Editing Philosophical Research:The Dictatorship of the Proletariat (section)

== Dialectics as Theory and Practice ==

Page 11.

As Lukacs puts it,

<blockquote>Above all the worker can only become conscious of their existence in society when they become aware of themselves as a commodity.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Inasmuch as they incapable in practice of raising themselves above the role of object their consciousness is the ''self-consciousness of the commodity''; or in other words it is the self-knowledge, the self-revelation of the capitalist society founded upon the production and exchange of commodities.
</blockquote>
“The Standpoint of the Proletariat”, ''Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat''. Page 149.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is as much about wresting domination away from the capitalists as it is about a kind of society-wide self-realisation.

A grasping in consciousness of what before was hidden–the true nature of the capitalist division of labour.

Page 12.

The process is at once transformative as it is a form of discovery. It is a form of creation as well as externally determined knowledge.

The dictatorship of the proletariat involves a ''dialectical'' as opposed to a ''mechanical'' method–where the proletariat defeats the capitalist class it abolishes the necessity for power. Without this assumption of power over the previously capitalist-controlled division of labour, there is also no self-knowledge. The dictatorship of the proletariat forms the working class as a social subject, whereas before it was enslaved; objectified.

It gives content to the idea of class struggle–without some form of unity, some form of radical organisation, the capitalist machine continues apace.

- EOF -

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