative enjoyment of the existing world but its active transformation (praktische Umwaelzung).

Karl Korsch, “Why I Am a Marxist” (1934)

I believe that Marxist theory is “finite,” limited: that it is limited to the analysis of the capitalist mode of production, and of its contradictory tendency, which opens up the possibility of the transition to the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by “something else” which already appears implicitly in capitalist society. I believe that Marxist theory is entirely the opposite of a philosophy of history which “encompasses” the whole future of humanity, and which would thus be capable of defining the “end”: communism, in a positive manner. Marxist theory (if we leave aside the temptation of the philosophy of history to which Marx himself sometimes succumbed, and which dominated in a crushing fashion the Second International and the Stalinist period) is inscribed within and limited to the current existing phase: that of capitalist exploitation. All that it can say about the future is the fragmented and negative extension of the current tendency, the tendency to communism, observable in a whole series of phenomena of capitalist society. It is entirely necessary to see that it is on the basis of the current society that the transition (dictatorship of the proletariat) and the ultimate extinction of the state are thought. These are only indications deduced from the current tendency, which like every tendency in Marx, is counteracted and may not be achieved, unless the political struggle makes it real. But this reality cannot be predicted in its positive form: it is only in the course of the struggle that the possible forms come to light, are discovered, and become real.

Louis Althusser, “Marxism as a Finite Theory” (1978). Trans. Asad Haider

[tenth-sentence]

But the excellent fare and adequate accommodation provided could not relieve the prisoners of their anxiety over the fate of their families.

"Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists" - Robert Jungk, translated by James Cleugh

[taxxpayermoney]

“The key to understanding the whole materialist conception of history:

All manifestations of the real world, in which we live as thinking and acting (or rather, as acting and thinking) Men decompose [first of all] into two large main groups: on one side we, and everything that is, belong to a world that we represent to ourselves as being given as ‘Nature,’ i.e. as a world which is totally independent of our thought, desire/wills, and work/effectivity. On the other side, we stand as thinking, desiring/willing, acting Men at the same time in a world upon which we exert practical impact/effectivity and whose practical impact/effectivity we experience, and which we therefore must perceive as being essentially our own product, as well as being ourselves its own product. These two worlds: the natural world on one side and the historical social practical world on the other side, are however not two separate worlds, rather one and the same: their unity lies grounded in this: that they both lie embedded in the passive-active life-process of Men, who constantly reproduce and further develop their entire reality through/in their specialized cooperative work/effectivity and thinking.” – Karl Korsch

[howieabel]

“So understood, anarchism is the inheritor of the classical liberal ideas that emerged from the Enlightenment. It is part of a broader range of libertarian socialist thought and action that ranges from the left anti-Bolshevik Marxism of Anton Pannekoek, Karl Korsch, Paul Mattick, and others, to the anarcho-syndicalism that crucially includes the practical achievements of revolutionary Spain in 1936, reaching further to worker-owned enterprises spreading today in the Rust Belt of the United States, in northern Mexico, in Egypt, and in many other countries, most extensively in the Basque country in Spain, also encompassing the many cooperative movements around the world and a good part of feminist and civil and human rights initiatives.” ― Noam Chomsky, What Kind of Creatures Are We?

[hobodiffusion]

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CONTRE ATTAQUE, Nantes, ville révoltée, Divergences

Vincent SIZAIRE, Gouverner les juges, La Dispute

Karl KORSCH, Livre des abolitions, L'Asymétrie

Ágnes HELLER, La Théorie des besoins chez Marx, Éditions sociales

Furio JESI, Mythe, La Tempête

Mario MIELI, La Gaie critique, La Tempête

Chantal MAILLÉ, Une bâtisseuse remarquable, Remue-ménage

Brontez PURNELL, Johnny, est-ce que tu m'aimerais si j'avais une plus grosse bite ?, Rotolux Press

Estelle BENAZET HEUGENHAUSER, Le Régime parfait, Rotolux Press

Estelle BENAZET HEUGENHAUSER, Les Recettes de madame Perez pour un destin parfait, Rotolux Press

