Search Results for 'democratic social productionism'

[LBird]

marcos wrote: “L Bird, you have not answered my question on item #194693.”

Only because I don’t know anything about any issue regarding Engels, Marx, and his The Civil War in France.

marcos wrote: “I have known for a long time that dialectic of nature is not correct, it is only possible in the realm of the mind.”

It’s better to say that any ‘dialectic in nature’ must feature an account of social production, which necessarily involves a practice directed by an active human consciousness.

marcos wrote: “Have we created the unity of Marx-Engels?”

Well, all ‘materialists’ have, because the only way that their ideology can stand up is by: 1) quotes from Engels (there is nothing in Marx, who was critical of ‘materialism’); and 2) linking Engels to Marx, as a unified being, so that Marx’s authority can be invoked. So, as for Lenin, we have ‘Marx-Engels’.

marcos wrote: “We have raised critique to both and also Marx contradicts himself on different occasion too.”

Yes, both must be criticised, and Marx requires a critical update for the 21st century, by workers who begin from ‘Democratic Social Production’. We have to correct, clarify and update Marx’s works.

marcos wrote: “Without Engels volume 2 and 3 of capital would not have been able to be published…”

It’s quite possible to argue that it’s a pity that Engels did publish Marx’s unfinished texts, which completely ignored the work Marx had done after 1867 and his first volume, on Russia and its development and potential future. Marx supported the Narodniks, not the supposed ‘Marxists’, in their political debates of the 1870s and 80s, and seemed to think it was at least theoretically possible for Russia to skip ‘capitalism’ and proceed straight to ‘socialism’. If Marx had been able to publish his own later work, it’s very probable that it would have looked nothing like Capital 2 and 3, as we have them today.

marcos wrote: “…and without Engels  financial support Marx  would not have been to able to finish all his works”

No, you’re right, Fred was a sound, life-long mate of Charlie. And supporter of his kids, too.

But decency doesn’t necessarily mean he had a clue about Marx’s philosophy of ‘social productionism’ and its democratic imperative. In fact, it’s soon obvious to anyone who reads Engels works, from his 1859 review of Marx, that they were talking about different things.

Unfortunately, it’s Engels’ version of ‘Marx’ that most people are taught. We have to change that, marcos.

[LBird]

I’ve just come across a debate which mirrors the debate that we’ve been having here, between ‘a mind-independent reality’ (materialism) and ‘reality-for-us’ (Marx’s social productionism, or ‘idealism-materialism’).

It’s in the context of a ‘Green/Red’ debate.

https://climateandcapitalism.com/2016/06/23/two-views-on-marxist-ecology-and-jason-w-moore/

Jason Moore (and Fred Murphy, perhaps?) seem to share the ‘constructivist’ ideology of Marx, whereas John Bellamy Foster and Ian Angus seem to share the ‘materialist’ ideology, which is common on this site.

I’m pleased to have found this debate which reflects ours, because I think it is central for the future of both ‘Marx’ and democratic socialism.

[LBird]

John Oswald wrote: “You can all keep your stinking Marxist human supremacism! And your non-materialist idealist anti-scientific drivel!”

Yeah, this is always the materialists’ response to reasoned argument, historical knowledge and philosophical expertise in workers. The replacement of political argument with personal abuse is the standard reply, and the archetypal example of this was the materialist Lenin, in texts like his Materialism and Empiriocriticism. There is never any attempt to analyse the opponent’s argument or outline the materialist’s own, but simply a resort to name-calling. This was how Lenin responded to Bogdanov’s arguments, which were far closer to Marx’s, than Lenin’s were.

The epithet ‘Idealist!’ plays the same role as does ‘Satanist!’ in a church’s reply to atheistic criticism. And materialists wouldn’t know ‘anti-scientific drivel’, because they refuse to give an account of ‘science’ to measure ‘drivel’ against, because any socio-historical account of ‘science’ shows that it’s nothing to do with materialism, has its modern origins in the bourgeois defeat of revolutionary, democratic science, and that ‘science’ changes constantly. Only Marx’s social productionism can deal with these issues about ‘science’, and attempt an answer to the question posed in the thread title.

Physics and mathematics are social products, and change, and any democratic socialism will have to explain how these, and all academic disciplines, can be democratised, so that we, the associated producers, can control these changes. Otherwise, ‘reality’ will be in the hands of an elite.

[LBird]

John Oswald wrote: “I am a Marxist only in the political sense.”

Unfortunately, you’re not even that, John.

Politics is about power, and Marx argued for democratic power.

I think that quite probably you’ve either read Engels or heard Engels’ views from other materialists, and had them labelled ‘Marxism’.

