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LBird wrote:

So, we have the nonsense about 'idealism' and Kant.

Indeed, we do. For instance

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'Inorganic nature' is an unknowable 'in itself' ingredient for active human social theory and practice.

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No matter how many times I repeat that 'inorganic nature' is an 'ingredient into activity', your ideology tells you to ask 'But, what is it, when it's not an 'ingredient into activity?'.

This theory that "ultimate reality" is an unobservable and so unknowable Ding an sich is pure Kant, which opens the door to all sorts of idealist and theist views. You are one and it is dishonest as well as ignorant to try to saddle Marx and certainly Pannekoek with such a view.Why not admit it instead of spreading lies about us being crude mechanical materialists who think that the mind is merely a mirror reflecting what's out there?

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Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

 'humans create their world'?

 Pure idealism, LBirdMarx and SPGB,  'humans create their world from the material  conditions they find at hand'

Exactly, he claims to be an oxymoronic idealist-materialist but actually he's a modern-day Kant.

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No, just the Fourth Russo-Turkish War if we're lucky.

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The London election blog has now been reactivated:http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/greater-london-assembly-elections.htmlAlso, the candidates are different. They are not as announced above but Bill Martin. Kevin Parkin and Adam Buick.The election campaigns are being organised locally. If you want to help out at street stalls and/or in distributing leaflets door-to-door or at tube or mainline stations  contact the local branch (see page 8 of Socialist Standard here for details).London North East: North London branch.London South West: West London branch.Lambeth & Southwark: Head Office.

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In which case, Alan, you'll enjoy this similar shoot-out on the ICC forum lasy year:http://en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/link/13470/what-lbirdismWhich includes one saying

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That's me done with you.

and the other replying:

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best wishes and don't let the door hit you on way OUT )

Needless to say, the exchange continues for another 50 posts. Instructive as well as amusing. And the insults are a bit more refined on the ICC forum despite them being violent revolutionaries.

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And there's Samuel Johnson's famous refutation of Bishop Berkeley's idealist philosophy:http://www.samueljohnson.com/refutati.htmlBut this wasn't really a refutation as Berkeley argued that the mind in which stones existed was that of an unobservable super-mind called "God".  That's a more elegant solution than introducing some equally unobservable, mysterious "ingredient" about which nothing can be said or known (or asked).

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I think you are right that the reason Peter Joseph and his inner circle refuse to recognise that the world-wide moneyfree resource-based economy of abundance that TZM advocates is socialist or communist is fear of being tarred with the brush of what happened in state-capitalist Russia. It's a fear we can understand since we've had to put up with it for the whole period of the existence of the USSR and still do, but that hasn't made us abandon the word. Basically, Russia wasn't socialist and was not even on the road to it. The only constructive thing that came out of it was the theory of non-monetary, resource allocation associated with Kantorovich.Having followed the evolution of TZM from the start we have noticed a change towards recognising the class nature of present-day society. The other change, at least as far as TZMers like yourself are concerned, is a change towards recognising that a RBE/socialism has to be democratic. Originally, democracy as a form of organisation was dismissed as the mere counting of ignorant noses and some form of technocracy  (decision-making by technical experts) envisaged instead. This was in fact the main difference between our conception of socialism and TZM's and may still be to some extent but not, as I said, in your case, as you write

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technology could maintain direct democracy AND scientific assessment of resources/application of first pronciples.

The other difference was over how to get there. We have always favoured democratic political action, involving electoral action, by people who want and understand socialism. TZM has traditionally eschewed politics, even this type of politics. We too reject conventional politics which is based on professional politicians seeking votes on the basis of saying trust me and I'll do this, that or the other for you. We favour do-it-yourself, democratic politics. Actually, Peter Joseph seems to have moved a little in this direction in favour mass action by people who want to establish an RBE, while not ruling out elections as one aspect of this.So, yes, there is some convergence between TZM and us not just over the goal to be achieved (a propertyless, moneyless world of abundance) but also over the means to get there. There are still difference of course as, for instance, over trying to gradually transform the present capitalist system into a RBE by means of a series of reforms. We reject such a reformist approach, along with that of trying to combine getting reforms to capitalism with working to replace it.. We favour an all-or-nothing revolution but an essentially peaceful one.We think that in the longer term concentrating on the spreading the idea of socialism/RBE is the most effective thing those of us who today want it can do.

