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I'm replying here to this from another thread (the one on the ICC) so as not derail that one:

LBird wrote:

Further, related to our discussions on the 'free access' thread, what is the SPGB position on the 'democratic control of science'?I would argue that if the SPGB's answers are, respectively, 'subjective' and 'elite specialist control', then I think that 'the SPGB has made mistakes'.I could be wrong, of course…

I thought we'd cleared up that the SPGB does not advocate "elite specialist control" of science in a socialist society.

[ALB]

Alf wrote:

The question of 'maturity' is mainly about the subjective conditions – so once again we are back to the question of class consciousness. The period of transition is necessary above all because getting rid of the ideological muck of ages will demand a huge struggle. The attachment to the old world will certainly be strong among those other non-exploiting classes who have survived into the period of capitalism's decline, but it will also have a powerful weight on the working class itself. As Marx said: only in a revolution can the proletariat rid itself of this muck.

I think Pfbcarlisle is right to have drawn particular attention to this passage, which has all sorts of implications.First, that the working class that carries out the revolution won't be fully class consciousness, but will still be carrying "the ideological muck of ages".Second, there's a bit of a contradiction between saying "this muck" will be got rid of during the revolution and then saying a longish transition period is needed after the revolution in which this "powerful weight on the working class" is to be removed.Third, I suspect the ICC shares Sotionov (of the other thread)'s scepticism about workers in the early days of socialism/communism agreeing to work hard enough if they can have free access to what they need and that therefore this is something they have to learn (be taught?) during a transition period in which "the law of value" (production for the market, working for wages, etc) will continue before socialism/communism and the principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" can be implemented.. It's the Creating the New Man syndrome again.I agree with Pfbcarlisle too that the "transition period" during which "this muck", this "attachment to the old world", is got rid of is taking place now and will have to be completed, amongst most workers, before the revolution can take place.PS I think we may ourselves have sometimes used the same argument about "objective" and "subjective" conditions as Alf. Of course everything that happens is objective, including thoughts and even hallucinations, so in this sense so is class socialist consciousness.

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It's just that you keeping on bringing up your "Mengele Commission" jibe (at least twice now, the last in the post to which I was replying). As an article in this month's Socialist Standard points out:

Quote:

Someone has said that there is a certain inevitability of the mention of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis terminating many emotionally charged political debates.

And Mengele is worse than Hitler, not that this debate is that emotionally charged or at least needs to be.As we all here agree that in socialism/communism science and science policy should be subject to democratic social control of some kind, there's not  all that much more to discuss except to sign the Protocols of Agreement !.

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I think you're right. The question of "only one state" is important. Our assumption (think Arab Spring, think fall of state capitalist regimes in East Europe) is that the world socialist revolution once it starts will be more or less simultaneous in the most industrially developed parts of the world (which already today exist on every continent), where there will be the most numerous and best organised workers movement. This is the basis for our assumption that working class use of the state need only last a few years if that, i.e. that there might be a gap of a few years between the first state being taken over and the last.The ICC civil war scenario is based on what happened in Russia 1917-1921 (though I think thety've evolved beyond the romantic idea of cavalry battles between Red and White horse-riders). A more modern version would be like what happened in ex-Yugoslavia and what is happening in Syria at the moment: battles for control of territory. I suggest this is completely unrealistic because it assumes that the capitalist class will be able to muster sufficient support to make a fight of it. It is all very well saying that in the past no ruling class has ever surrendered power peacefully (not entirely true, incidentally) but where would they recruit their fighters and why would anybody want to fight for them? If they tried it would be a walkover for the socialist workers' side.Can you imagine an ex-Yugoslavia and a Syria on a world scale?  Another 'Arab Spring' or something like that (rather than formal electoral victories in all the world's states) perhaps, but civil wars all over the world in every country that could go on for 40 years or even a decade (what would be left at the end?), no. We easily win the less unrealistic stakes..

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LBird wrote:

Well, this denial of a 'revision board' lends itself to the latter answer of 'democratic control'. But I think clarification of your position is better, rather than me just making a possibly mistaken assumption. Could you spell out your position, if you have come to a final conclusion? If you haven't, we can continue to thrash it out.

I don't know where this idea of an "authority" to control science comes from. It's a figment of your imagination. In fact the nearest person to propose something of this sort has been yourself with your suggestion that it should be overseen by "class-conscious proletarian Communists".In any event, there is no point in drawing up a blueprint now (a "policy" I think you called it in one of your posts) as it's up to those in future socialist society to decide the details. All we can do is say that science policy and scientific research will, like everything else, be subject to overall democratic control. We can also assume that research establishments will, like all other workplaces, be run on a democratic basis with an elected works council.Personally I would think that, once the priorities have been decided and the resources allocated, those doing the research can be left to get on with it. I don't see why their findings should have to go to any "board" or "authority", but simply published, not just in specialist scientific journals but in popular science magazines (which, with a better informed "public", could well have a wider circulation than today) so everybody interested can see what's going on and discuss them.I don't suppose there will be immediate agreement on one group of scientists' findings any more than there is today and so it can be assumed that other groups will test the findings to see if they come up with the same result or not. Maybe they'll find something else, which will lead to the original findings being modified. That's how 'science' works. Much as happens today (dare I say it), except within the framework of democratic control rather than dictated by profit.

