Marxism and science: Tipping points, catastrophe, and revolution
Channel: The Communist
Date: 2019-11-27

In this talk from Revolution Festival 2019, Ben Curry (of the Socialist Appeal editorial board) discusses the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism and its application to the natural world.

Dialectics is a philosophy of change, explaining that all matter is in a state of motion and flux. But how does this change take place?

Using a number of examples from science - from thermodynamics, to evolution, to chaos theory - Ben demonstrates one of the basic principles of dialectics: that change occurs through a process of 'quantity and quality'.

In other words, the gradual accumulation of small quantitative changes eventually leads to the qualitative transformation of a system to a new equilibrium state.

Such 'tipping points' are seen all around us in nature - and, Ben stresses, in society also, in the form of capitalist crises and revolutions.

This is why an understanding of dialectics is so vital for all Marxists and revolutionary activists today.