The Need for “Intellectuals” in Politics

[jondwhite]

Here's Jack Fitzgerald on "The Need for "Intellectuals" in Politics." For those unaware, Jack Fitzgerland was a notable founding member of the party.

http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-need-for-intellectuals-1906.html

No mention of scientists though.

[jondwhite]

I recommend listening to this podcasthttp://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/marx/7899994also just found this from 2007http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/karl-marx/3386178Lbird will find these interesting including the SS article from 1906.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

Here's Jack Fitzgerald on "The Need for "Intellectuals" in Politics." For those unaware, Jack Fitzgerland was a notable founding member of the party.http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-need-for-intellectuals-1906.htmlNo mention of scientists though.

Jack Fitzgerald wrote:

For if the workers are, in addition to producing all the wealth, to instruct their masters in all the details of administration, then it at once follows that they may just as well do the whole business for their own benefit. Why trouble to elect "experts," either financial or economic, if these geniuses have to be shown what to do by those whose superiors they are supposed to be? Forty years ago Karl Marx completely exploded the "Captains of Industry" nonsense in his masterly way; and Engels and Lafargue, among others, have pointed out the facts around us, illustrating the intellectual bankruptcy of the ruling class.

[my bold]Thanks for that link, jdw.Put simply, 'administration' includes the social activity of 'science', too.The ruling class are also 'intellectually bankrupt' when it comes to physics, logic and maths, too, which is why they're having so many problems within all the 'sciences' (not just the so-called 'soft social opinion' sort, but also the so-called 'hard objective fact' sort, too).We will be the 'masters' in all areas of social production, and the likes of Hawking will be the ones taking 'instruction' about how we will create our socio-natural world. Only we can determine our reality, 'for our own benefit', by democratic means.This idea that the bourgeois scientists have an access to a 'reality' that we don't have, because they have a politically-neutral elite method, and a special elite language of maths, is a 350-year-old bourgeois myth, and it's a powerful ruling class idea that the revolutionary proletariat must challenge.Any social revolution will be accompanied by a science revolution, too.

[Young Master Smeet]

Just to point out: most scientists these days are proletarians…just saying, like.  The working class runs society from top to bottom, but not in its own interest.  The technical experts these days, the intellectuals, are workers.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Just to point out: most scientists these days are proletarians…just saying, like.  The working class runs society from top to bottom, but not in its own interest.  The technical experts these days, the intellectuals, are workers.

So, why do you oppose the democratic control of truth production?Either, 'most scientists-proletarians', under socialism, will collectively decide the nature of their 'scientific products'……or, beside this 'most' of yours, you also argue for an 'elite' of 'non-proletarian scientists', who themselves alone will determine 'truth'.For you, 'truth' must be based upon an 'interest' that is not 'proletarian' – otherwise, you would agree that only the revolutionary proletariat can determine its own 'interests' within science, physics, maths, logic, etc.The denial of democracy within science is the promotion of a special elite, with a 'special access'… it's the Leninist 'special cadre consciousness', once again.

[jondwhite]

What about Stedman-Jones?

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

What about Stedman-Jones?

Is that the pen-name of 'god'?

[jondwhite]

LBird wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

What about Stedman-Jones?

Is that the pen-name of 'god'?

I don't know. Either that or he's a prole professor at the Uni of London.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

LBird wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

What about Stedman-Jones?

Is that the pen-name of 'god'?

I don't know. Either that or he's a prole professor at the Uni of London.

Why should one person be of such interest to you, rather than 'expert academics' as a social group who claim to have a 'politically-neutral access' to 'facts', an 'access' that the rest of us supposedly don't have?Perhaps you see all 'professors' as 'gods'? Or is Stedman-Jones a particular favourite of yours?I'm not sure where you want this thread to go – I was keen to support and deepen the SPGB's insights from 1906.They seem to have withered and shallowed since, given the members' arguments on this site.

[Anonymous]

Workers 'have to work' for their wage or salary…these 'expert academics' are members of the working class how does their specialisation devalue their collective contributions?Implementation of their findings would receive due consideration and on occasion be voted upon.Other stuff will be argued about in the pubs anyway. I recently saw a couple of drunken dicks falling out over quantum theory.You are the one who is turning them into 'gods'.

[jondwhite]

LBird wrote:

Perhaps you see all 'professors' as 'gods'? Or is Stedman-Jones a particular favourite of yours?I'm not sure where you want this thread to go – I was keen to support and deepen the SPGB's insights from 1906.They seem to have withered and shallowed since, given the members' arguments on this site.

I'm not sure either, but I thought Stedman-Jones was agreeing with you.

[LBird]

Matt wrote:

Workers 'have to work' for their wage or salary…You are the one who is turning them into 'gods'.

Yeah, that's right.I regard the producing class as the god-like creators of their reality.That just about sums up Marx, too.The fact that you apparently don't do this, just as, it must be said, the rest of the SPGB here don't, either, says an awful lot about the SPGB's current politics.Which, unlike 1906, perhaps, is why my Democratic Communist and Marxist views seem so out of kilter in these debates in 2016 with the SPGB.Your 'god', Matt, is an elite expert academic god, which creates a 'reality' which has nothing to do with the interests and purposes of the vast majority of humans, but which is claimed to be merely sitting 'out there' waiting to be 'discovered' by a special consciousness. How you can't all see the obvious conservativeness of such an attitude of 'uncovering the existing status quo', beats me. They've built our world, and lie about that.My 'god' is the revolutionary proletariat – and we have to change our world.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

LBird wrote:

Perhaps you see all 'professors' as 'gods'? Or is Stedman-Jones a particular favourite of yours?I'm not sure where you want this thread to go – I was keen to support and deepen the SPGB's insights from 1906.They seem to have withered and shallowed since, given the members' arguments on this site.

I'm not sure either, but I thought Stedman-Jones was agreeing with you.

Not from what I've read by him.

[Anonymous]

… it is getting dafter each post. You appear to regard scientists as an elite when they are actually proles. There won't be any elites, scientists, miners, engineers, electricians, dieticians. But we will surely give some weight to their specialisms.

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

LBird wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

What about Stedman-Jones?

Is that the pen-name of 'god'?

I don't know. Either that or he's a prole professor at the Uni of London.

Why should one person be of such interest to you, rather than 'expert academics' as a social group who claim to have a 'politically-neutral access' to 'facts', an 'access' that the rest of us supposedly don't have?Perhaps you see all 'professors' as 'gods'? Or is Stedman-Jones a particular favourite of yours?

I suspect the latter but on the other hand JDW does also appear to have a bit of a fixation with you.  Seems you've impressed someone…

[Author]

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