Abdulkader EL JANABI, Journal inactuel de l'oubli, L'Asymétrie

Morgane STANKIEWIEZ, Les Amitiés fantômes, Goater

Dieudonné NIANGOUNA, Salve d'honneur pour orchestre à papa, L'Oeil d'Or

Mempo GIARDINELLI, Pourquoi avoir interdit le cirque ?, L'Atinoir

Dominique MEENS, Pêche à pied, Pontcerq

Méryl PINQUE, Solastalgiques, Ravin bleu

Florence ANDOKA, Rouge Kusama, La Variation

Sophie GÉLINIER, Francine Lancelot, L'Oeil d'Or

"Si je ne m’intègre pas ce n’est pas parce que je suis noir, si je ne m’intègre pas ce n’est pas parce que je suis pauvre, si je ne m’intègre pas c’est parce que j’ai envie de tout défoncer et que je veux trouver des mecs qui se sentent comme moi." Brontez Purnell, Johnny, est-ce que tu m'aimerais si j'avais une plus grosse bite ?, Rotolux Press.

[olumsuzsozler]

Aynı parayı kazanıyoruz; sen sefasını sür, ben cefasını çekeyim.

Karl Korsch

[sartre-mi-pana]

reading 19th and 20th century philosophy be like

[porkbuttsandtaters]

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[phexagain]

Er [Karl Marx] bekämpft am utopischen Sozialismus nicht, wie manche sich einbilden, die Vorstellung eines von der gegenwärtigen bürgerlichen Gesellschaft total verschiedenen sozialistischen Zustandes. Der Mangel des doktrinären und utopischen Sozialismus besteht darin, daß er bei dem Versuch, einen künftigen sozialistischen Zustand auszumalen, unbewußt nur ein schattenloses Bild von der gegenwärtigen wirklichen Gesellschaft aufnimmt, welches bei seiner Konkretisierung und Realisierung unvermeidlich nur wieder diese alte bürgerliche Gesellschaftsform reproduziert.

