New Left, Local Control, and Fascism

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It is on this basis, the first approximation of Marx's What this expression means in practical terms is the
advances based on Feuerbach, that we encounter the following. The notion of the rate of social surplus means
development of Freudian psychology and Durkheim's that, above those expenditures of productive social
sociology. That is the basis for the legitimacy of the effort needed to simply maintain the productive populaconnecton
sought by Erich Fromm, for example, tion and maintain the equi-potential of nature for that
between Freud and Marx. production (constant capital, for example), man has a
certain portion of his total productive forces free to be
applied to expanding and qualitatively improving his
Development society, his power over nature. That is, heuristically,
the ratio of a society's "free energy" in its productive
Another decisive set of questions has tobe answered, relations. Or, man's growing power over the ma-
Assuming deliberation, even of an unconscious kind, in terial universe.
man's relationship to nature, the only premise for real
human knowledge is human existence (The German If man is deliberately mastering his universe in such
Ideology). The test of the reality of human knowledge is a way, then the process which describes his progress in
the effect of his deliberate productive activities in pro- this manner effectively subsumes implicitly all the
viding the material basis for continued human ex- fundamental laws of the material universe. Or, man's
istence, real analysis of the process by which he actually
increases his rate of social surplus (rising positive
The first test of the reality of human knowledge is the values for the second derivative of the rate of social
ability of certain labor, embodying the consumption of surplus) is the unique basis for man's knowledge of the
certain material means of existence, to produce suf- fundamental laws of the material universe.
ficient new material means of existence for an expanded
population.(18) That is the first approximation
of reality, establishing Marx's conception of social
surplus. Reality of Religious Beliefs
Obviously, primitive and other societies, capitalism
However, human productive activity must reckon included, do not prov!de man with real knowledge of
with the reality that man-improved and man-depleted himself. Man functions according to fantastic concepnature
is always relatively-finite in its capacity to tions of himself and nature.
sustain society's expansion in any definite mode of production.
Continued human development, advancing However, if such ideological states involved no more
human existence, thus depends upon man's improve- than fantasy, man would soon cease to occupy his own
ment of his modes of production, to yield greater ideology-ridden contemplation. This implies that all
results with relatively poorer resources, etc. dominant, hegemonic ideologies subsume, at least at
some stage of their hegemony, an appropriate guide to
We have therefore to qualify our initial premise social practice, at least appropriate for the perpetuation
concerning the reality of human knowledge. It is man's of the society. Under such conditions, man's knowsuccessful
line of development, to societies of higher ledge, however fantastically guised is real knowledge.
actual and potential rates of social surplus (equivalent Real in the sense that we define empirically-valk)
of free energy rates in physical systems) which unique- contradictory concepts as real in the dialectical method.
ly demonstrates the reality of human knowledge.
The problem of ideologically-ba_ed knowledge is
that it ceases to be real as the basic conditions of social
Without exploring here all the necessary intervening practice are significantly altered. It is beyond the scope
stages of exposition, we can report in the form of a of our present work to show here the formal considerastatement
of results: Successful human production of tions involved. Despite that, the point made is suffihuman
existence is expressed as the result of an in- ciently clear for purposes at hand.
hering developmental tendency in human society which
can be expressed empirically as a positive value for the It is in this sense that religious beliefs tend to contain
second derivatirve of the rate of social surplus. That is, necessary truths. It is in a similar sense that we can
a tendency for the rate of social surplus not only to rise begin to understand the organic relationships among
but to rise at an accelerating rate. (This is the same as the constituent layers and other groupings of society.
the Marxian Law of Value expressed in use-value terms.) Different layers and groupings may differ in ideology in
the same society. Conceptions of self-interest, concep-
This is the Marxist explicit form of the self-subsisting tions of moral practice, etc. To fulfill the condition of
positive which Feuerbach proposes to substitute for ideological appropriateness it is only essential that the
Hegel's mistaken conception, "the negation of the particular ideology be appropriate to the group's particnegation."
ular appropriate function within the whole.