Would the police force exist in a Socialist world?
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SocialistPunk wrote:Hud955 wrote:Hud955 wrote:Picking casual quotes from the Daily Mail, (of all places), or isolated pieces of research demonstrates nothingSocialistPunk wrote:I chose that piece deliberately because it was in the Daily Mail. The research it refers to can be found in many locations on the internet.
Now this slick piece of willful distortion.
Hud955 wrote:If SP wants to base his understanding of the world on an article in the Daily Mail, then so be it. I shan't challenge that any further.Hud955 wrote:No, I have no qualifications in social anthropology, but I do have qualifications in philosophy of science and mathematics and so I do have a notion or two about the logic of scientific reasoning and can tell a rational argument from a fabricated one.For a person who claims a knowledge of scientific reasoning, Hud is very fond of distortion. But I guess the world of science is littered with one-upmanship at all costs. Quite sad coming from a socialist.
LOL Not distortion SP, blindness, possibly. I hadn't absorbed that remark. But it wouldn't have changed my mind In any case. In your enthusiasm to expose me as a distorter, however, you somehow neglected to respond to the main part of my post which was this: " I'm suggesting though that before he draws knee jerk conclusions from such second-hand and uncontextualised information, which provides no independent reason to accept it, he would do well to read some comparative studies that give a more rounded understanding of hunter gatherers than he will find in individual articles found in odd places on the web." As Steve says you are a man of wide reading, you can appreciate that scientific research is frequently contradictory and not simple to interpret, and that drawing global conclusions from the results of individual research projects is rarely a sound procedure. You asked me if I would still make the same statements and I replied, yes I would, and the reason for that is I would rather trust a synoptic account of the evidence than a result of one piece of fieldwork, especially of this kind, which requires a fair bit of 'reverse engineering' – drawing conclusions about function from a study of form. But in any case. I don't think for one moment that the conclusions of such research in any way contradict the conclusions of most anthropologists about social attitudes among band hunter gatherers. As I already pointed out (though maybe you didn't notice that) of course we would expect people in hunter gatherer groups to have the same basic emotions as the rest of humanity. But values are not emotions and as twc has been quietly pointing out values have a historical and material foundation, and are not a simple and direct expression of some kind of innate emotional nature.
steve colborn wrote:Hud I think, nay I know, from the discourse so far, that it is you rather than SP who is trying to "intepret cultural 'values' for people whose social conditions are so different from ours". SP does not disavow that a materialist conception of history is very important but he recognises that it runs concurrently with a value system that human beings have. Whereas those who only relate to the materialist idiom, deny any input from the human value aspect, or at the most, relegate it to a very low importanceSteve.No sir, this is a vile slander. I am not trying to interpret cultural values at all. I don't have the expertise to do that. All I can do is report what anthropologists collectively say. I'll leave the in-depth analysis to others. But on this point, you have consistently traduced those who have promoted the materialist conception of history on this thread as 'mechanistic' and have failed to acknowledge that the materialist conception of history does not 'run concurrently with the value system (I would say systems) that human beings have', as you claim, but includes them. Nobody here, I think, would deny that human beings have values or that the materialist conception of history ignores them. But the importance they are given will depend on the perspective from which you apply the MCH. If we are trying to explain the actions of the working class within capitalism, and showing that those actions are tending towards socialism, then their individual values do not have any historical dynamic and are of relatively little account. (Unless, of course, you really are a dyed in the wool idealist and you believe that the universe is inevitably progressing towards an embodiment of the idea of empathy – or some such twaddle.) If we are asking how we can make more individual socialists, then that's a different matter and the values of individuals will clearly have some bearing on the matter. What I don't believe is that it is necessary for individuals to hold specific values or motivations before socialism is possible, or that the values held at this time will necessarily be the values that will predominate once socialism is established, or even that the values a socialist society will develop will remain fixed from that point on. Another thing that band hunter gatherer societies can tell us is that though they have some fundamental features in common, they also differ in their value systems in many ways as well. In other words, we can make no 'mechanistic' assumption about the relationship of base to superstructure. An assumption which I take to be quite vulgar!So, there sir. Have at you…!
