Search Results for 'democratic social productionism'
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Search Results
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In reply to: Radical Realism and Socialism
DJP’s link :”“If there’s a single ideal that guides the materialist Left, it isn’t a moral ideal. It is an aspiration to strengthen our grasp of how the world works…”.
I know DJP won’t welcome my intervention, but the above is nothing to do with Marx’s ‘social productionism’ (or, ‘idealism-materialism’).
Marx argues that we are the producers of our world, and thus we can change our product.
This social activity of course includes notions of ‘morality’. His method of ‘social theory and practice’ requires both plans and activity.
This must of course be a democratically controlled social production.The ‘materialist left’ are the followers of Engels (who misunderstood Marx), Kautsky, Plekhanov and Lenin. This political and ideological trend emerged prior to the foundation of the SPGB, and unfortunately the SPGB doesn’t seem to realise this.
Merely ‘grasping how the world works’ is 18th century materialism, the passivity of which Marx opposed.
When any supporter of this ‘materialist Left’ is asked about ‘democratic conscious activity’, they refuse to accept ‘democracy’, and retain the power to organise the production of our world to an elite. Marx fundamentally opposed this elitism, for example in his Theses on Feuerbach.
In reply to: Lenin still dead – after 100 years
#250276 REPLY | QUOTE
LBird
Participant
Almamater wrote: “And the debate on this thread is about Lenin, it is not about Engels or Kautsky”Yes, but if Lenin was a follower of Engels, Kautsky and Plekhanov, rather than Marx, wouldn’t that be relevant to the argument that Lenin and the Bolsheviks (and Trotskyists and Stalinists) can teach us nothing about Marx’s democratic social productionism?
But… if you want to close that line of inquiry, that’s OK by me. I’ll leave the thread to you, unless you ask me to continue.
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If Lenin was a follower of them, why Plekhanov and Kautsky opposed Lenin and Lenin tried to discredited them and wrote against them ? Lenin wrote a book known as the Renegade Kautsky, and he wrote another one against the Left Communists, and Engels was one of the first socialist theoretician that spoke about state capitalism and defined it as another form of capitalism and Lenin accepted state capitalism, and he said that it was beneficial for the working class and a step toward socialism, that does not sound like Engels
Some Mensheviks like Martov took the same stand as Marx, and he was discredited by the Bolsheviks. Lenin was a follower of state capitalism and Russian bourgoise nationalism. In our time the works of Marx and Engels are more popular than before, and new edition of all the works of M&E is going to be finalized in Germany, the work of Rosa Luxembourg are getting more popular than before, and all her works have been published already and she was heavily influenced by Marx. I don’t think that Marx is dead because “Engels and Lenin killed him ”
In reply to: Lenin still dead – after 100 years
Almamater wrote: “And the debate on this thread is about Lenin, it is not about Engels or Kautsky”
Yes, but if Lenin was a follower of Engels, Kautsky and Plekhanov, rather than Marx, wouldn’t that be relevant to the argument that Lenin and the Bolsheviks (and Trotskyists and Stalinists) can teach us nothing about Marx’s democratic social productionism?
But… if you want to close that line of inquiry, that’s OK by me. I’ll leave the thread to you, unless you ask me to continue.
In reply to: Lenin still dead – after 100 years
chelmsford wrote: “Barltrop made the telling point that if it were not for the Bolshevik revolution, today Marx would be as well known as Lassalle or Duhring or Proudhon to name but three. He would be by and large unknown.”
On the contrary, I think that Lenin and the Bolshevik revolution have ensured that Marx has remained ‘by and large unknown’.
Lenin was the successor to Engels’ mistaken views, and Kautsky’s and Plekhanov’s mangling of Marx’s democratic social productionism.
Lenin almost exclusively quoted Engels, rather than Marx.
The ‘Marx’ we supposedly ‘know’ today is far removed from Marx’s democratic views.
In reply to: Marx and the State
Marx would’ve replied with the same answer, if asked about ‘science’, too, alan.
Democratic control of any social power was the political and philosophical basis of Marx’s social productionism.
In reply to: Metaverse
Wez wrote: “It doesn’t surprise me that LBird rejects Marx’s LTV along with his theory of historical evolution…”
You’ll have to point out just where I supposedly did those things, Wez.
But on the contrary, I can point out dozens (hundreds?) of examples where ‘materialists’, rather than debate what has been said, make up stories about Marxists who adopt Marx’s democratic social productionism.
Anyway, to rebut your made up story – Marx’s LTV (being a theory (‘T’)) requires human consciousness, and does not emerge from matter and enter passive humans through their biological senses; and his ‘theory of…’, err…, I think this is pretty obvious, too.
