[ALB]

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).

[ALB]

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.

[ALB]

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.

[ALB]

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.

[ALB]

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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.

[ALB]

Quote:

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.

[ALB]

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".

[ALB]

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?

[ALB]

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.

[ALB]

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.

[ALB]

He's just done it again. He accused me of being the sort of materialist which has "'tangible matter'"as its "central concern". I produce chapter and verse to show that I'm not that kind of old-fashioned materialist. And what he does he do? Call me an "Engelsist" which in his mind is someone whose central concern is tangible matter. What's the point of arguing with someone like that?

[ALB]

To return to the theme of the thread:

LBird wrote:

In fact, 'thought' is always a product of societies, not 'genius individuals', so our 'thought' in a democratic society would have to be democratically produced.

Discuss.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

ALB, I'm just returning your abuse in the same terms

That wasn't abuse. It was contempt, basically for your dishonesty. And here's another example:

LBird wrote:

But you're a 'materialist', which has its roots in bourgeois biological individualism. Hence 'tangible matter' as its central concern.

Yes, I do call myself a materialist but in the general sense of holding that there is a world outside our thoughts. I think you do too. Some materialists (it's a wide definition) make 'tangible matter' their central concern, but not all. And not me. On the other thread I referred you to an article (which I assume you read) which contains this passage:

Quote:

Mind and MatterDietzgen, as we saw, called himself a materialist. There are however various kinds of materialism and Dietzgen was careful to differentiate his dialectical materialism from what he called ‘onesided,’ ‘narrow’ and ‘mechanical’ materialism. This was the view (indeed the traditional materialist view going back to the philosophers of Ancient Greece) that the world is composed of tiny particles of tangible ‘matter’ and that the mind and thinking are simply the effects of the movement of these atoms. Writes Dietzgen:The distinguishing mark between the mechanical materialists of the 18th century and the Social-Democratic materialists trained in German idealism consists in that that the latter have extended the former’s narrow conception of matter as consisting exclusively of the Tangible to all phenomena that occur in the world.13 Every phenomenon, everything that occurs, exists, as part of the entire world of phenomena. Since non-tangible phenomena, e.g. ideas, thoughts etc., also occur, they are just as real or, if you like, just as ‘material’ as tangible phenomena:In the endless Universe matter in the sense of old and antiquated materialists, that is, of tangible matter, does not possess the slightest preferential right to be more substantial, i.e. more immediate, more distinct and more certain than any other phenomena of nature.14Dietzgen had no objection to the classification of the world of phenomena into two general categories, one consisting of tangible phenomena and called ‘matter’ and the other consisting of mental phenomena and called ‘mind.’ He had no objection either to explanations of mental phenomena in terms of tangible phenomena. What he was concerned to point out was that, in this sense, both ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ were abstractions, even if very general ones, from the real world of phenomena. The rigid distinction between ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ was a mental distinction that did not exist in the world of phenomena which, despite this mental operation, remained an undivided whole:The mind is a collective name for the mental phenomena, as matter is a collective name for the material phenomena, and the two together figure under the idea and name of the phenomena of Nature.15 This was the basis of Dietzgen’s statement, which, as we shall see, so upset Lenin, that ‘our materialism is distinguished by its special knowledge of the common nature of mind and matter’.16 By this he simply meant that both mind and matter were parts of the world of observable phenomena.Those Dietzgen called the ‘narrow’ materialists made the mistake of not thinking dialectically, that is, of not realising that the parts of the world of phenomena do not exist independently but only as interconnected parts of that world. In taking one part of the world of phenomena and making it the basis of all the other parts, they were falsely ascribing a real, independent existence to what was in fact only an abstraction:This materialism is so enamoured of mechanics, that it, as it were, idolizes it, does not regard it as part of the world, but as the sole substance of which the universe is made up.17 This was the same mistake as regarding the objects of everyday use as having an independent, separate existence. ‘Matter’ just as much as ‘table’ was a mental abstraction from the real world of phenomena; in reality tangible phenomena do not exist separately from other phenomena, they exist only as an integral part of the entire single world of all phenomena.

I rest my case, but I can't keep on correcting your distortions every time you repeat them. It happens so often.

[ALB]

Vin wrote:

That would require you to give a definition of 'socialism' which will probably be closer to the SWP than the World Socialist Movement. It is the only explanation for the confusion you display

Actually, judging by his past contributions outside his pet obsession, his definition of socialism is not all that far from ours and not nearer to that of the SWP's state capitalism. He does agree that socialism is a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production which will make money, wages, profits, banks, etc redundant but –and it's a big but — he adds something rather sinister — that democratic control should extent to what people think, i.e thought control, which of course has never been part of the historical definition of socialism

[ALB]

Here, on cue, is exactly what I meant. Here's distortion:

LBird wrote:

When asked 'who' will control the production of maths and physics under (the SPGB version of) 'socialism', there is massed bafflement at the question. The simple answer by the SPGB is 'the elite that have always controlled maths and physics!'. The implication is that the elite have done such a good job in the last 350 years, so why change a perfectly good working formula, and let those uneducated, lazy, drunken, scruffs in the working class get their grubby hands on the shining edifice of perfection that is 'science'.

And here's abuse:

LBird wrote:

The SPGB seems to consist of uneducated, ill-informed, philosopically-illiterate bluffers, who like the sound of 'democracy' and 'socialism', but haven't got a clue what they're talking about.

That's it.

[Author]

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