steve colborn wrote:Hud, no straw men applied by me, moreover, it is you, yourself, who disavow anyone's view that does not coincide with your own. No more dogmatic statements from here, than from the other side of the discussion, either. I do have relevant qualifications, a degree in Politics/Sociology. Whilst not in the fields of anthropology or paleo-anthropology, it is, nevertheless in the field of the "social sciences".Steve.My goodness, this is fun. You are a feisty soul, Steve! (Ooops! a bit of my Catholic upbringing erupting there). I take it by this that you mean that I disagree with you and SP. And indeed you are right. I do. (Well, I think I do, since I'm not entirely sure what your larger argument is beyond the immediate crossing of swords.) So, that's it, is it? You, me, all of us, we are all dogmatic! That's not a level of honesty you often find among SPGBers in the heat of debate. Does that mean the arguments I and others have been advancing are valueless? Does it mean all of our arguments are valueless? I'm confused. What does it mean?
Last first Hud. It does not mean your arguments, nor that of twc are valueless but pay myself and SP the same respect! I am not a feisty soul, never looked at me feet for ages, disability problems preclude this. Moreover, I, myself have no Catholic, nor religious heritage to have a base for comparison. Disavowed that claptrap when I was 9 yrs old.And no, it is'nt fun, when Socialists, me you, twc, SP have to indulge in this type of infantile discourse. Pointless pointscoring is about all it amounts to.And nay sir, prithee do not taint me with an accusation of "vile slander" upon thy good self! I have not slandered thee, nor anyone else. Nay, say simply, that I disagree with thine, oft stated position. Tis not mete to infer that, upon disagreement, people of good will, me and thee and various divers others, cannot see the merits, or otherwise, of the oft opined opinions of others. Thou hast stated thy position, most eloquently, I must say, as have I and moreover SP. That neither SP nor my good self canst claim ultimate truth nor veracity, to our claims, or counterclaims, doth not negate the fact that neither of us can claim, thee nor me, to have won the argument. Unless thou hast lived, thyself, or I have,within the society upon which this diversional argument is placed, then none of us can claim ultimate truth.Lest thou thinketh that I talk, for talking sake! prithee see the writins of Jacob Bronowski, or Dr Richard Leakey who, both as a callow youth of 12, I enjoyed, understood and who presaged my interest in this subject matter.As an aside, I will draw your attention to the prior post, re the 1991 conference resolution on "law" etc. it would be of intellectual and personal interest to ascertain your opinion of the same. Cheers be well Steve.
steve colborn wrote:I will draw your attention to the prior post, re the 1991 conference resolution on "law" etcThis and other Party Conference resolutions on the same subject can be found here:http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/WSM_Forum/message/51135
ALB wrote:Forgot to add that I've got A Level Ancient History.I failed in metalwork; so can't even make a decent sword…
ALB wrote:This of course is a discussion that has been going on in the Party for years, with the majority opinion swinging from one side to the other. In 2010 Conference passed the following resolution by 64 votes to 52:Quote:Socialism is both scientific and ethical.Six branches then called a Party Poll to rescind this resolution. The result of this vote was:
Quote:Results of the Party Poll on the following motion : "That the 2010 Conference resolution that 'Socialism is both scientific and ethical' be rescinded on the basis that 'the case for socialism is one of class interest not one of morality.' Are you in favour? Yes / No" No of votes cast : Yes – 81 No – 39 Abstain – 3 Spoilt – 2 Therefore the 2010 Conference resolution – Socialism is both scientific and ethical – is rescinded. There were 9 invalid returns.So, this is the current "Party position" though the discussion is still ongoing. Nothing wrong with that of course. In fact that's one of the purposes of this forum to give minorities the chance to become the majority.