Marx believed that ‘conscious activity’ (ie. ‘labour’) socially produced our world, and thus we can change it.
Materialists, like you Wez, deny this, as when you claim “…the laws of nature are not affected by the beliefs and needs of humanity…“.
I’ve quoted often from Marx and other Marxists, to show that any ‘laws of nature’ that we know, we have produced, and have changed. The ‘laws of nature’ are socio-historical.
If you’re going to respond to my posts, please respond to what I write, and please don’t make up stories, to help hide your own defenceless, outdated 18th century ideology.
In reply to: Gnostic Marxist
While consistently advocating just such arrangements,
(The author of this book recognises this idea’s pedigree in stating that the ‘vision of post-scarcity was what “socialism” and “communism” had come to mean before later identification with Stalinist central planning and breakneck industrialisation’, and, in his final chapter, entitled ‘Necessity and Freedom’, he describes it variously as, ‘the abolition of private property and monetary exchange in favor of planned cooperation’, ‘a world of fully capacitated individuals … in which every single person could look forward to developing their interests and abilities with full social support’, ‘a world in which democratic associations of women and men replaced the rule of the market with competitive production – and taking advantage of capitalist technologies – reduced the common labors of necessity to expand a realm of individual freedom’, ‘a new form of life that does not organize itself around wage work and monetary exchange’, a society in which ‘everyone can go to the social storehouses and service centers to get what they need’, and finally ‘for most people (…) the first time in their lives that they could enter truly voluntary agreements – without the gun to their heads of a pervasive material insecurity’. In such a society ‘dis-alienating community life – by taking that life under democratic control and collective care – becomes the way to ensure that individual freedom is shared by all’.)
The Socialist Party has never sought to put forward detailed plans of how the new society of free access will be organised, since we would not seek to dictate now to the majority of socialist-minded workers at the time how to put into practice the plans they will have previously worked out about how to organise production and distribution cooperatively and democratically.
Your search on Marxists.org-
"democratic social productionism"site:www.marxists.org/archive/marx/ – did not match any documents.
However ,”democratic social production” returned theseOn SPGB “democratic social productionism”
Sorry, but nothing matched your search terms. Please try again with some different keywords.On SPGB, “democratic social production”, 223 results.
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/?=Democratic+social+productionOn SPGB Forum Search,
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/search/democratic+social+productionism/Masses of stuff,
Marx did not use your terms ‘democratic social productionism in science’.
Answer Robbo’s very simple straight forward question and point.
Now deal with the arguments that demolish your crackpot non-Marxian idea about the need for scientific theories to be democratically voted upon by the global population.
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” The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois.”
(1879 Marx and Engels )
In reply to: Gnostic Marxist
So, the SPGB is not democratic, nor does it ‘exemplify socialism’. And it appears that all ‘contemporary and historical’ parties who’ve called themselves ‘socialist’ or ‘Marxist’ have really been ‘materialist’, and so have nothing to do with Marx’s democratic social productionism.
More lies from LBird
The SPGB is in theory and practice, as a political organisation, democratic and explicitly calls for the democratic control of the means of production in socialism.
Just because neither we nor Marx for that matter, support LBird’s insanely unhinged suggestion that tens of thousands of scientific theories should be voted on by the global population does not mean we are not democratic in our outlook and in our perception of socialism
LBird’s philosophical idealism has nothing to do with Marx’s outlook or ours. Marx would have scoffed at the silly notion that there is no such thing as an objective reality. LBird in effect opposes Marx’s idea of social production since he denies the existence of other human beings as part of that objective reality. It is not possible to talk of “society” if other people don’t exist without being dependent on our own consciousness
In truth, LBird is in ideological terms closer to Margeret Thatcher than Karl Marx. Didn’t Thatcher say there was no such thing as society?
In reply to: Gnostic Marxist
alanjjohnstone wrote: “My questions were as you rightly quoted
“…can you suggest any political party, contemporary or historical, that has been more democratic than ourselves? Likewise, can you provide an example of a socialist party exemplifying socialism more than we do?”
Your answers did not address them, LBird.”
Right, alan, I’ll try again.
It seems that, as Marx suspected, the political ideology/movement/party known as ‘Marxism’ was nothing to do with his ideas. Again, as Marx pointed out, any ideology/movement/party rooted in the notions of ‘materialism’ would bolster class society.
So, if you are asking me if “any political party, contemporary or historical… has been more democratic than ourselves”, then I can only judge your question based upon Marx’s democratic social productionism.
