Fudged definitions
Ron Guignard, in his article "Is Marxism Scientific?" (GLW #145), seems to have fudged both his definitions of Marxism and of science.
Ron's definition of science is constructed in such a way that nothing can be scientific. Not all scientific knowledge can be expressed purely in mathematical terms (psychology), nor can all science predict the movement of complex systems (paleontology). Science cannot be reduced to either of these criteria.
In fact, the significance of quantum mechanics' "uncertainty principle" — that you can never exactly know the velocity and the position of a particle simultaneously — is precisely that you can never "without fail predict its future state" because you can never get "enough knowledge of its present state" to be able to do that.
Rather than rendering science's powers impotent and the world unknowable, this principle shows rather that subjective human consciousness only imperfectly shadows objective reality. This by the way is a fundamental premise of Marx and Engels' scientific method.
Science is based on the objective fact that reality moves in accordance with definite and knowable laws. The essence of science is the attempt to investigate, model and understand these fundamental laws of motion of nature.
Marxism is based on the similar understanding that human society and consciousness also operate in accordance with definite laws of motion and attempts to understand them (in order the better to change human society and consciousness). Its ability to do so effectively, to provide a guide to action, is borne out in revolutionary and people's movements throughout the world all through this century.
Finally, Ron's method itself is hardly a paragon. To grossly simplify and then knock down Marx's "predictions" — as though he was some crystal ball gazer — s hardly science (let alone some mythical pure science). To copy such argumentation from right-wing academic journals is generally called plagiarism. And to think that such argumentation definitively proves the end of Marxist science is rather foolhardy.
Sean Healy
East Perth
Marx and social science
Ron Guignard's comment on the nature of Marxism (GLW 145) hardly attempts to even undertake a criticism of Marx's social science.
His proposition, which states that because Marx's predictions as to the future of capitalism have not come true, means that Marx has failed to create a successful social science, seems flawed on three counts.
First, and perhaps most obviously, is that just because Marx's predictions have not yet come true it doesn't mean that they will never come into being. To the first point he disputes, that, "The capitalist system will collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions, and soon, because of its accelerating rate of development", the system will eventually reach a great enough crisis; to say otherwise is to neglect the dialectical nature of history.
The same answer could be given to all of his points of dispute. The preconditions for the predictions that Marx made have not yet arisen.
Second is the fact that a critique of hypotheses that arise out of a scientific method in no way can be said to discount the science. Hypotheses are disproved all of the time in the physical sciences but this does not mean the scientific method is abandoned.
Third comes from Ron's archaic definition of science. This definition comes out of the dark ages when change and movement were not seen to be an integral part of our world. Both physical and social science have now recognised the moving nature of this world and definitions of science must be given to include this; as does Marx's dialectical materialism.
David Evans
Adelaide
Kennedy and Malcolm
In view of all the sturm und drang over Jacqueline Kennedy's admittedly tragic death, and tears again being wept over the photo of her and her two tiny children at her husband's funeral — what about the shooting of Malcolm X in New York in 1965 in front of his wife, Betty Shabazz, and his four small daughters?
We never saw touching pictures of them and their mother at Malcolm's funeral. Surely he was as important in American history as JFK was? All we have is Spike Lee's excellent film biography, By Any Means Necessary, which was not even nominated for a film award in 1992.
Rosemary Evans
St Kilda Vic
US killing fields
Under the above heading, the Sun Herald (Sydney) on May 29 printed British playwright Harold Pinter's clear statement, setting out the "case for comparing the crimes of the United States with those of Hitler, Stalin and Mao". The majority of people in the Americas and elsewhere would take heart from his words, if, having been isolated from any semblance of "free speech", "freedom of expression", and "freedom from fear" for the past 500 years, they were allowed to read or hear such words.
Harold Pinter states, "Since 1945 the deaths of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands — which very swiftly becomes millions — of people in Indonesia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, El Salvador, Angola, the Philippines, Turkey, Haiti and East Timor can be squarely laid at its (the US's) front door".
"Of course, there is a difference", he continues. "Hitler, Stalin and Mao, in one way or another, intended the death of millions. The US has, I suggest, accepted that the deaths of millions is inevitable if its 'national interests' are to be protected — in other words, if its power base is to be maintained."
"In 1945 in Guatemala and in 1965 in Indonesia the US embassies 'fingered' those to be killed, and recorded those deaths as efficiently as the Nazis. Where, I wonder, is the 'moral' distinction between 'killing' and 'fingering' those to be killed. I can't see that it exists myself."
Mr Clinton in one of his early speeches remarked that the 20,000 plus CIA operatives employed to protect the USA from Communism, would now be employed in protecting US "national interests". This policy was reiterated by him in May 1994, together with the partly welcome statement that the USA will no longer act as the World Policeman, but will only "protect US national interests worldwide".
US appointed or supported presidents, generals and politicians around the world still assist the CIA in their work, which they now refine to include voting frauds and irregularities, diminishing human rights — health, housing, job and education supports; while still retaining the old methods of corrupting Leaders, or mass starvation, torture, invasion and the ever present death squads.
How can the USA accuse other nations of human rights violations? On the economic "front" Mr Ormonsby, top English economist, today cast a major doubt on the US recommended "economic rationalism" theory (which operates through GATT and against 3rd World peoples — especially those forced to receive toxic waste dumps and the polluted, high interest ideas of the World Bank and IMF).
John Clancy
Sutherland NSW
Peace movement history
Barry Smith, Agent Orange expert, said on That's History (ABC May 29) words to this effect, that the moratorium in Australia was "almost an exact replica of its American precursor".
The Australian peace movement, which i joined in 1960, was already active in opposing imperialist suppression of the Vietnamese people. Australian unionists had taken action against the French. The best author on Vietnam was Australian, Wilfred Burchett, and Australian authors, Len Fox, Mona Brand and Aileen Palmer, had visited Vietnam.
When Menzies gave Australian "advisers" to the American War Machine, Australians had already commenced a program of opposition to the war. Demonstrations had started with slogans, marches, songs and poetry. Films were shown, e.g. Dien Bien Phu. I wrote poems including "The Slouch of Vietnam", which was heard by tens of thousands of people, is printed in Vietnam Remembered, and is translated into Vietnamese.
As to Barry Smith's empty assertion that the American peace movement was the "precursor" of the Australian, Noam Chomsky has said there was little, or no, organised opposition to the Vietnam War in the USA before the later sixties.
It is true to say, that the peace movements in the American universities, in the late sixties did have a strong influence on Australian students and universities.
However, to say as historian Barry Smith says, that the American opposition to the Vietnam War, was the "precursor" of Australian opposition is a patent falsehood; and to say that Australian opposition to the Vietnam War, was a "replica" of the American, is just as blatant a falsehood. Hearing this reversal of the facts of history, which I participated in from 1960 onwards, makes me want to question every single conclusion drawn by Agent Orange expert, Barry Smith, in his role as an Australian historian.
Denis Kevans
Wentworth Falls NSW