Whatever your ideology is, and to me it seems to be a pretty standard bourgeois materialism/physicalism/realism, it’s nothing whatsoever to do with Marx’s social productionism, the belief that humanity socially produces its world, a ‘universe-for-us’, a ‘nature-for-us’, and that that production should be democratic.

[LBird]

John Oswald wrote: “Matter is not created, and mind is a property of matter. Matter has no beginning and no end. Mind, as one of the properties of matter, is subject to the same physical laws of motion, cause and effect.”

Thanks, John, for a standard restatement of stage 2 ‘Materialism’.

Those workers who are interested in building a democratic socialism (and who will already thus be aware of the need for both ‘active humanity’ and that ‘humanity’ being defined as the ‘mass’, not an ‘elite’), and wanting to know more about Marx’s stage 3 ‘social productionism’, should note that John doesn’t mention humanity, democracy nor social production (all key elements in Marx’s philosophy), but argues that our active consciousness is merely a ‘property of matter’, and ‘subject to the same physical laws’. Thus, the ‘active side’, for John, as for all stage 2 materialists, is ‘matter’.

This is, of course, all bog-standard 18th century ‘materialism’, which Marx rejected. For Marx, the creator of both ‘physical laws’ and ‘matter’ is humanity (as also Pannekoek agreed). Thus we can change ‘it’. For John, ‘matter’ plays the role of an eternal, universal, god – his quote even has religious overtones “Matter has no beginning and no end“, which equates it to The Absolute.

Marx is a ‘productionist’, not a ‘physicalist’, John.

[LBird]

The real issue here is a philosophical one.

By ‘objective’, what is meant?

Either ‘object-in-itself’ or ‘object-for-subject’.

If one (like the vast majority of contemporary physicists) wants there to be ‘something-out-there’, a ‘something’ which we didn’t create, then one will choose ‘object-in-itself”. Of course, for this choice, is the downside of then having to come up with a ‘creator’, which is not humanity. This choice always leads to ‘god’.

If one follows Marx, though, one wants us to be able to change our world, and so must choose (as did Marx) the ‘object-for-subject’. We create our own objects, as an ‘object-for-us’. The plus of this choice, of course, is the end of religion, because we are the creators of our universe.

Those who’ve read their philosophy will see the role of German Idealism in producing this way of thinking – Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc., ending in Marx’s unifying of the two opposed strands of philosophy in his ‘Idealism-Materialism’, his ‘social productionism’.

Thus, there is an ‘objective world’ (don’t listen to the ‘individual-biological subjectivists’, who adhere to an ideology of bourgeois physics), and this ‘objective world’ is our creation, produced by our social activity, our theory and practice.

Since it is our product, our objects can be democratically produced. ‘The World’ or ‘The Universe’ is a bourgeois construct, which the ruling class claim we can’t change. But ‘Our World’ or ‘Our Universe’ is our product and we can, as Marx claimed, change it.

[edit] The concept of ‘object-in-itself’ implies human passivity, whereas ‘object-for-subject’ implies human activity.

Since the truth, as any worker knows, is human activity, social production, those who argue for ‘object-in-itself’ are lying to workers, and plan for the elite themselves to be the ‘active side’, the ‘specialists’ (as Marx pointed out in his Theses on Feuerbach), who will then go on to create a world to their liking, based upon their elite interests and purposes. ‘Object-in-itself’ is an inherently undemocratic concept.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by LBird.

[LBird]

Marquito wrote: “You spend most of the time hiding in your ideological cave…”

At least I’m completely open about my ‘ideological cave’, Marquito, and its origins and consequences.

You, however, like all ‘materialists’, seem not to be able to explain nor even understand your own ‘ideological cave’.

The origins of my ideology are ‘democracy’ and Marx’s ‘social productionism’. So, I can argue for a politics which starts from human production of their world by democratic means, a world we have the power to change. Self-emancipation of the working class and change.

The origins of your ideology are ‘bourgeois elite science’ and Engels’ 18th century ‘materialism’. This is a politics which necessarily involves a supposedly ‘pre-existing reality’ and ‘elite knowledge’. Thus, any social emancipation is brought from outside of workers themselves, by a ‘knowing minority’, who claim that only they, the elite, have the power to change this ‘unchanging matter’.

Marquito wrote: “…you want to bring your old arguments in order to distort or deviate the real topic , by the meantime,  the whole world is falling apart and  you do not say anything about it.”

I’d suggest the ‘real topic’ is the politics of our attempt to build ‘socialism’, and why those arguing for ‘materialism’ have always failed, and always will fail, to convince the working class. Given that, any solution to our ‘world falling apart’ won’t be a ‘democratic socialist’ solution, but an elite one, which will clearly benefit the interests, aims and purposes of that elite.

