Antonio Labriola: A Strict Marxist?

[PJShannon]

Following is a discussion on the page titled: Antonio Labriola: A Strict Marxist?.
Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!

[Socialist Party Head Office]

Letter received from Comrade Peter Newell.Regarding the ideas and thoughts of Antonio Labriola, readers may be interested in a book, Socialism and Philosophy, a collection of letters and articles, to Georges Sorel among others, written by him between April, 1897, and Hune, 1899, and published in English by Charles H. Kerr & Company 110 years ago in 1906. The translation was by Ernest Untermann from the Italian, the author of Marxian Economics and translator of works by Marx and Engels.In the early days of the Socialist Party of Canada, and the SPGB, Labriola's views were held quite highly by members such as James and William Pritchard and copies of his Socialism and Philosophy were sold both by the SPC and SPGB (I bought my copy from the SPGB).In the May, 1915, issue of the Western Clarion, William Pritchard refers to Antonio Labriola's criticism of the "Great Man" theory of history, wherein Labriola claims that the establishment of socialism "cannot be the work of a mass led by a few" (see my The Impossiblists: A Brief Profile of the Socialist Party of Canada, p. 74 and pp. 146-147). Labriola's view was that of Marx and Engels, that the workers must emancipate themselves.

[LBird]

Peter Newell wrote:

…Antonio Labriola's criticism of the "Great Man" theory of history, wherein Labriola claims that the establishment of socialism "cannot be the work of a mass led by a few"… Labriola's view was that of Marx and Engels, that the workers must emancipate themselves.

Unfortunately for Peter, the SPGB do not share that view.The 'materialists' of the SPGB think that 'matter', as interpreted by an elite 'few', will emancipate the workers.The workers will be left to 'emancipate' a few factories and offices, whilst the elite 'materialists' do the workers' thinking for them.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Unfortunately for Peter, the SPGB do not share that view.The 'materialists' of the SPGB think that 'matter', as interpreted by an elite 'few', will emancipate the workers.The workers will be left to 'emancipate' a few factories and offices, whilst the elite 'materialists' do the workers' thinking for them.

I'm afraid not, the position of the SPGB is "That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself."  This includes an emphasis on the consciousknowledge needed for revolution.As an example, the Socialist Standard in 1918:

Quote:

Is this huge mass of people, numbering about 160,000,000 and spread over eight and a half millions of square miles, ready for Socialism? Are the hunters of the North, the struggling peasant proprietors of the South, the agricultural wage slaves of the Central Provinces, and the industrial wage slaves of the towns convinced of the necessity, and equipped with the knowledge requisite, for the establishment of the social ownership of the means of life?Unless a mental revolution such as the world has never seen before has taken place, or an economic change has occurred immensely more rapidly than history has recorded, the answer is “No!”

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1918/no-168-august-1918/revolution-russia-where-it-failsKnowledge and consciousness are a key part of the revolution.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Knowledge and consciousness are a key part of the revolution.

Except when it's 'knowledge and consciousness' about 'maths and physics', YMS.The SPGB reserves the right for itself to define for workers what 'knowledge and consciousness' actually covers.ALB, on the other thread, argues that it covers 'bricks and mortar', but not 'architecture and aesthetics'.'Materialism' lets workers run the factories, but not the academies.Marxists say that it should be put to a vote of workers, to decide for themselves what 'k & c' covers, but the Engelsists insist that 'matter' speaks for itself.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

The SPGB reserves the right for itself to define for workers what 'knowledge and consciousness' actually covers.

The Socialist Party has no such policy.  The working class must liberate themselves, and decide for themselves how their world will be organised, the SPGB makes no claim for how socialism will be run, save that it will be based on common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of producing and distributing wealth: that includes physical objects and intellectual wealth alike.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

The SPGB reserves the right for itself to define for workers what 'knowledge and consciousness' actually covers.

The Socialist Party has no such policy.  The working class must liberate themselves, and decide for themselves how their world will be organised, the SPGB makes no claim for how socialism will be run, save that it will be based on common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of producing and distributing wealth: that includes physical objects and intellectual wealth alike.