Anyone else noticed that the two resolutions ask different questions. The second is a carefully worded piece of political manipulation. How likely would it be that the SPGB membership would vote against the case being one of class interests, in favour of morality? Whoever worded that one knew what they were doing.
SocialistPunk wrote:Quote:"That the 2010 Conference resolution that 'Socialism is both scientific and ethical' be rescinded on the basis that 'the case for socialism is one of class interest not one of morality.' Are you in favour? Yes / No"Anyone else noticed that the two resolutions ask different questions. The second is a carefully worded piece of political manipulation. How likely would it be that the SPGB membership would vote against the case being one of class interests, in favour of morality? Whoever worded that one knew what they were doing.
You shouldn't be so suspicious! The 2010 Conference resolution changed what up till then had been the Party's policy (which in fact is why a Party Poll was called on the matter, as one usually is when this happens). The wording of the Party Poll question aimed to restore the pre-2010 Conference position, as expressed in a Resolution carried by Conference in 1964, which stated:
Quote:That this Conference re-affirms that Socialism is a class issue, not a moral issue.That socialism is a class issue was not contested by either side. The issue at stake was whether or not it was, in addition to this, also an "ethical" or "moral" issue. As you can see, the membership split two-thirds/one third on the issue. But this hasn't stopped the one-third's position from continuing to be argued (as this thread shows). Maybe, when the matter comes up again, they will have convinced enough of the rest of the membership to become the majority. That's how democracy works..Incidentally, on your logic of trying to interpret double negations, you could argue that the SPGB membership voted that the case for socialism wasn't a scientific one! But this wasn't at issue either.
steve colborn wrote:As an aside, I will draw your attention to the prior post, re the 1991 conference resolution on "law" etc. it would be of intellectual and personal interest to ascertain your opinion of the same.(And thanks, Adam for the quotes)Hiya SteveInteresting point.I agree with the idea that we shouldn't refer to 'laws' in socialism since 'law' is indissolubly linked in our own society with the coercive powers of the state. For the same reason I think we should avoid terms like 'police' as well. Language of that sort can give the wrong impression, especially to people who are still struggling to disentangle their understanding of the socialist case from all the unquestioned assumptions of capitalist ideology. And since few of us can escape from our capitalist conditioning completely, using such terms ourselves is likely to confuse our thinking.I'm reluctant, personally, to speculate much about the institutional structures of socialism beyond the fundamentals and what we can reasonably infer from them – which I think is not much. I can't believe, for instance, that once socialism has been introduced and bedded down that its values or institutions will necessarily be the same all over the world or unchanging over time. If I'm right about that, then it becomes difficult to make definite statements at all – even speculative ones about how socialim will be. I'm thinking right off the top of my head here, but perhaps we would communicate more clearly if we focused more on what would not be the case in socialism. Maybe some fairly clear and definite statements of that kind might be possible, to get the idea across. I don't know. Any thoughts on that?The particular value of ethnographical studies of living hunter gatherer societies to archaeologists (I'm ruining my future talk on this now) is not that they (archaeologists) can infer anything definite about ancestral societies from them but that they can use them as a fruitful source of hypotheses which they can be tested. Maybe to socialists their main value is that they provide us with a few hypotheses about what the danger points for socialist society might be, and how they might be handled. (They might also prevent us making rash assertions about the relationship of base to superstructure in classless societies). I'm very impressed for instance, by the fact that in band hunter gatherers a general state of egalitarianism isn't a natural outgrowth of such societies, but has to be maintained, primarily through social approval and disapproval, and above all by the use of humour and leg pulling. The main disruptive forces in these societies tend to be young men's egos, sexual competitiveness and status seeking. I'm not sure I agree entirely with twc – if I understand him correctly – that hunter gatherer societies act entirely unconsciously, as there appears to be quite a lot of evidence that they are very aware of the kind of social and even productive activities that can disturb the equilibrium of their groups, and they have very subtle and elaborate ways of dealing with them.This is a very long-winded way of answering your question isn't it? I think that socialist society will rely very heavily on social approval and disapproval to maintain the status quo. When that fails, then it will have to take some kind of coercive action. If hunter gatherer societies provide us with any real warnings, then socialism will need to keep coercive activity to an absolute minimum, not for ideological reasons, which are secondary, but because it could pull classless society wide apart.
