Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 12:49:59 -0600
Subject: Re: BHA: Flourishing, Marx, social genius




"Moodey, Richard W" wrote:
> 
> Hi Carrol,
> 
> Am I correct in adding "scare quotes" to "social genius" as well as to "providence" in this passage?
> 

I should think so. "Social Genius" was I believe Proudhon's term, and in
PoP most or all of Proudhon's terms come with at least a raised eyebrow.
I don't think Marx himself fully escaped teleology (in the form of
technological determinism) until the _Grundrisse_ and later, but one
can, I think, see him struggling against it in his early works,
culminating in PoP and 18th Brumaire. (Marx's title is a reversal of
Proudhon's title, which was _The Philosophy of Poverty_.)

There is a great passage in POP in which Marx parodies the Hegelian
dialectic (as used by Proudhon) -- and about 40 years ago one Marxist
group in the U.S. published a pamphlet which quoted that passage as a
straight exposition of "The Dialectic." One must be a bit careful in
reading Marx. :-)

Carrol



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