[my bold]Simple question, YMS: does 'intellectual wealth' include 'physics, maths and truth'?If it does, why not simply say so?If it doesn't, what the fuck is 'intellectual wealth'?

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Simple question, YMS: does 'intellectual wealth' include 'physics, maths and truth'?

Intellectual wealth contains the all intangible fixed assets.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

Simple question, YMS: does 'intellectual wealth' include 'physics, maths and truth'?

Intellectual wealth contains the all intangible fixed assets.

[my bold]I take it that 'fixed' is a synonym for 'material', and so, since you haven't answered a direct question, that you are arguing that the SPGB will not have workers' democratic control of the production of maths, physics and truth.Why not just say so, and define 'socialism' as 'not workers' control, but elite control'?Then any workers interested in the democratic development of our class can move on in their search for fellow Democratic Communists, and leave the SPGB to its 'materialist', Engelsist, concerns.We Democratic Communists are concerned with the active, conscious production of all 'assets', that do not even yet exist, and so can't be 'fixed', as we workers haven't actively produced them, yet.The 'materialists' are interested in the already existing 'fixed', like bricks and mortar, not the dynamic production of our future world, which requires our class' 'theory and practice'.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

I take it that 'fixed' is a synonym for 'material',

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/intangible-fixed-assets-24612.html

Quote:

Intangible assets include operational assets that lack physical substance, such as patents, copyrights, trademarks, franchises and goodwill. A company’s intangible assets are often not reported on a company's financial statements or will be reported at significantly less than their actual value. This is because assets are accounted for at their historical cost. Unlike tangible fixed assets such as a building or machinery, intangibles are often developed internally without any direct measurable cost that can be capitalized. When an intangible is purchased, however, or when costs can be directly traced to the development of the asset, the cost is recorded as an intangible asset on the balance sheet.

Never assume…

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

I take it that 'fixed' is a synonym for 'material',

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/intangible-fixed-assets-24612.html

Quote:

Intangible assets include operational assets that lack physical substance, such as patents, copyrights, trademarks, franchises and goodwill. A company’s intangible assets are often not reported on a company's financial statements or will be reported at significantly less than their actual value. This is because assets are accounted for at their historical cost. Unlike tangible fixed assets such as a building or machinery, intangibles are often developed internally without any direct measurable cost that can be capitalized. When an intangible is purchased, however, or when costs can be directly traced to the development of the asset, the cost is recorded as an intangible asset on the balance sheet.

Never assume…

I'm not 'assuming', YMS, I can see that you're not answering whether the SPGB thinks that physics, maths and truth is a social product, and thus should be democratically controlled by workers.This is not an 'assumption' that 'you're not answering': you're not answering.

[Young Master Smeet]

There will be common ownership (or, put another way, non-ownership) of all intellectual products of humanity.

[LBird]

Well, I've given you a fair crack of the whip to answer a simple question, YMS, so I'll leave it there, and let other workers reading come to their own conclusions, as to why you won't give a simple answer.

[Young Master Smeet]

OK, but lets try this another way.  There's a biscuit barrel owned in common, we all own the biscuits, but no one owns them, we can each take what we want from the biscuit barrel, and we can use the biscuits however we want, because they'e our biscuits to do with as we please.  Collectively, we take steps to ensure that the barrel will never be emptied, and no-one can deny anyone else access to the biscuits.  We take steps so that those who want biscuiits, but are unable to get them for themselves, can have biscuits.Now, intellectual goods would be freely available to all, and, since you insist, truth will be available to all, there will be a barrel of truth, and each can take from the barrel of truth, and do what they want with it. 

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

… truth will be available to all, there will be a barrel of truth, and each can take from the barrel of truth, and do what they want with it. 

As I've always said about your ideology, YMS, it's bourgeois liberalism, with the emphasis on 'individual choice of what exists', rather than the emphasis of Marx upon 'social production of what we democratically decide to produce', and your method is essentially US pragmatism.Thanks, anyway.

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