If I had to have a guess, I’d name this supposed solution as ‘Green Science’. But it’s nothing to do with Democratic Communism, Marx, or the proletariat. And it’ll be compatible with some form of elite control of social production, whether called ‘capitalism’ or not.

[LBird]

Brian wrote: “…he’s concluded the specialists by definition constitute an elite.”

Well, in political terms, Brian, ‘an elite’ is precisely what ‘specialists’ are.

Unless you are prepared to state that the decisions of the ‘specialists’ will be subject to the democratic control of ‘generalists’ – that is, that ‘generalists’ as a political force know better about any ‘specialism’ than do the ‘specialists’. This means that the assumptions, aims, theories, methods and practices of the ‘specialists’ will be dictated by the ‘generalists’.

If you disagree with this democratic belief in the power of the ‘generalists’, all well and good – but then announce that clearly, that there will be an elite within your version of ‘socialism’ that will be outside of our democratic control.

It’s odd that the SPGB has come out in force to defend, not ‘democracy’, not ‘socialism’, not ‘producers’, but… ‘Science’, and its elite.

I suspect that it’s the ‘Science’ in the non-Marxist term ‘Scientific Socialism’ that attracts the sort of thinkers who join the SPGB. If there’s a clash between ‘socialism’ and ‘science’, it’s the ‘science’ that takes precedence.

It’s clear from any attempt to argue for Marx’s ‘democratic socialism’ (because in any contest between a supposedly ahistoric, asocial ‘science’ and ‘democracy’, Marx’s ideas favour the ‘democracy’) that it is always met by Engelsist ‘materialists’ who regard this ‘social productionism’ as ‘post-modernism’.

The SPGB is defending elite bourgeois science, not democratic socialism.

This should give the membership pause for thought… that you’re not defending ‘democracy’… but it seems that your ideology is preventing you from seeing the political problems that you cannot answer, never mind solve.

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

Marcos wrote:

L Bird, it looks that you have been sharpening your knife lately. The last two answers that you have posted in this thread are totally correct.Everything in regard to Socialism and Marx is social or based on the concept of social production, even more, socialism is not going to be an economic system, it is going to be a social production.

[my bold/italics]I know Marx better than you, Marcos.Even 'nature' and 'matter' are social products.Only 18th century 'materialists', who follow Engels' misunderstanding of Marx's 'social productionism', claim that 'nature' and 'matter' are not related to social production, and so are not 'in regard to Socialism and Marx'.Marx warned where 'materialism' would lead (in his Theses on Feuerbach), to a two-fold division in society, where a minority would claim to have a special access to 'reality' (or, 'matter' or 'nature'), and so Democratic Socialism would not apply to 'everything'.So, I'm consistently 'Marxist' and my views are 'based on the concept of social production', whereas you deny that 'matter' has anything to do with Socialism, Marx or social production. You're politically inconsistent, Marcos.

Marcos wrote:

Our pamphlet titled: Alternative to capitalism, written by Adam Buick covers all the questions raised on this thread

Except the issue of the social production of 'matter'. The SPGB wishes to keep the social production of science in the hands of an elite, and will not allow the producers to vote upon their own concepts (which would allow them to change their own scientific concepts, in their own interests, for their own purposes).It's the 'materialists' whose 'knife' is blunt, Marcos. They can never answer these political questions about power within social production.

i know that L bird I started to study Marx yesterday  

[LBird]

Marcos wrote:

L Bird, it looks that you have been sharpening your knife lately. The last two answers that you have posted in this thread are totally correct.Everything in regard to Socialism and Marx is social or based on the concept of social production, even more, socialism is not going to be an economic system, it is going to be a social production.

[my bold/italics]I know Marx better than you, Marcos.Even 'nature' and 'matter' are social products.Only 18th century 'materialists', who follow Engels' misunderstanding of Marx's 'social productionism', claim that 'nature' and 'matter' are not related to social production, and so are not 'in regard to Socialism and Marx'.Marx warned where 'materialism' would lead (in his Theses on Feuerbach), to a two-fold division in society, where a minority would claim to have a special access to 'reality' (or, 'matter' or 'nature'), and so Democratic Socialism would not apply to 'everything'.So, I'm consistently 'Marxist' and my views are 'based on the concept of social production', whereas you deny that 'matter' has anything to do with Socialism, Marx or social production. You're politically inconsistent, Marcos.