Karl Korsch: Karl Marx. Marxistische Theorie und Klassenbewegung

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“All these deformations and a row of other less important ones were inflicted on Marxism by its epigones in the second phase of its development, and they can be summarised in one all-inclusive formulation: a unified general theory of social revolution was changed into criticisms of the bourgeois economic order, of the bourgeois State, of the bourgeois system of education, of bourgeois religion, art, science and culture. These criticisms no longer necessarily develop by their very nature into revolutionary practices they can equally well develop, into all kinds of attempts at reform, which fundamentally remain within the limits of bourgeois society and the bourgeois State, and in actual practice usually did so. This distortion of the revolutionary doctrine of Marxism itself – into a purely theoretical critique that no longer leads to practical revolutionary action, or does so only haphazardly – is very clear if one compares the Communist Manifesto or even the 1864 Statutes of the First International drawn up by Marx, to the programmes of the Socialist Parties of Central and Western Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, and especially to that of the German Social Democratic Party. ... Revisionism appears as an attempt to express in the form of a coherent theory the reformist character acquired by the economic struggles of the trade unions and the political struggles of the working class parties, under the influence of altered historical conditions. The so-called orthodox Marxism of this period (now a mere vulgar-Marxism) appears largely as an attempt by theoreticians, weighed down by tradition, to maintain the theory of social revolution which formed the first version of Marxism, in the shape of pure-theory. This theory was wholly abstract and had no practical consequences - it merely sought to reject the new reformist theories, in which the real character of the historical movement was then expressed as un-Marxist.    This is precisely why, in a new revolutionary period, it was the orthodox Marxists of the Second International who were inevitably the least able to cope with such questions as the relation between the State and proletarian revolution. The revisionists at least possessed a theory of the relationship of the ‘working people’ to the State, although this theory was in no way a Marxist one. Their theory and practice had long since substituted political, social and cultural reforms within the bourgeois State for a social revolution that would seize, smash and replace it by the dictatorship of the proletariat. The orthodox Marxists were content to reject this solution to the problems of the transitional period as a violation of the principles of Marxism. Yet with all their orthodox obsession with the abstract letter of Marxist theory they were unable to preserve its original revolutionary character. Their scientific socialism itself had inevitably ceased to be a theory of social revolution. Over a long period, when Marxism was slowly spreading throughout Europe, it had in fact no practical revolutionary task to accomplish. Therefore problems of revolution had ceased, even in theory, to exist as problems of the real world for the great majority of Marxists, orthodox as well as revisionist. As far as the reformists were concerned these problems had disappeared completely. But even for the orthodox Marxists they had wholly lost the immediacy with which the authors of the Manifesto had confronted them, and receded into a distant and eventually quite transcendental future. In this period people became used to pursuing here and now policies of which revisionism may be seen as the theoretical expression. Officially condemned by party congresses, this revisionism was in the end accepted no less officially by the trade unions. At the beginning of the century, a new period of development put the question of social revolution back on the agenda as a realistic and terrestrial question in all its vital dimensions. Therewith purely theoretical orthodox Marxism – till the outbreak of the World War the officially established version of Marxism in the Second International – collapsed completely and disintegrated. This was, of course, an inevitable result of its long internal decay. It is in this epoch that we can see in many countries the beginnings of third period of development, above all represented by Russian Marxists, and often described by its major representatives as a ‘restoration’ of Marxism.   ... This dialectical conception of the relationship of economics to politics became such an unalterable part of Marxist theory that even the vulgar-Marxists of the Second International were unable to deny that the problem of the revolutionary transition existed, at least in theory, although they ignored the problem in practice. No orthodox Marxist could even in principle have claimed that a theoretical and practical concern with politics was unnecessary for Marxism. This was left to the syndicalists, some of whom invoke Marx, but none of whom have ever claimed to be orthodox Marxists. However, many good Marxists did adopt a theoretical and practical position on the reality of ideology which was identical to that of the syndicalists. These materialists are with Marx in condemning the syndicalist refusal of political action and in declaring that the social movement must include the political movement. They often argue against anarchists that even after the victorious proletarian revolution, and in spite of all the changes undergone by the bourgeois State, politics will long continue to be a reality. Yet these very people fall straight into the anarcho-syndicalist ‘transcendental underestimation’ of ideology when they are told that intellectual struggle in the ideological field cannot be replaced or eliminated by the social movement of proletariat alone, or by its social and political movements combined. Even today most Marxist theoreticians conceive of the efficacy of so-called intellectual phenomena in a purely negative, abstract and undialectical sense, when they should analyse this domain of social reality with the materialist and scientific method moulded by Marx and Engels. Intellectual life should be conceived in union with social and political life, and social being and becoming (in the widest sense, as economics, politics or law) should be studied in union with social consciousness in its many different manifestations, as a real yet also ideal (or ‘ideological’) component of the historical process in general.” - Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy. 1923. English translation: Monthly Review Press, 1970, reproduced in its entirety

[fundgruber]

“Lieber Ernst: haben Sie tausend Dank für Ihren Brief. Ich hoffe dringend, daß wir uns bald in Ruhe sehen können. Mit mir ist es eben wenig geruhig: mein Vater ist seit vierzehn Tagen in Deutschland im Untersuchungsgefängnis. Mein großer Aufsatz war noch gerade rechtzeitig vorher fertig geworden, und ich habe zum Glück jetzt mit Redaktionsdingen und dem Radioprojekt so viel zu tun, daß ich zum Nachdenken kaum komme. Bei und wegen Sessions unternehmen Sie bitte nichts. Die Sache scheint im Augenblick in bestern Ordnung zu sein, und ich habe Angst, daß man durch eine Intervention nur seinen Widerspruchsgeist aufhetzten könnte. Für mich stellt sich ohnehin das Problem, über Musik etwas auszusagen, immer mehr als der Versuch dar, den Siegfried, der ja bekanntlich hinter der Siegfriedstellung zu Hause ist, in der Fähigkeit zu übertreffen, die Sprache der Vögel zu verstehen. So müssen wir Musik verstehen lernen. Karl Korsch ist in Boston, und es ist nicht uninteressant, gelegentlich mit dem gescheiten und exzentrischen Mann zusammen zu sein, der wirklich so weit links ist, daß er schon beinah auf der Rechten wiederherauskommt. Freilich muß man den Umgang mit ihm so dosieren, daß man nicht als Korschist fungiert; denn gegen die Existenz eines solchen ist selbst die eines Trotzkisten noch beineidenswert. Wenn Sie ihn sich aber betrachten wollen, so veranlasse ich das Notwendige.

