ALB
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It does seem odd, TM, to describe the landlord class created by the dissolution of the monasteries, etc and whose descendants you say are still great landowners as a “rural bourgeoisie”. Of course they weren’t feudal barons but bourgeois? You know more about the period than me but did they farm their land directly or did they lease it out to tenant farmers?
“Oh, must have missed that book on poststructural thought- the Earth doth Stand Still- and the Sun Moves ‘Round it!”
You could be right, LB (Neil), that no postmodernist has explicitly stated that at one time the Sun moved round the Earth — though it has been expressed by you can guess who on this forum. It seems to derive from what critics of postmodernism concluded from the view put forward by that intellectual fraud (as are most modern French philosophers except those who are piss-takers), Foucault, that “truth is a manufactured belief”.
This article uses as an example how this could be used to argue that in 0 AD it was true that “the sun revolves around the earth” .
This one cites the postmodernist Steve Woolgar:
“Woolgar (1989) argues that scientists construct objects through their representations of them. Objects, according to Woolgar, whether they are countries or electrons, are socially constructed entities, and do not exist aside from this social construction. ”
and goes on to ask:
“Anyone who really thinks that “beliefs create reality” should be eager to explain how the real motions of all planets in the solar system changed from earth-centered orbits in 1500 (when this was believed by almost everyone) to sun-centered orbits in 1700 (when this was believed by almost all scientists). Did the change in beliefs (from theories of 1500 to theories of 1700) cause a change in reality (with planets beginning to orbit the sun at some time – but exactly when did this occur – between 1500 and 1700) ?”
I don’t think any postmodernist has taken up this challenge, though our feathered friend did a few years ago but I can’t remember what date he came up with, though he did say that at some later date it would be put to a vote of the whole adult human population as well as having the impudence to claim that this was Marx’s view too.
Ok but what about Alexander II who decreed the end of serfdom in Russia then, a precondition for the development of capitalism there? And of course capitalism did develop in Russia from that point to the extent that in 1899 Lenin could write a book about it.
I don’t think anyone denies that capitalism had to begin to have developed before a group emerged that aimed at winning control of political power to remove obstacles to the further development of capitalism. In fact part of the development of capitalism was to bring into being such a group. That’s part of the materialist conception of history.
I know we speak of the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the Neolithic revolution, etc but this is to describe a complete change that took place over a longish period of time. The distinction you are drawing between “socio-economic revolution” and “political revolution ” is really a distinction between “socio-economic evolution” and “political revolution”.
”Revolution” in the political sense refers to a change in those who control political power and takes place fairly quickly in a relatively short period of time. Hence the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the French Revolution (as they were known at the time), the Russian Revolution and, posthumously, the English Revolution.
I think Wez has a point when he says that, to refer to the longish period of socio-economic evolution that precedes and culminates in a political revolution as the revolution, gives credence to those who think that socialism could come into being gradually without the need for a political revolution (conscious capture of political power by a socialist-minded working class). Obviously this isn’t your view but how would you refute a gradualist reformist who did think this?
“Not all post moderns see matter as immaterial- as I said, I can stub my toe on it: and it hurts.“
That’s interesting (and reassuring — at least you’ve got your feet in the ground !). So some actually do see “matter” as a human creation. Do you know which one of them came up with the idea that the Sun moved round the Earth when that was the common view?
Actually, Ozy, you should address him as “youse” since he likes to refer himself in the plural as “Marxists” when he means “I” when expressing his idiosyncratic personal views.
There is as a good article on this in the Socialist Standard of August 2011:
Ellen Meskins Wood gets more than a mention as does Robert Brenner.
Yes I suppose you can interpret Brexit as the UK being relegated from the Premier Division to the Championship and, if it doesn’t do to well there, to the Third Division North.
On the other hand, like that other state with a former empire, France, the UK has maintained powerful armed forces which allow it to punch above its economic weight. Though delusions of grandeur go with it. I imagine China sees the UK as an island off the European landmass a bit like Taiwan is to the Chinese mainland.
What you are forgetting, twc, is that, in the democratised post-modernist world that our feathered friend thinks Marx meant by socialism, those questions are to be put to a vote of the whole human population, along with others such as does heat burn and does the Earth go round the Sun. If the answer to any is no then that reverses or annuls them.
Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous?
Lucky there’s a statistician in the house. Here’s more:
There is an article in next month’s Socialist Standard on the populist radio station TalkRadio under the title Radio Ga-Ga.
Did you notice what he just said —that human activity meets “resistance” ? What from? Surely not from what some people might call “matter” ie the world independent of humans and their activity?
As to Bogdanov, there’s an interesting article here:
As to a criticism of Lenin’s version of materialism, this is not bad (it’s towards the end) even if I say so myself:
“We are social beings. We socially construct our mental/material world. We put that construct into practice. “
That’s what more or less what we’ve been trying to argue here. But this implies that there is something apart from them that human beings in society use to “construct”. The difference between us and our feathered friend is that he denies this. He argues that “our mental/material world” is entirely constructed by the human social mind out of nothing (and, therefore, that when it was the social consensus that the Sun moved round the Earth that was the case).
“Matter has no voice until our thinking gives it so… and yet… it still hurts when you stub your toe on it.“
Yes, but the second part is a step our feathered friend won’t take perhaps because stubbing his toe would undermine his argument that the outside world doesn’t exist until we create it.
Incidentally, you sound like a bit of a post-modernist since whoever else would talk of “ modernists” ( whoever they are!)?
