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LBird wrote:

On the 'Marx calling himself a materialist' point, I've covered this now what seems like dozens of times, so I won't repeat myself, yet again.

Yes, but it's still a point to us

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Am I an "instrumentalist"? Sounds as if I might be. My position is set out in this article.Was Marx an "instrumentalist"? I don't know but you are the one who is always quoting  the part of his Theses on Feuerbach where he emphasises that the "truth" of thinking has to be shown by practice:

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The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice.

So, if he wasn't a "pragmatist" or an "instrumentalist" he was at least a "practicist". I can't see what he has in common with Bashkar's "critical realism".I notice that you are less keen on quoting other parts where he describes himself as a "materialist":

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IX. The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is the contemplation of single individuals and of civil society.X. The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society or social humanity.XI. Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.

Marx describes himself as a "new materialiost" to distionguish his view from that of the sort of materialists you are criticising. But he still called himself a "materialist". Another reason why Sayers's definition is not helpful.

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Sayers wrote:

According to materialism, everything that exists or happens is ultimately material or physical.

That's just the opinion/definition of one writer (who is opposed to "materialism?). I don't think this does help as it is not drawing any distinction between the "material" and the "physical" whereas Dietzgen, for instance, who described himself as a materialist, held that ideas were also part of "matter". As he put it:

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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.

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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.

He also described himself as a "monist" as he held that only the universe existed and that the physical and non-physical parts into which humans divided it had the same status as part of the universe. This might be a better term to start from, to prevent you criticising a straw man of your creation.

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LBird wrote:

'Reality' existed prior to humans, but the 'idea' of it being 'physical' is a human idea.This is part of the problem. DJP's ideology insists that the 'physical' is 'being',

LBird wrote:

'Truth' is socially-produced, but your ideology tells you that 'truth' is the same as 'reality'.

LBird wrote:

how do you keep saying 'truth' is the same as 'reality'?

LBird wrote:

Thus, one falls into 'discovery science', of uncovering The Truth, the reality of reality, of being, final, absolute, mirror-like knowledge of reality.

When and where have I said that "truth" is the same as "reality"? I don't think this and I don't think DJP does either. I wouldn't have thought that most scientists do either.The trouble is you want a sparring partner who does think this and so sees science as uncovering the "true" nature of reality, the Truth. Not finding one here you invent one by accusing those who question some of your views of holding this view.To answer your points, I go along with Dietzgen and hold that the only "reality" is the ever-changing world of phenomena past and present and that humans classify parts of this by naming them with a view to better surviving in it by being able to predict more reliably ther future course of phenomena. In this sense,  science is not "uncovering the Truth" but describing the world as accurately and usefully as possible for human survival.The division of the one "reality" into physical and non-physical is a human idea and does not mean that the non-physical is any less a part of "reality" than the physical. At the same time it does not rule out descriptions and explanations of the non-physical in terms of the physical. The question is: are such descriptions and explanations useful (as opposed to True).I think this position is called "instrumentalism" in the philosophy of science. Or something similar to it, at least according to this which says that instrumentalism is

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opposed to Scientific Realism (the view that the world described by science is the real world, independent of what we might take it to be).

It seems we might even be fighting the same battle.

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LBird wrote:

I still can't believe, after 12 months and numerous statements to the opposite, that you think I'm arguing that 'all reality is psycho-physical'. I've constantly said 'reality' is external to humans, and existed prior to humans.

I never actually said that you argued this but was just trying to work out what you do argue. Incidentally, arguing that "reality is psycho-physical" would not be arguing that "reality" is not external to human beings though, I agree, it would mean that it wouldn't have existed prior to humans. But since you confirm that this is not your position there is no point in pursuing this further.I do note, though, that in saying that "reality" existed prior to humans, you are conceding DJP's point that the physical part of reality existed before the ideas part.

LBird wrote:

I have said what CR means by reality: components, structures, emergent properties, causal mechanisms. I spent a whole long post explaining this, and no-one engaged with my post (as opposed to laughing at Bhaskar).

I see (actually, to tell the truth, I don't). I thought you agreed that it was humans that identified "components",  "structures", "properties" and "causal mechanisms" and that the ways in which they did this depended on their "ideology". Hence different "realities" for people with different ideolologies and cultures. And your oft-repeated contention that it was once "reality" that the Sun went round the Earth.                        