Alles Herzliche stets Ihr Wiesengrund 51 Bar Harbor, 8. August 1941.”

Theodor W. Adorno an Ernst Krenek, 1941

Briefwechsel S. 131

[mayolfederico]

quindici agosto

Marcia Hafif

  Destino

Se non sono radice e solo questo, ahi, quando si vedranno il mio stelo e i miei fiori, e quando nasceranno i frutti? Quale giorno attende il tempo, quale l’aria, e perché Dio mi vuole lancia oscura nella sua dura terra?

Non è che non voglio più essere radice quando già posso esser tronco, foglie, rami, dei miei fiori più belli. Frutto fra i denti degli…

[books-and-barricades]

The anarchist emphasis on freedom and spontaneity, on self-determination, and, therefore, decentralisation, on action rather than ideology, on solidarity more than on economic interest were precisely the qualities that had been lost to the socialist movement in its rise to political influence and power in the expanding capitalist nations. It did not matter to Korsch whether his anarchistically-biased interpretation of revolutionary Marxism was true to Marx or not. What mattered, under the conditions of twentieth-century capitalism, was to recapture these anarchist attitudes in order to have a labour movement at all.

Paul Mattick, Karl Korsch: His Contribution to Revolutionary Marxism (1962)

[grootpoepjeplasjehoofd]

Classical bourgeois economists concern themselves with existing bourgeois society. They ingenuously regard society’s basic relationships as having the immutable character of a genuine natural law, and are for just this reason unable to become aware of any other than this actually given form of society… When they speak of ‘society’ in general, we can still, with only slight variations, recognise in that so-called general society the well-known features of present-day bourgeois society… Even when bourgeois investigators speak of an historical ‘development’ of society, they do not step beyond the magic circle of bourgeois society. They consider all the earlier forms to be ‘preliminary stages’ leading up to its present fully developed form. They constantly apply concepts drawn from today’s social conditions to preceding historical epochs. Right into the nineteenth century they described those phases of primitive history which can by no means be represented by the categories of modern bourgeois society, such as property, the state, the family, etc. as not belonging to history proper – they were merely ‘prehistoric’. Even Johann Gotfried Herder, who stood in a much closer relation to real history than most of his contemporaries, wrote in his ‘Diary’: ‘How many ages may have passed by before we learned to know or think? The Phoenician? The Ethiopian? Or none of these? Are we then, with our Moses, in the right place?’ Just as in their study of past conditions, bourgeois social theorists remain tied to bourgeois categories in their conception of the future as well. They simply cannot conceive of any changes other than those set forth in due sequence by a further unfolding of the fundamental principles appearing in present-day bourgeois society. They regard all social revolutions as pathological interferences with ‘normal’ social development. They expect, after the revolutionary ‘cycle’ has run its full course, pre-revolutionary social conditions to be reestablished as unchanged, as, according to a similar theory held by the ­politicians, the political conditions of the ancient régime are re-established in due course by the ‘Restoration’. They hold all tendencies of revolutionary socialism and communism which aim at anything beyond this to be mere ‘disturbances of healthy social progress’ and theoretically ‘unscientific’ fantasies.

Karl Korsch, Karl Marx

[edwad]

You read anything by Karl Korsch?

ive picked at some of his stuff. somewhat sympathetic but not super impressed tbh

[olumsuzsozler]

Sahip olmadıkları şey, ellerinden alınamaz. Karl Korsch