J B Foster wrote:For Engels,

December 5, 2016 at 8:27 am #123583

Participant

J B Foster wrote:

For Engels, as for Marx, the key to socialism was the rational regulation of the metabolism of humanity and nature, in such a way as to promote the fullest possible human potential, while safeguarding the needs of future generations.

[my bold]The key political question for socialists is: "who (or what) determines 'rational'?".Either 'matter' determines (and a minority will 'read matter'), or 'humans' determine (and only a majority can say what 'humans' determine).This is an issue of 'power'.If we start, like the 'materialists', from 'matter', it will inexorably lead to a minority (who claim to have a special consciousness) determining what 'matter says', to the exclusion of the views of the majority.The SPGB follows this anti-democratic theory of 'materialism', and argues that 'specialists' (a minority of elite experts) must determine, whilst the 'generalists' (the majority of 'non-specialists') must obey the 'specialists'.'Materialism' is at base a bourgeois, anti-democratic philosophy suited to elite rule, which is why Lenin espoused 'materialism' for his elite political purposes.Marx, on the contrary, was concerned with 'social production', and the political rule of the majority of the 'social producers'.Only the social producers can determine what is 'rational' for their own interests and purposes. 'Rationality' is a social product, not an external, unchanging, ahistoric gift from god.