I have to congratulate you on a very good and thought provoking post. I will get back to you soon with my thoughts. I think you might have something when you say, "I'm thinking right off the top of my head here, but perhaps we would communicate more clearly if we focused more on what would not be the case in socialism. Maybe some fairly clear and definite statements of that kind might be possible, to get the idea across. I don't know. Any thoughts on that?"This may indeed be the way to proceed. Before I finish, your reference to social approval and disapproval, mirrors my own thoughts that I have had for all of my time around the Party. I can think of few worse punishments in a future society, than being socially ostracised.Steve.
ALB wrote:Forgot to add that I've got A Level Ancient History.Well, since we are all showing off here. I have a degree in History and English as well. It was pants! And we didn't study anything from the pleistocene epoch – except for one module on the Thatcher administration.
Hud955 wrote:I’m not sure I agree entirely with twc — if I understand him correctly — that hunter gatherer societies act entirely unconsciously, as there appears to be quite a lot of evidence that they are very aware of the kind of social and even productive activities that can disturb the equilibrium of their groups, and they have very subtle and elaborate ways of dealing with them.Oh yes, I’m sure you are right. The extraordinary account by escaped convict William Buckley, who lived for 33 years as an “aborigine” among the totally isolated unknown Southern aboriginal tribes before white settlement of Melbourne, contains countless instances, sprinkled with rather humorous examples of his residual European frustrations within his largely assimilated primitive “consciousness”, to the point that he is driven to hide the communal spears to prevent ritual retaliations. Oh yes.And primitive observational “science” functions, when stripped of its mysticism, as effectively [actually more effectively, because it was truly social] as our testable vulnerable base–superstructure science.“Kinship” OrganizationHowever, I was referring to the primitive social organization that universally takes the form of extended “kinship” groupings.I claim that primitive “kinship” social structures arise “unconsciously” out of common ownership of social resources. They arise because they are the appropriate way of organizing social reproduction based on common ownership of the means of primitive social reproduction.In other words, primitive sexual division of social labour, and primitive “kinship” division of resource control, constitute the adequate elaboration of social labour under common ownership of the means of primitive social reproduction.This form of social organization — unlike a future world socialism — arises “unconsciously” because no-one thought it into being. It arose spontaneously out of social necessity.People simply arranged their social affairs this way by doing. The thinking came afterwards in the form of mythology.The appropriate primitive consciousness for explaining why they did what they did [actually what nature impelled primitive society to do] is mythical rationalization.The universal constraint of social “kinship” systems upon primitive social organization admits many variations. Look at Lewis Henry Morgan’s voluminous patterns of social consanguinity — patriarchal, matriarchal, etc.My point is that people born into such necessarily-cooperative primitive societies inherit and inhabit a world animated by ancestral and animal totem spirits that sanction the social division of labour and the control of social resources. This circumscribed outlook on the social world is a given of their entire social existence. It is what makes their conscious world meaningful.This remarkable, despite its mysticism, primitive mental outlook is something that people born into our consciously crafted future world socialism will not inherit.Consciousness Came Too LateObjections may be urged against my reference to the "unconscious" nature of the consciousness necessary for establishing and maintaining the basic social relations that sustain social reproduction. As in all things human, consciousness is always crucially involved. [This topic needs a separate thread to thrash out, since it bears ever so deeply upon the materialist conception of history.]For the moment, it suffices that whatever may have been consciously elaborated in the distant past had already become socially established by the time we encounter primitive social organization in history.All historical encounters with primitive societies find any rational explanatory kernel of primitive “consciousness” irretrievably encrusted within a mystical explanatory shell — any non-mythical kernel was long since lost to an established time-immemorial myth that had become the “fact” of primitive existence.But, as the materialist conception of