Marcos wrote:

Our pamphlet titled: Alternative to capitalism, written by Adam Buick covers all the questions raised on this thread

Except the issue of the social production of 'matter'. The SPGB wishes to keep the social production of science in the hands of an elite, and will not allow the producers to vote upon their own concepts (which would allow them to change their own scientific concepts, in their own interests, for their own purposes).It's the 'materialists' whose 'knife' is blunt, Marcos. They can never answer these political questions about power within social production.

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

Marcos wrote:

…  we also published  a thread proving that the SPGB was not a Leninist party like he is claiming all the time…

So, if the SPGB is not 'Leninist' in its ideology (even I'll grant that the SPGB's is not a 'democratic centralist' organisation, like the SWP, of which I have personal political experience), why does it publish documents and threads that claim to support 'democracy', but it doesn't support democratic social production (including ideas, of course)?When I ask you, or robbo, or anyone else, to answer the question 'Do you support the democratic production of social truth?', you answer 'No'.When I dig further, to find out why you always give this anti-democratic answer, I find that, like Lenin, you follow Engels (not Marx) and his 'Materialism' (not Marx's 'social productionism'), and have Faith In Matter (like Engels and Lenin), rather than Faith In Humans (like Marx).There are dozens of thinkers that understand the difference between Marx and Engels, not just Lukacs and Gramsci, but also Labriola, Brzozowski, Bogdanov, Pannekoek, Hook, Dunayevskaya, Kolakowski, Avineri, Carver… and others, too many to list.Unless the SPGB starts to question its kneejerk anti-democratism, and finds some answers to these political questions (which have been getting asked since before the SPGB was founded), then it will not prosper (or, only amongst 'materialists', rather than amongst Democratic Communist workers, its intended class audience).Terrell Carver places the origin of the problem in 1859, in Engels' review of Marx's Preface and Introduction. That would be a good place, for anyone interested, to start – 45 years prior to the founding of the SPGB.

Some of those individuals that you are citing they were Leninists. Dunayeskaya was never able to break away from Leninism and Trotskyism, and she considered that  Engels was a post Marxist, She never broke away with the concept  of Leadership,  but she rejected the vanguard party to lead, and she created a cult of herself.According to her analysis socialism existed in the Soviet Union until 1930 before the so called coup of Stalin, and the SPGN since 1917 said that socialism was never established in one countryEngels never created a cult of himself, he always considered himself as a student of Marxism. On that thread that was mentioned we disclosed all the main components of Leninism and none  of them were  applicable  to the SPGB,  and despite that L Bird continues playing the same lyrics.Now he is citing Dunayeskaya when in prior occassions he has rejected her thoughts when we had also indiicated that she belieives in the unification of idealism and materialism like him

[LBird]

Marcos wrote:

…  we also published  a thread proving that the SPGB was not a Leninist party like he is claiming all the time…

So, if the SPGB is not 'Leninist' in its ideology (even I'll grant that the SPGB's is not a 'democratic centralist' organisation, like the SWP, of which I have personal political experience), why does it publish documents and threads that claim to support 'democracy', but it doesn't support democratic social production (including ideas, of course)?When I ask you, or robbo, or anyone else, to answer the question 'Do you support the democratic production of social truth?', you answer 'No'.When I dig further, to find out why you always give this anti-democratic answer, I find that, like Lenin, you follow Engels (not Marx) and his 'Materialism' (not Marx's 'social productionism'), and have Faith In Matter (like Engels and Lenin), rather than Faith In Humans (like Marx).There are dozens of thinkers that understand the difference between Marx and Engels, not just Lukacs and Gramsci, but also Labriola, Brzozowski, Bogdanov, Pannekoek, Hook, Dunayevskaya, Kolakowski, Avineri, Carver… and others, too many to list.Unless the SPGB starts to question its kneejerk anti-democratism, and finds some answers to these political questions (which have been getting asked since before the SPGB was founded), then it will not prosper (or, only amongst 'materialists', rather than amongst Democratic Communist workers, its intended class audience).Terrell Carver places the origin of the problem in 1859, in Engels' review of Marx's Preface and Introduction. That would be a good place, for anyone interested, to start – 45 years prior to the founding of the SPGB.