The answer thus is, to the best of my knowledge (and I’m open to further enlightenment on the issue), there is not and never has been a ‘democratic’ party, ‘contemporary or historical’, that meets this political test.
So, the SPGB is not democratic, nor does it ‘exemplify socialism’. And it appears that all ‘contemporary and historical’ parties who’ve called themselves ‘socialist’ or ‘Marxist’ have really been ‘materialist’, and so have nothing to do with Marx’s democratic social productionism.
Of course, there have been thousands of individuals, over the years and across the world, who’ve pointed this out, that ‘socialism/communism’ must mean ‘democratic social production’ if it is to be worth building. But, again to the best of my knowledge, no party has emerged from these dissenters against ‘materialism’. I might be wrong on this, and would be pleased if you know differently and can point one out.
I must admit, my experience of the SPGB and its ‘materialist’ ideology (which is so obviously at odds with ‘democracy’) leaves me feeling as if I’m unlikely to find a ‘democratic socialist’ party in my lifetime. Youse were a bit of a ‘last chance saloon’. I actually think that there’s a danger that Marx’s ideas will be completely forgotten, because it seems that the ‘materialist’ parties, like the Trotskyists and the SPGB, are doomed in the 21st century because they base themselves on a completely discredited 18th century ideology, and there is no other ‘institutional’ memory of what Marx argued. I’d like to think that a party based upon Marx’s views would emerge, and I’d join, but I’m not hopeful.
I hope that this answers your question, now, alan.
In reply to: Gnostic Marxist
ALB quote “Robbo, now he is saying that we don’t think that “men make history” but that tools and machines do !”
Well, ALB, if ‘men make history’, you have to admit that they are conscious and make.
So, the active side is humans, not ‘ideas’, not ‘matter’, not ‘the ideal’, not ‘the material’.
I’m so glad that you’ve finally accepted Marx’s ideas.
So, ‘who‘ consciously makes ‘science’, ALB, and ‘how‘?
Or are you going to revert to ‘matter makes science’ or ‘scientists make science’, and argue against democracy within science?
Why do you disagree with Marx’s democratic politics, ALB? Why do you want ‘the material’ to dictate to humanity? How do you know this ‘material’ if the rest of us don’t? If we all know it, why can’t we vote on it?
You haven’t a clue about Marx’s views, have you, ALB? Your 1975 article on Dietzgen shows that then, and you haven’t developed in nearly half a century, so I won’t hold my breath that Marx’s social productionism will finally have any effect on you.
Democratic Socialism, not ‘matter’, not an elite’.
In reply to: Gnostic Marxist
There is a contradiction between the SPGB’s alleged ‘democracy’ and ‘materialism’. One has to give way to the other.
Here we go again. Yet more misrepresentation from LBird. Are you ever going to stop with this relentless misrepresentation?
There is nothing “alleged” about the SPGB’s adherence to democracy both in principle and practice. As an organisation, the SPGB is unrivalled in the way it runs itself along democratic lines: Leaderless, no secrets, all it’s business conducted in the open, the rigorous control exercised by the membership as a whole over the Party via Conference, ADM and Party Polls …..
Democratic control is also fundamental to our objective – socialism – as stated in our literature: The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.
Just because we don’t go along with your ludicrously impractical and pointless suggestion that tens of thousands of scientific theories should be subjected to a democratic vote by the world’s population does NOTmean we reject democracy
Where did you get the silly idea that
Democratic socialism will require a democratic science, and Marx can give us some pointers how this can be so.
What are these pointers indicating that Marx suggested scientific theories should be subjected to a democratic vote? Name a single one.
According to you
Marx reconciled both idealism and materialism, into a third philosophy – social productionism (in effect, part-idealism-part-materialism).
So that presumably means you advocate part-materialism alongside part-idealism. But if there is a contradiction between materialism and democracy as you claim then your advocacy of “part materialism” implies by your own reasoning that you too must accept there is some limit to the scope of democratic decision-making in any society, including socialism. Or do you expect a global socialist society will have a vote on what I can eat for breakfast or what I can wear to work?
I would argue that you are not even “part materialist” but are an idealist through and through.
Marx was critical of the kind of views you express. In his Theses On Feuerbach, he attacked the kind of mechanical materialism to which the SPGB is also opposed, as follows
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.
The reference to idealism here precisely sums up your position. You make no allowance for the influence of material factors. They don’t even exist from your standpoint. There is no sense of a two-way interaction between brain and mind, or between individuals and society. Dinosaurs for you don’t exist outside our idea of them even though the fossil record tells us that dinosaurs preexisted human beings and their ability to think human thoughts, by millions of years. For you the fossil record means nothing.