history points out, technological change [increasingly in the form of social contact with an advanced technological society] challenges the dominant social consciousness appropriate to primitive social organization, and ultimately undermines it — and so overthrows primitive society.There are first-hand accounts of this process of the dissolution of primitive social consciousness: e.g. the ancient playwrights, especially Aeschylus’s Oresteia; the ancient historians; the colonial chroniclers, explorers, settlers; the observant missionaries and early anthropologists…The mental conceptions [consciousness] adequate to holding primitive society together proved powerless before technological change. This simply proves that primitive consciousness was an attribute subservient to social organization, even though it appeared to function as governing that social organization.As Hegel put it, the rational kernel finally becomes evident in the demise of the system that nurtured it. Marx saw this historical phenomenon as the hallmark of an “unconscious” [primitive society] or “false conscious” [class society] social superstructure.I consider [perhaps naively] the sorts of social misdemeanours that loom large in the current discussion thread to be relatively minor in the scheme of things. Something not beyond the capabilities of a future consciously-organized world-socialist society, that actually does comprehend the nature of its social reproduction, to be able to solve “consciously” in the interests of the whole community.
Steve,Reference to irascible Dr Jacob Bronowski recalls his flamboyant educational skills.I haven’t watched his “personal view” Ascent of Man for years, but it’s hard to forget the Auschwitz scene nor that self-indulgent sipping of Napa Valley vintage in his Californian coastal mansion overlooking the Pacific as he pontificates upon the future of mankind.The man aggressively projected himself as thoroughly anti-Hegel and anti-Marx in the common mould of his time, partly in conformity with understandable anti-Leninist cold-war attitudes, but also encouraged by the then-dominant accretionist–falsificationist “philosophy of science” of Kantian/Schopenhauerian self-savior of social democracy: Karl Popper.I will never forget Bronowski’s contemptuous putdown of Hegel as Lear’s fool. Hegel and Marx are contemptible collateral damage to his forthright hatred of totalitarian regimes. If anyone wants to survey the background to Hegel and the planets, a brief explanation. Bode had said of a gap in a hypothetical mathematical progression of planetary orbits “can one believe that the Founder of the universe had left this space empty?” Hegel simply replied, in passing, that if instead of Bode’s progression you tried Plato’s progression from his Timaeus there is no empty gap to fill.[That Hegel’s mathematical modifications are arbitrary is entirely another matter. The student was yet to become the mature philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel.]I wonder what the Standard thought of Bronowski and his Ascent at the time?
Hi twcI can't disagree with what you say, except perhaps to add that in oral traditions mythologies are far from fixed and have been observed to develop from generation to generation. As we would expect therefore, mytholgies adapt relatively freely to changes in the social and natural environements of hunter-gatherer groups. I'd therefore guess (though I don't know) that the 'dead hand' of the past lies less heavily upon them than upon later class societies whose mythologies (ideologies) support power groups which fight to preserve them. The egalitarianism of band hunter gatherer groups appears to be very fragile, and can be broken by the smallest changes in productive of distributive methods. If immediate-return groups start to store food, for example, stratification within their society begins to develop. There is a current hypothesis among social anthropologists that some groups at least understand this and, wishing to preserve their current egalitarian arrangements, actively avoid the storage of food, even when it would be possible and more convenient to them. As there are no living hunter-gatherer groups of any 'kind' that are not now in contact with class societies (and in some case haven't been for centuries, even going back before colonial contact) many hunter gatherer groups have become very conscious of the specific nature of their own social arrangements and act to preserve them. Even those for whom hunting and gathering is now a secondary activity are successfully maintining a way of life that is increasingly out of synch with their material conditions. How long they will be able to maintain this is an interesting question. In some cases, as with some Australian Aboriginal groups, they are actively reinventing their traditions. Something that we are familiar with here in the west.
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