Dear Reader,

Below is part 1 of my 6-part serialization of the Equitists' Essay "The Political-Economic "Law of Motion" of Modern, Capital-Based Society -- The 'Sociotaxis' Toward [State-]Capitalist, 'Humanocidal' Totalitarianism as Political-Economic Attractor".

As with my previous serialization, here, of their "Malady and Remedy" manifesto, I have felt free to re-write portions of the text which I felt needed updating, or other improvement.

The equitists original essay can be accessed via the following URLs --

http://equitism.org/Equitism/Equitism-entry.htm

http://www.equitism.org/Equitism/Theory/Theory.htm

http://www.equitism.org/Equitism/Theory/PoliticalEconomicLawOfMotion/PoliticalEconomicLawOfMotion.htm

Regards,

Miguel

The Political-Economic "Law Of Motion" of Modern, Capital-based Society --

The 'Socio-Taxis' Toward [State-]Capitalist, 'Humanocidal' Totalitarianism as 'Political-Economic Attractor'

Part 1 of 6: The Incompleteness of Marx's Work

In his Preface to the first German edition of Capital, Vol. I (first-published in 1867), Marx wrote:

"And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement — and it is the ultimate aim of this work to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society — it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments, the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth-pangs." [Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I: The Productionsprocess of Capitals, International Publishers [NY: 1967], page 10, bold-faced/italic emphasis added by Anonymous; underline emphasis added by M.D.].

From the very first sentence of his earlier, his very first published systematic exposition of his critique of political economy, namely, «Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie», or A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy, as well as, in abundance, in his letters and unpublished writings [especially the Grundrisse], Marx described his planned, '''systematic-dialectical''' structure and deployment of this critique, as follows:

"I examine the system of bourgeois economy in the following order: capital, landed property, wage labour, the State, foreign trade, world market." [Karl Marx, A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy, Preface, International Publishers [NY: 1972], page 19, bold-faced italics emphasis added by Anonymous], also noting that "The entire material lies before me in the form of monographs, which were written not for publication but for self-clarification at widely separated periods; their remoulding into an integrated wholeaccording to the plan I have indicated will depend upon circumstances."

In the event, Marx lived to complete only the first parts of the first «buch», on capital.

The global social movement which his work, in part, inspired, has yet to engage in the systematic continuation or completion of this work.

Consequently, key aspects of modern society as a totality have been neglected, or under-theorized, in the Marxian movement, partly because Marx appears to have neglected them when, in actuality, their systematic unfoldment was to have been addressed in the works never completed — as repeated references to those later works throughout the four extant volumes of Capital attest.

In particular, the political moment of the Marxian critique of political-economy, especially in its unity with the other moments, has been under-theorized in the Marxian tradition subsequent to Marx, partly due to the [still] missing systematic-dialectical development of the theory of the State, the planned fourth division of Marx's critique of political economy as a whole.

The economic moment has been over-stressed, partly due to its appropriate stress within the systematic-dialectical development of the first, merely introductory part of Marx's critique — the «buch» on Capital.

This has been so to the extent that some — even some Marxians — believe that Marxian theory is "the economic theory of history".

On the contrary, Marxian theory is 'the historical theory of economics +', with "economics" grasped as only an aspect, albeit a foundational one, of the history of the 'allo-development' coupled with the '''self-development''' of human-species self-reproductive praxis — indeed, it is an historical theory of all aspects of the human-species social totality:

"We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. The two sides are, however, inseparable; the history of nature and the history of men are dependent on each other so long as men exist. The history of nature, so-called natural science, does not concern us here; but we will have to examine the history of men, since almost the whole of ideology amounts either to a distorted interpretation of history, or to a complete abstraction from it. Ideology itself is only one of the aspects of this history." [Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, The German Ideology, Progress Publishers [Moscow: 1968], page 28; emphasis added by Anonymous; part of a section which was "crossed out in the manuscript", per the editor, S. Ryazanskaya].

[Inserted by M.D.]: The remainder of Marx's planned critique of political economy -- the second «buch» on Landed Property, and, especially, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth «buchs» on, respectively, Wage Labor, The National State, International Trade, and The World Market [which was to contain the full exposition of Marx's theory of the recurring and worsening world economic crises that are immanent in the capitalist system, as the spurs toward the revolutionary supersession of capitalism via the transition to a higher form of industrial society] -- had that remainder been completed, would no doubt have contributed an enormous increment to the theoretical armamentarium of humanity, as humanity confronted the descendant-phase depradations -- immanent in the "law of motion" of the capitalist system -- that came crashing down soon after Marx's death.

These depredations have included the 'Great Techno-Deflation' after the U. S. Civil War [a "depredation", directly, only for the capitalist ruling class, and for their rate of profit mainly, with some benefits for the rest of human society], the ruling-class contrived 1907 economic crisis, the ruling class's constitutional and legislative assaults, in the U.S., in 1913, followed by their World War I, the "Great Depression", the emergence of Nazi, other Fascist, and Stalinist forms of totalitarian national state-capitalism world-wide -- fraudulently represented by their ideologues as "socialism" -- then World War II, ... and the present "Great Recession".

Indeed, the completion of Marx's planned work, by Marxians -- even at this late date -- via a revived and truly Marxian social-revolutionary movement, would still contribute enormously -- and perhaps even crucially -- to that armametarium.

This essay is intended as a contribution to that revival of actually-Marxian theoretical and practical development, which is urgent if the present, descendant phase of capitalism is not to sink humanity into a New Dark Age -- this time, likely also a Final Dark Age, for reasons which will become apparent. [end M.D. insert].