Actually, the construct you have come up with – idealism-materialism – is what would sum up the position of the SPGB. Although the terminology is misleading I get what you are trying to say. Except that you actually reject “idealism-materialism” in favour of pure idealism since you do not allow the “materialism” part of this construct to have any role or influence whatsoever. It’s a purely one-way relationship in your view – from ideas to matter (which becomes itself just another idea)
The SPGB view is quite different. As our Historical Materialism pamphlet notes:
The Materialist Conception does not deny the influence of ideas on history. In fact, there would be no revolutionary changes if ideas did not play a part. What it does is to trace the source of the ideas, but to deny the power of ideas alone
Note that last word, “alone”
You assert in response to my comment that the “SPGB’s materialism IS Marx’s materialism.”:
I’ve shown time and time again that this is an untrue claim. Marx was a democrat, Lenin wasn’t. The SPGB currently espouses the same ideology as Lenin did. But… the SPGB can change itself – unlike the SWP.
This is about as wrong as you can possibly get and, no, you have not once shown my claim is untrue. I recently came across an interesting review of Anton Pannekoek’s Lenin as Philosopher in the Western Socialist (Fall 1976), a previous journal of our companion party in the United States, which was actually written by ALB himself whose views you have been constantly misrepresenting
Pannekoek talked of there being two kinds of materialism – 1) the mechanical or middle-class materialism endorsed by some of the early advocates of capitalism in their struggle against religion and the aristocratic state and 2) the historical materialism of Marx and others. The review article very clearly comes down on the side of Pannekoek in his critique of Lenin’s middle-class materialism
Your own brand of idealism, LBird, is the exact mirror image of Lenin’s mechanical materialism. You both have an over-deterministic view of the relationship between “ideas” and “matter” seeing it as an essentially one-way movement rather than interactive. The difference is that whereas Lenin saw matter determining ideas you see ideas determining matter, (despite you pretence at adopting a part-materialist stance). The “materialism” part in your formulation is completely stripped of any determinative power
Marx and the SPGB would unquestionably oppose both you and Lenin!
In reply to: Gnostic Marxist
robbo203 wrote: “I wish you would stop misrepresenting what you call the SPGB’s “materialism”. You know very well by now it is emphatically not the 18th-century mechanical materialism espoused by the likes of Lenin and co”
But that’s the entire political and philosophical point, robbo.
There is a contradiction between the SPGB’s alleged ‘democracy’ and ‘materialism’. One has to give way to the other.
I’ve asked the materialists within the SPGB (and they don’t have to adhere to materialism, but at present they do) do they accept Marx’s views about democratic social production, or not. Marx was clearly writing about all social production, physical and academic, ideal and material, social and individual. So, a Marxist would expect the answer that all social production within a socialist society would be democratic. Seems simple.
But you and the other materialists insist that there are areas of social production that are not amenable to democratic production, like ‘science’. Marx famously warned that materialists would do this, that they would claim that within human society there exists an elite of specialists who would determine ‘the material’ for the majority. And this would divide society into two.
This is precisely the answer that you, as a materialist, give. You deny that democracy is required in certain areas of social production. Lenin did this, too. Thus, the SPGB seems to espouse the same politics as Lenin – that of a ‘special consciousness’ within a cadre, separate from the majority of the associated producers.
And just as Lenin did, materialists (holding to the ideological belief that there is only two basic philosophies) claim that anyone who argues against this ‘materialism’ that Marx condemned, is an ‘idealist’. It’s not a term of analysis, but simply abuse.
Marx reconciled both idealism and materialism, into a third philosophy – social productionism (in effect, part-idealism-part-materialism).
robbo203 wrote: “The SPGB/s materialism IS Marx’s materialism.”
I’ve shown time and time again that this is an untrue claim. Marx was a democrat, Lenin wasn’t. The SPGB currently espouses the same ideology as Lenin did. But… the SPGB can change itself – unlike the SWP.
In reply to: Gnostic Marxist
lBird’s latest charm offensive…
Anyone who refuses to sign up to his “democratic social productionism in science” must be a closet dictator.TWC
If anything is a recipe for a fascist dictatorship its LBird’s abomination of a scenario dressed up as “democratic social productionism” in science, truth, maths et al. Its amusing that he prattles on about Marx but is reduced to complete silence when asked to show where Marx supported the crackpot and insanely impractical idea that tens of thousands of scientific theories should be subjected to a democratic vote by the whole population
LBirds view of democratic socialism is a complete distortion (or perhaps I should say abortion) of democracy. This is not what democracy is about. What he is calling for is more suited to hierarchical ant colony than a democratic human society
Imagine if 8 billion of us were asked to vote on some “Truth” (yes “truth” is also something that would be subject to a democratic vote according to LBird). Since, it would be wildly optimistic to suggest that anything more than 0.00000057 percent of the global population would even bother to vote in such a ludicrous referendum what would happen once the “democratic will of the people” had been asserted. Would those of us who disagree with this ..er. .”socially approved” version of this particular truth, be rounded up and incarcerated? If not what was the point of the exercise?????