[twc]

LBird advocates “democratic communism” in whichSocial Truth is determined by universal democracy.Social groups cannot hold elite ideas.Social discourse outlaws mathematics because it is elitist.Social Truth, once agreed, is enforced universally.Social production roles are allotted by universal democracy.Social consumption goods are allocated by universal democracy.These social rules follow from an epistemological theory called “idealism–materialism”.Idealism–materialism implies that ideas precede actions.  The terms don’t commute, so that idealism–materialism leads to socialism, but materialism–idealism prevents socialism.LBird believes Marx used the word “material” as a synonym for the word “production”, which begs the question of why he called “Book 1. The Process of Production of Capital” instead of “The Process of Materialisation of Capital” and Parts 3, 4 and 5, the “Production of Surplus Value”, rather than the “Materialisation of Surplus Value”.  [Probably, because as LBird claims, Marx couldn’t write, or write clearly, was generally confused, and the opening three chapters of Capital are incomprehensible.]To proceed…  Idealism–materialism implies idealism–productionism, which implies that ideas produce the world.  This is the pure Idealist half of his idealism–materialism.LBird then relies on a standard materialist assertion that the ideas of the working class are correct because the working class comprises the producers (or materialisers).  This is the pure Materialist half of his idealism–materialism, although he’ll never admit this because, for him, materialism is an elitist philosophy.Now, the masterstroke…  To overcome the elitism he believes is inherent in materialism, LBird needs a universal thought police.  It becomes everyone’s duty under “democratic communism” to enforce the Truth of every social idea that determines social production (= social materializations).All science, all art, all social intercourse (bedroom not exempted ) will be voted on for its social Truth, indexed against subversion, and socially enforced by everyone.Sympo, LBird asks you to judge.  Is his idealism–materialism and “democratic communism” the blueprint of a new Marx, or the terrifying delirium of a self-absorbed dogmatic crank?LBird has submitted over ten-thousand posts on this same theme, day-in day-out, for over four years.  He’s got a better run here than he might expect elsewhere, partly because the Party is democratic in decision making — except that it falls well short of LBird’s insistence that it take a democratic vote on whether Pluto is a planet — and the Party is averse to shutting down discussion.But it has to temper its aversion to shutting down discussion to defend itself from LBird’s unstoppable shutting down threads by perpetually hijacking them down his hobby-horse cul-de-sac of voting on everything, or face being “outed” as a closet fascist.To me, LBird is a dangerous crank, who has long outstayed his welcome.  Let LBird go elsewhere, perhaps by crowd funding, to independently promote his idealist–materialist “democratic communism”, which has failed to take root here.From my point of view, a society that can only survive by policing thought is not worth fighting for.

[Bijou Drains]

LBird wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Pluto was a planet, then it was not, then it was once more. A vote decided that. And that is my only comment on the Sun.

That's what's at issue here, alan.Who has the power to decide?The materialists – twc, robbo, Vin, Tim, YMS, etc. – claim that Pluto itself tells them that it is a 'planet'. They claim that this is an 'objective fact'. They deny that humans created 'the planet Pluto', and can change it. They deny that 'the planet Pluto' has a history, dependent upon social factors.You've shown, by your example, that they are wrong.In fact, humans have the power to change 'the planet Pluto', and Democratic Communists argue that this power should be under democratic controls. The materialists are happy for an unelected elite to have this power.This is the core of Marx's 'democratic social productionism'.You have to choose a side, alan. The undemocratic, elitist materialists, or the democratic social productionists. That's politics, I'm afraid. If you don't choose, you'll get caught out, when they move on from questions of 'planet status' to questions of 'our status'. They'll support an elite of 'Specialists' (ie. unelected academics), and deny power to the majority of 'Generalists' (ie. workers).This is the political warning that Marx gave, in his Theses on Feuerbach.

It's nice to see that Goofy has some Mickey Mouse ideas about Pluto, I won't mention Uranus people might be having their tea.No Doubt L Bird you are going to say that we are all materialist Leninists because we think that ideas are nothing more than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Pluto was a planet, then it was not, then it was once more. A vote decided that. And that is my only comment on the Sun.

That's what's at issue here, alan.Who has the power to decide?The materialists – twc, robbo, Vin, Tim, YMS, etc. – claim that Pluto itself tells them that it is a 'planet'. They claim that this is an 'objective fact'. They deny that humans created 'the planet Pluto', and can change it. They deny that 'the planet Pluto' has a history, dependent upon social factors.You've shown, by your example, that they are wrong.In fact, humans have the power to change 'the planet Pluto', and Democratic Communists argue that this power should be under democratic controls. The materialists are happy for an unelected elite to have this power.This is the core of Marx's 'democratic social productionism'.You have to choose a side, alan. The undemocratic, elitist materialists, or the democratic social productionists. That's politics, I'm afraid. If you don't choose, you'll get caught out, when they move on from questions of 'planet status' to questions of 'our status'. They'll support an elite of 'Specialists' (ie. unelected academics), and deny power to the majority of 'Generalists' (ie. workers).This is the political warning that Marx gave, in his Theses on Feuerbach.