LBird wrote:

You really must stop taking DJP's opinions as gospel, and start trying to ask yourself: "what ideology is DJP espousing, as compared to the ideology that LBird is espousing?". This will allow you, perhaps, to identify your ideology. If you agree with DJP, that's fine, but then you don't agree with me (or, I'd argue, Marx).

I can see where DJP is coming from: the sort of "dialectal" (as opposed to "mechanical") "materialism" espoused by Dietzgen and Pannekoek. I'm not too sure where you are coming from. It seems to be the "critical realism" of this Bashkar character. As to Marx, he was clearly a "materialist" in the broad sense of holding that "reality" is external to humans and existed prior to them and also held that the human mind plays an active role in trying to understand "external reality" and does not simply reflect it as a "mechanical materialist" like Lenin did. All three of you are socialist/communists.

LBird wrote:

Yes, to a certain ideological perspective in science, Marx's concept of 'value' is merely "some mysterious non-physical causal power", which can't be 'touched', and requires one to embrace a 'theory' to understand it.

I'm not saying that non-physical phenomena can't play a role in explaining/understanding parts of reality but so can physical. I'm not sure whether or not your point is that only the non-physical can.

LBird wrote:

Once more, I think that you and DJP want to be 'at one with reality'; in other words, you're searching for The Truth of 'what's real'.

But isn't just what you've just said with your talk of components, structures, properties and causal mechanisms that you are trying to do?

LBird wrote:

On the contrary, Marx was engaged in a search to 'understand' reality.But 'understanding' is human (and thus social and historical) and so is not a 'copy' of 'reality'.

Exactly, Some agreement at last.

LBird wrote:

I think you want to have a final Truth about what is 'real'. That's positivism, not Marxism.

It's certainly not Marxism. But I don't think it's positivism either. I thought positivists argue that all that exists are the phenomena we experience and that there is no "ultimate reality" behind them and that knowledge consists of accurate and useful predictions about the future course of phenomenon. I can see that you are not one with your view that there is an ultimate reality behind the world of phenomena consisting of structures, emergent properties, causal mechanisms, etc. Perhaps I'm wrong after all and "critical realism" is a species of realism after all.

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I think you are mixing up two things here LBird. The nature of "reality" and explanations of the phenomena that are part of it. The physical and ideas are equally "real" but that does not preclude explaining ideas (as one part of "reality") as being dependent in some way on the physical  (as another part of "reality"). You seem to be accusing people who take up explanations of this kind as being crude "materialists" who say that ideas are not as "real" as physical things. But this is not the case.I don't know if this is your position but you seem to be saying that all "reality" is psycho-physical or something along those lines. I don't know because you haven't yet defined what you mean by "reality". But from what you have said so far I'm not sure that the  "realism" of "critical realism" is the correct word since, as DJP has been pointing out, traditionally in philosophy "realist" theories argue that knowledge is a "true" picture/description of "reality", a position you've been vehementally opposing all along. But we'll see when you get round to saying what "critical realism" means by "reality". All we've had so far is a mention of some mysterious "non-phyiscal causal powers".

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LBird wrote:

Stick with 'materialism' and 'physicalism' and 'supervenience', DJP. And pretend to yourself that they are asocial and ahistorical concepts. Then you'll 'know' the 'Truth', and be at one with your god, 'matter'.You're an idealist, DJP.

This is absurd, LBird. DJP has made it clear on numerous occasions that he doesn't adhere to the kind of "materialism" you are attacking and goes along with the general approach outlined by Marx in his Theses on Feuerbach and as developed later by Dietzgen and Pannekoek. In fact his position is nearer to yours than you think, but you don't seem to want people to agree just partly with you. It's just that he (like me) isn't convinced by this "critical realism" stuff.Anyway, you have yet to explain what it is you and "critical realism" mean by "reality". When you do get round to it we can then see if it is true (!) that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones …

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He's still around but seems to have gone a bit crotchety:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-mp-austin-mitchell-women-are-weakening-parliament-9675615.htmlOr has he.

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contactkarmabank wrote:

The key issue is reaching critical mass, it is quite easy for things that have artifical scarcity today (digital goods) but also at an more tangible level I think the key issue is that the majority of the populace lives in fear of scarcity which propels them to hoard, if such an psychological fear was removed it would free up a ton of resources.