The whole point of democratic decision-making is to arrive at decisions that are inherently implementable. So your local community decides between two of three options for building a new local school or hospital. It selects one and rejects the rest and goes ahead with implementing this democratic decision
How is a democratic vote on some obscure scientific theory which most of us have never heard of – the mating habits of aphids, say – going to be enforceable? If it is enforced this will spell the end of science as a self critical enterprise. We will back to the days of the Holy Inquisition, when a tiny elite – and of necessity it will be a tiny elite because the vast majority are not going to bother to vote on the matter – will determine what ideas are deemed to be socially acceptable and the rest of us will just have to conform whether we like it or not
Talk about 1984 and all that..
In reply to: Gnostic Marxist
lBird’s latest charm offensive…
Anyone who refuses to sign up to his “democratic social productionism in science” must be a closet dictator.
Never forget.
On a previous charm offensive, lBird threatened to expose the SPGB as a closet dictatorship — a charming tactic, cognate to the psychological blackmail that “a true radical can’t possibly refuse to support the ‘democratic republic of <you-name-it>’.”
* * *
Given the circumstances, humans enthusiastically engage in collaborative activity.
- Experimental research in physics and astronomy is allocated a time share on expensive experimental equipment. The resulting scientific papers regularly parade a vast tribe of specialist authors. Theoretical research in physics and mathematics also regularly proceeds by collaborative teamwork.
- Volunteer science is an unsung social resource. It includes amateur astronomy, natural history, geology, mineralogy, palaeontological and archeological digs, specimen collection, preparation and cataloguing — often for no other recompense than the pleasure of personal achievement and contribution.
* * *
Here is a practical example of communal science in action. It is a collaboration between high-school students and mathematicians, attempting to replicate Isaac Newton’s 1665 computation of π to 16 digits precision, by the method outlined in post https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/topic/gnostic-marxist/page/19/#post-215922
Take note lBird that the community never resorts to ‘democratically electing the Truth’. Instead it holds, with Marx, that “man must prove the truth … in practice”.
In this fun exercise, the community effort falls short of Isaac Newton’s achievement.
lBird might gain some respect for Newton’s towering intellect. Likewise for the towering intellect of Marx (whose achievement we will one day be able to discuss rationally as we do Newton’s).
Here’s the video… Communal science
In reply to: Gnostic Marxist
Marx did not use your terms ‘democratic social productionism in science’.
Answer Robbo’s very simple straight forward question and point.
Now deal with the arguments that demolish your crackpot non-Marxian idea about the need for scientific theories to be democratically voted upon by the global population.
An adequate theory of history and social change is what Marx was to contribute to socialist theory, providing it with a scientific basis.
The Socialist Party has further developed Marx’s theories, and has made plain where it disagrees with Marx. We do not endorse Marx’s ideas regarding struggles for national liberation, minimum reform programmes, labour vouchers and the lower stage of communism.
On some of these points the Socialist Party does not reject what Marx advocated in his own day but rejects their applicability to socialists now. There are other issues upon which the Socialist Party might appear to be at variance with Marx but is in fact only disputing distortions of Marx’s thinking.
For example, the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ is usually understood in its Leninist interpretation.
Indeed, it is a tragedy of world-historical proportions that Marx has been Leninized – what is basically a method of social analysis with a view to taking informed political action by the working class, has had its name put to a state ideology of repression of the working class.
Instead of being known as a tool for working class self-emancipation, we have had the abomination of ‘Marxist states’.
Undeterred by these developments, the Socialist Party has made its own contributions to socialist theory whilst combating distortions of Marx’s ideas. In the light of all the above, the three main Marxist theories can be restated as:
The political theory of class struggle
The materialist theory of history
The labour theory of valueThese are tools of analysis, which have been further developed and modified by socialists, to explain how the working class are exploited under capitalism.
Marxism is not only a method for criticising capitalism: it also points to the alternative. Marxism explains the importance to the working class of common ownership, democratic control and production solely for use and the means for establishing it. And while it is desirable that socialist activists should acquaint themselves with the basics of Marxism, it is essential that a majority of workers have a working knowledge of how capitalism operates and what the change to socialism will mean.
