Negação e movimento

Aí abaixo, artigo veiculado em Social Theory. Negação, movimento e mudança social em foco. 

Cross Bridge, de Claude Monet 

Dialectic of the social change

By Ivonaldo Leite 

From a theoretical point of view, the relationship between history and social change is oriented by a dialectic perspective. But it is necessary to say that is the materialist dialectic that gives the best base, by the Marxist thought, to the movement of the social change.

According to dialectic materialist, there is a constant transformation in inorganic nature as well as in the human world. So, human and moral conceptions change from one age to the next.

Natural and social change occurs in accordance with certain an abstract law. Beyond a certain point, quantitative changes become qualitative. The transformations do not occur imperceptibly a little a time, but in a given moment there is a violent, revolutionary shift. Thus, the changes seem to obey  an intelligible law, it’s the law of contradiction or the law of negation of negation.

But what is the negation of negation? According to Engels, if you deny A, you have minus A; if you multiply –A by –A, you have A, which is apparently the negation of negation. An example of this in the human world is the capitalist regime which is the negation of the regime feudal ownership.

In the dialectic perspective, first there is the idea of change and then the idea of relativity of ideas or principles to circumstances. One of the aspects that plays the greatest role in the thinking of Marx and the Marxists is precisely the possible contradiction between the forces of production and the relation of production. One of the simplest versions of the dialectic would be the following: At certain degree of development of the productive forces, the individual ownership represents an impediment to their progress. It leads to the contradiction between the full expansion of the technique of production and the preservation of individual right of ownership.

Somehow, however, actually this reality has changed, but it has not been sufficiently considered in some Marxist interpretations. If we consider the great modern enterprises in France like Citroen, Renault or Dupont or General Motors in United States, we can say in effect that the volume of forces of production has made it impossible to maintain individual right to ownership. For instance, Dupont, General Motors etc., belong to thousands of shareholders, and while the letters are of the owners in the legal sense, they do not exercise the traditional and individual right of ownership. Modern corporations overcome the typical capitalism and therefore it may be said that Marx was right to show the contradiction between the development of the forces of production and individual right of ownership, since, in the modern capitalism of the great shareholding associations, right of ownership, in some way, has disappeared.

On the other hand, this reconfiguration in the economical base also demonstrates that the reality is in permanent movement. It overcomes incessantly the phenomena. In dialectic sense, it’s the negation of the negation. Hence, social change is expression of the historical necessities. Basically, the transformations in the society perform necessary functions and they occur when the conditions for them are given.