Agreed that a key issue is that people are still thinking in terms of resources being scarce when they aren't or needn't be. This has a psychological effect, as you say and as George Jackson put it in one of his prison letters in Soledad Brother:

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Consider the people's store, after full automation, the implementation of the theory of economic advantage. You dig, no waste makers, nor harnesses on production. There is no intermediary, no money. The store, it stocks everything that the body or home could possibly use. Why won't the people hoard, how is an operation like that possible, how could the storing place keep its stores if its stock (merchandise) is free?Men hoard against want, need, don't they? Aren't they taught that tomorrow holds terror, pile up a surplus against this terror, be greedy and possessive if you want to succeed n this insecure world? Nuts hidden away for tomorrow's Winter.Change the environment, educate the man, he'll change. The people's store will work as long as people know that it will be there, and have in abundance the things they need and want (really want); when they are positive that the common effort has and will always produce an abundance, they won't bother to take home more than they need.Water is free, do people drink more than they need?

He realised that the answer wasn't to fiddle about with real or virtual currencies, but to get rid of money altogether, or, as we would put it, to make money redundant by bringing about the common ownership of resources.

contactkarmabank wrote:

the problem with past socialism was that it was implemented from the top-down rather then the bottom up

I think you are talking about state capitalism, as in the old USSR and under some leftwing governments in the West. That wasn't socialism as it retained classes and class privileges as well as money and production for sale. Real socialism — the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources, production directly for use not profit, and distribution in accordance with the principle "from each their ability, to each their need" — has never been tried yet.

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I wonder if this was the simple (and simplified) point that LBird was trying to make. It's from a lecture on "Some Non-Scientific Observations on the Importance of Darwin"given by Ian Johnston of the Liberal Studies Department of Vancouver Island University in 1998:

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In order to grasp why Darwin's theory was so fundamentally revolutionary, you must understand one intellectual concept: the power and importance of classification systems. As students of biology you are thoroughly familiar with the need for classification, at least within your discipline. But I want you to step back from the discipline for a moment to understand the importance of classification in general.It will be obvious enough to you, as biologists, that you cannot function in this discipline without a comprehensive system of classification. This is especially the case with biology, and has always been a central issue in this part of natural science, simply because in biology, more than in any other science, there is a huge variety of natural phenomena to deal with. But I would argue that systems of classification are essential for all human thought and for the same reasons. Without a classification system of some kind, something which enables us to compartmentalize similar things and to make distinctions between other things, we simply cannot function. Providing us a classification system is the primary function of our education: we learn to classify things in order to make moral distinctions, to establish the hierarchy of goods and goals for our lives, to understand the natural world around us, and in order to function as social beings. How we think is largely determined by how we classify things.The great systems of belief in religion or philosophy or politics are classification systems. Christian belief, for example, encourages me to distinguish between Christians and pagans, between sinners, good people, and saints; a political classification system tells me whom I must or should obey, whom I am responsible for, who owes me allegiance, and who I can ignore. And so on. When I am faced with a problem, I simply cannot begin to analyze it, understand it, and resolve it unless I first have a classification system available for understanding it.The greatest thinkers are not those who come with new answers for old problems. They are the ones who redefine the problem by putting a new classification system on the table. Plato did not solve the problem of how to make people good; but after Plato it was impossible to talk intelligently about good and bad people without bringing knowledge into the discussion. Marx did not solve the social ills of his time; but after Marx it is impossible to discuss social problems without invoking the classification of society into classes based on material wealth. What makes these thinkers revolutionary is that they redirected the discussion and provided a new vocabulary for exploring, understanding, and seeking to resolve human problems.The reason these thinkers focus on classification systems directly is that these systems are never ideologically neutral. The way we organize things into compartments indicates to us an entire network of relationships and hierarchies which are loaded with political and moral value. To take an obvious example. If my moral system requires me to be kind to human beings, then I must attend to what my classification system tells me about who is a human being equal to me. If it indicates, as some have done, that, say, aboriginal people or black people, or the Irish poor are not fully human, then my moral obligations to them are not the same as my obligations to the white middle-class people next door. This may be an extreme example, but it makes the point. And someone who wants me to treat aboriginals, blacks, and the Irish poor as human beings is never going to persuade me until such time as he can overthrow my classification system and replace it with a different one.

