Revolution for Dummies

Here is a diagramatic rendering of the theory of materialist revolution as presented by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology.

No, I don’t have anything better to do with my time.

Rev1

8 Comments »

  1. Revolution for Dummies « Bad Conscience said,

    October 20, 2009 at 11:44 am

    [...] Intellectual History, Nerd Posts, Political Philosophy at 11:43 am by Paul Sagar New Nerd Post: Revolution for Dummies – a diagramatic guide to the process of revolution which arises from the necessity of [...]

  2. Duncan said,

    October 20, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    This is very geeky but commendably accurate.

  3. Paul Sagar said,

    October 20, 2009 at 12:51 pm

    You’re damn right it is.

    Though I suppose, strictly speaking, the end point of the diagram should be “communism”, as this is a reconstruction of The German Ideology.

    However, I wanted to tip hats to the latter Marx and the possibility the communism is not the inevitable end-point of world history.

  4. Duncan said,

    October 20, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    It’s not just the latter Marx who raises the possibility that communism is not the inevitable end point of world history.

    It’s in the Communist Manifesto that he and Engels raise the prospect that the future of human society could be the ‘mutual ruin of the contending classes’.

  5. Mads said,

    October 21, 2009 at 6:21 pm

    Hey Paul,
    It may be an accurate simplification for dummies, but it needs some explanatory notes and definitions in the bottom of the diagram to make it complete.
    It’s all so smooth. Where’s the tension? This is the determinist Marx-Engels we’ve got here. Is the contradiction just between Means of production and forms of social intercourse, and is the class organisation, the “vs.” of e.g. peasants and feudal lords manifest just in the “forms of social intercourse” or in the “means of production” as well?

    First post from me. I guess I’ll mostly reply in the Nerd posts, me being a foreigner and all and consequently foreign to british domestic politics.

    Personally I’m going with the Mir in the late Marx.

  6. Paul Sagar said,

    October 21, 2009 at 8:49 pm

    Mads,

    I guess you are right, there is a need for explanatory notes and defintions…I was just too lazy to put them in.

    Plus I sort of thought it would be fun to leave them out.

    I take your point about tensions…but then, this was an expository diagram for the German Ideology specificaly…where the tensions are somewhat smoothed over. Hence, yes, it is a smooth presentation.

    I will try and add footnotes over the weekend.

    You should have stayed out for drinks tonight. If only to make me, Thijs and Bob feel less bad about being hung over tomorrow morning…

    best,

  7. freethinkingeconomist said,

    November 2, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    And yet, ever since they formulated these suspiciously neat theories, things have just got better and better . . . wealth is far less unequally distributed, health outcomes more even, etc etc. Bet Marx reincarnated would change all his views now – but his followers still stick by his schema (like Keynes and other great thinkers)

    Though I know that Paul is a superb ironist. TThanks for commenting on Freethink

  8. Kaitlyn said,

    April 14, 2010 at 6:23 pm

    I believe that wealth has been the number one thing to disrupted out conscience… It has been seen to destroy many people. They take the wealth and use it to manipulate others.

    P.S. why is wealth killing us so?


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