To all interested, please *do* read the page Mr Dxxxxx refers to (I cannot
mention his name here, he threatened in personal correspondence today,
otherwise he will attack me -- it seems he does not like to be told that he
is *WRONG*).
The "above phrase" that Marx refers to is from *the Gotha Program itself!*
-- it does not refer to the sentence I quoted, but the first "phrase"
[contemporary meaning is roughly close to "slogan"] from the Gotha program.
the referent "phrase"/slogan is in quotation marks, in a paragraph on its
own, separated from the following sentences, which are Marx's *own* words,
following a full quote of the first paragraph of the Gotha Program. In
other words, it is not easily misconstrued, except perhaps purposely,
carelessly, or stupidly:
**********
_First part of the first paragraph_ [of the Gotha program PG] : "Labour is
the source of all wealth and all culture".
[To which Marx replies PG]
Labour is _not_ the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source
of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth
consists!) as labour, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of
nature, human labour power. The above phrase is to be found in all
children's primers and is correct in so far as it is _implied_ that labour
is performed with the appurtenant subjects and instruments. But a socialist
programme cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the
_conditions_ that alone give
them meaning. And in so far as man from the beginning behaves toward
nature, the primary source of all instruments and subjects of labour, as an
owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labour becomes the source of use
values, therefore also of wealth.
************
In other words, the category of *labour* that only exists in capitalist
relations [viz: the *conditions* that alone give the category of labour and
nature their apparently separate meanings] allows some humans to treat
other humans as *their* source of wealth.
My quotes are not erroneous, nor are my interpretations.
Bet, Pxxx Dxxxxx, you can't quit without having the last word, even when
you are WRONG.
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.
Ha! Ha ha haaaaa.
childishly,
Phil
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