The full lecture can be found here,

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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/29/jim-murphy-scotland-better-together-speaking-tour-suspended-intimidationAre they nasty petty nationalists or petty nasty nationalists?

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Is this what you are on about:http://www.worldkarmaproject.com/about/karma-bank/Or is it something else with a similar name?

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In recent days capitalists in Scotland have been coming out in favour of YES or NO. The split is revealing. It's more or less the same as in the UK over the EU, with smaller capitalist concerns catering for the home market favouring breaking away and bigger concerns producing for export favouring staying. From today's Times:

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Sir Brian Souter, chairman of Stagecoach, Ralph Topping, the former chief executive of William Hill, and Paddy Crerar, the founder of Crerar Hotels, were among those prepared to swing their entrepreneurial weight behind a "yes" vote on September 18.Their push came just a day after 130 influential businessmen, including Douglas Flint, the chairman of HSBC, and Andrew Mackenzie, who runs BHP Billiton, signed a similarly firm No missive to The Scotsman, warning that the case for independence had still not been made.

As someone from Edinburgh University's School of Business explained:

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Professor MacKay said that his research suggested that business attitudes towards independence tended to be dictated by where their customers were primarily located.

So it's buses, hotels and betting shops versus international banks and mining companies. Consumer goods industries v producer goods industries. Big capitalists v smaller capitalists. Marx's Dept I v Dept II. Some choice.Best for workers to abstain and leave the capitalists to settle the matter amongst themselves. 

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Can anyone see why the answer to this clue in Tuesday's Times is Trotsky:

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Solicitor's wrong about island mainly used for political exile.

We appeared to feature in the clues on the previous Thursday:

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Game of Socialist Party completely upset Conservative PM (7)

But why is the answer Balfour? I thought the days of referring to Labour as "the Socialist Party" were long gone.

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undermine cross-border trade union unity

I was thinking that a separate capitalist state in Scotland would make it more likely that a situation would arise as in Ireland after "independence", as described in The Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Ireland (later the World Socialist Party of Ireland) published in 1949:

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Today the Irish Trade Union movement is in a crisis. Two rival Congresses seek to dominate the position. Yet the workers of Ireland are no less solid to-day than they were forty years ago. It is not they  who are divided but the “leaders” ─ men who have allowed personal ambition and private feuds to over-ride all consideration for the working class in general and members of their own Unions in particular.Here is an extract from the Minutes of the Conference of Irish Unions, held at the O'Connell Hall. Dublin, on March 21st, 1945:—"The issue they were there to consider was a simple one; it was whether they would continue to operate under an executive that was dominated by the British Unions. The British Unions would have to go. We know how to talk to one another in Ireland, but we don't know how to talk to British Unions. They are SLIMY."It is not a little difficult to believe that the man who made that statement claims to be a member of the working class. This man forgets (?) that it was the united action of the Irish and British Labour movements which was responsible for the release of the Irish political prisoners on hunger strike in 1920—this man forgets (?) that the Irish workers had the support and backing of British Trade Unionists, as exemplified by the following: A Special Trade Union Congress, held,in London on July 13th, 1920, carried this resolution by a large majority:—"That this Congress protests against the British military domination of Ireland and demands the cessation of the production of munitions destined to be used against Ireland . . . and in case the Government refuses these demands we recommend a general down tools policy, and call on all Trade Unions here represented to carry out this policy, each according to its own constitution by taking a ballot vote of its members or otherwise."In this present clash of personalities and ambitions in the Irish Trade Union movement, however, the Socialist Party of Ireland favours neither side. That is to say, we do not urge the acceptance of either set of Trade Union leaders contending for the dominance of the Trade Union movement. We support and favour all steps taken to unite the workers of Ireland—north and south—in one industrial organisation, in one Trade Union Congress; but that support and favour is not to be understood as support and favour for Trade Union officials who shout loudest for "unity." They may desire unity now—but because their motives are other than the interests of the Irish working class, to-morrow they may commit worse anti-working-class crimes than the one of sundering the Trade Union movement. Unity, yes . . . But unity in the interests of the working class and its struggle against the employing class and capitalism.

In fact, what happened to the working class in Ireland after a separate capitalist state was set up there surely has lessons for workers in Scotland tempted to support setting up one there too.Incidentally, a facsimile of the whole pamphlet can be found here. 

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