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I think I know what he is trying to say — that the world we know is as we know it but that it is a mental construct out of a world that is unknowable (if that makes sense). He expresses this in his own way by saying that humans transform this "inorganic world", which we cannot know, into the "organic world", which we do know but which while 'real' in the sense of existing outside the mind is still a mental construct that does not exist independently of human activity. Where he has got into difficulty is over his concept of an "inorganic world". He needs this to be able to claim not to be a simple classical philosophical idealist but is unable to say what it is, only that it is unknowable, and that it is even illegitimate to ask questions about it. It is some mysterious "ultimate reality" about which nothing can be said or known (though as the non-mental "ingredient" out of which his "organic world" is constructed it sounds suspiciously like his dreaded "matter").The obvious way out for him would be to abandon his concept of an "unorganic world" but that would make him  the classical idealist he denies he is. It's because he won't take this route that he ties himself in knots. On the other hand, if he did take that route he would then be arguing that to say 'x exists' or 'x is real' is merely to say that 'x is the outcome of human mental activity' so that it is self-contradictory to say that anything can 'exist' independently of human activity, and so to conclude that everything that exists is a mental or has a mental aspect. It's a point of view that has a prominent place in the history of philosophy but one rarely embraced by socialists.

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You beat me to it, YMS.

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But I have provided the answer …. No matter how many times I repeat that 'inorganic nature' is an 'ingredient into activity', your ideology tells you to ask 'But, what is it, when it's not an 'ingredient into activity?'.

You are right. This "answer" does demand further explanation as it seems to be saying that "inorganic nature" is never not an "ingredient" to human activity and that the two always go together somehow.

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is the 'real' socially produced?

Don't worry, Tim, I'm sure  anyone can spot the glaring contradiction between the claim that it is and agreement with this one:

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His term for 'reality' was 'inorganic nature'.

Unless, that is, the claim is that 'inorganic nature' is socially produced, i.e. that consciousness created the world external to consciousness. But that would be another contradiction, wouldn't it?But we won't know till YMS's questions are answered.

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What does 'exist' mean?

Actually, YMS,  that's a good question. I think it means "is real". I know this doesn't solve the problem for dualists who think that there is an "inorganic" and an "organic" nature as to which of them is really real or whether they both exist or, for that matter, whether one existed prior to the other.

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I didn't follow this thread but I saw this in today's papers:http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/easter-island-prehistoric-warfare-did-not-bring-about-collapse-rapa-nui-populations-1544165Don't even know if the Easter Islanders were hunter-gatherers but the findings seem to refute one view of "human nature".

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LBird wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

How does activity create matter?

Engels says that it doesn't, and that 'matter' exists prior to activity.

Ask him this one, YMS: Does "inorganic nature" exist prior to activity?

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Young Master Smeet wrote:

Why would Marx talk about inorganic nature if the qualities of Labour alone produced organic nature?

Actually Marx does not talk about "inorganic nature" in the sense that is being bandied about here. For what he actually said when he once used the term, see quote here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/gravity-situation?page=3#comment-29415There's no reference here to humans converting "inorganic nature" into "organic nature". If anything, it would be the reverse, with humans extending their own "organic nature" into "inorganic nature". So, even the appeal to authority fails.And he certainly did not mean by it Kant's unknowable thing-in-itself:

LBird wrote:

'Inorganic nature' is an unknowable 'in itself' ingredient for active human social theory and practice.

If that's what you think the world external to human consciousness is no wonder you get into the contradictions that you are so ably exposing. If it's "unknowable" you can't say anything about it by definition. It might as well, like God, not be there.

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And of course in socialism everybody will be able to have free access to science and technology, i.e there will be no patents, trade secrets, copyright, etc.

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