: Or rather, a natural development in human society, i.e. that it is a thing constructed by humans, and dictated by human consciousness. The point is, capitalism will not work unless humans want it to.Amen, bruthu. I just don't think this is Hegelian and it definitely isn't Marxist.
: No, because 'humans make history, albiet not in teh conditions of their choosing', hence Marx's emphasis on teh struggle for the ten hour day, etc. What you are describing there is a mechanical materialist reading of Marx, Marx never felt that we could sit back and do nothing, rather he felt that through our own choice actions, and the convergence of fortiuitous conditions, socialism would arise.
Observe from Poverty of Philosophy, pg 166 "Are men free to choose this or taht form or society? By no means. Assume particular stages of development of men's productive forces and you will get a particular form of commerce and consumption. Assume particular stages of development in production, commerce and consumption and you will have a corresponding social system, a corresponding organization of the family, of social estates or of classes, in a word a corresponding civil society. Assume such a civil society and you will get a political system appropriate toward it.a system which is only the official expression of civil society." And from pg 102 "Social relations are closely bo9und up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations. The hand-mill give3s you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist. The same men who establish their social relations in conformity with their material productivity, produce also principles, ideas and categories, in conformity with their social relations." Finally, German Ideology, pg 53 "This conception of history relies on expounding the real process of production and comprehending the form of intercourse connected with and created by this mode of production as the basis of all history; describing it in its action as the state, and also explaining how all the theoretical products and forms of consciousness, religion, philosophy, morality, etc., arise from it, and tracing the process of their formation from that basis. It explains the formation of ideas from material practice."
Nope. Regardless of other various quotes Marx was, at heart, a economic determinist.
: No, we will all have to act, we will each have to make the conscious decision to pursue freedom.
And each of us in the same manner defines what we conceive of as freedom.