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Found it ! It's from their 1981 pamphlet Period of Transition from Capitalism to Communism still published on their website here:

Quote:

The situation in a communist society is completely different. Communism retains no economic or social remnants of old society. While such remnants still exist one cannot speak of communist society: what place could there be in such a society for small producers or slave relations, for example? This is what makes the period of transition between capitalism and communism so long. Just as the Hebrew people had to wait forty years in the desert in order to free themselves from the mentality forged by slavery, so humanity will need several generations to free itself from the vestiges of the old world.

Also from the same pamphlet:

Quote:

The period of transition is not a distinct mode of production, but a link between two modes of production–the old and the new. It is the period during which the germs of the new mode of production slowly develop to the detriment of the old, until they supplant the old mode of production and constitute a new, dominant mode of production.Between two stable societies (and this will be true for the period between capitalism and communism as it has been in the past), the period of transition is an absolute necessity. This is due to the fact that the sapping of the basis of the existence of the old society does not automatically imply the maturation and ripening of the conditions of the new. In other words, the decline of the old society does not automatically mean the maturation of the new, but is only the condition for it to take place.

It seems, then, that all three of us are wrong about why they think it will take "forty years" to effect the transition from capitalism to communism. In fact it's worse than we thought: the claim is that conditions won't be ripe for the establishment of socialism/communism when the proletariat wins power.

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To tell the truth, we don't seem to have written too much about this, perhaps because we think people at the time can work out the system of democratic decision-making which best suits them and which will probably differ from different part of the world to different part of the world in accordance with their traditions as well as preferences.But here's an article from 1978 (a bit dated now of course given the development of computers and means of communication):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialism-or-your-money-back/turbulent-seventies/democracy-and-silicon-chipAnd here's what we say about this is chapter 3 on "Democratic decision-making" in our Socialism As A Practical Alternative pamphlet::http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/socialism-practical-alternative#ch3As this was written in 1987 it, too, needs updating. I think the Production for Use Committee is working on this.The form of democratic decision-making outlined there is not  "direct democracy" (which surely is only applicable at the very local level) but more akin to the "nest councils" proposed by Stephen Shalom in this article on "participatory politics":http://www.zcommunications.org/participatory-politics-by-stephen-shalomIt usefully sets out the pros and cons of the various schemes of "participatory politics" that have been proposed. Of course none of them would work properly under capitalism and could only work in socialism. I imagine a combination of direct democracy at local level, "nested councils" for decisions haveing a wider effect (up to world level), and referendums for points of principles. But who knows?

[ALB]

Ed wrote:

As it wholly depends on the circumstances at the time. If one were to presume, as they do that it will be after a gigantic and bloody civil war then of course it will take a little longer.

I'm not sure that is the explanation as to why they think their "semi-state" should last longer (decades) than our "democratised state" (a year or so). Given that the capitalist class only own and control the means of production because they control the state, once they lose control of the state (whether peaceably or violently) to a socialist-minded working class majority, capitalism can be abolished very quickly, almost literally at a strole and common ownership, democratic control and production directly for use (if not full free access) be introduced immediately. I don't see why, even assuming their civil war scenario, this couldn't be implemented straightaway in the "liberated" areas.I think there is another reason: that they don't think that the forces of production have yet developed a stage where they can provide plenty for all and that therefore a period of accumulation and restricted consumption for the producers is needed (I think that this is what they must mean by "workers self-exploitation"). This is because they are still tied to what happened in Russia. The Left Communists, from which they emerged were, proposing an alternative way forward for Russia in the 1920s which they thought could be implemented and, clearly, in the conditions of Russia of that time, plenty for all was far from possible.  Even In the 1930s the Council Communists were proposing a "labour-money" scheme which included a blueprint of how to integrate into the economy peasants owning their own land and animals and producing for sale.They need to get away from Russia Revolution and what happened after as a model for any future socialist revolution. To dump all that baggage and come into the 21st century.

[ALB]

I think you are becoming a bit hypersensitive . I am sure that all ALBuick meant by "revision" was something we've all already agreed on: that no scientific finding is final and absolute, but only tentative and partial in that, in the light of further evidence, research and theorising, it is liable to be changed ("revised") or even completely abandoned. That it meant that any scientific finding should have to go before some "revision board" is a mistaken reading of the passage.

[ALB]

Ed wrote:

I'd like to talk a little about the ICC's Semi-State. As I understand it this is the Dictatoriship of the proletariat a period where the proletariat have "smashed" (not siezed control of the existing one) the state and have proceeded to create a semi state which would then wither away in time. I got the impression that they see this political transition as lasting a little longer than we do

Much longer. In one of their early pamphlet they say it could be as long as the Israelites had to wander in the wilderness, i.e. 40 years. I don't know if they've modified this since. I think they call it a "semi-state" as their theory is an amalgam of Council Communist (who reject the idea of a state) and Bordigism (who embrace it). As far as we're concerned it would be a state but a democratised one controlled by the working class. Not quite sure if they agree with this second part since I think they still think "the party" will exist during this period and, as the quote in the opening item in this thread made clear, in their view this would be a highly centralized, top-down (not to say Leninist) organisation.

Ed wrote:

I put to them that Marx's and in fact most definitions of the state have one class exploiting another, in Marx's case for the purpose of extracting surplus value. I asked who would be the exploiting class in this scenario assuming that the bourgeouisie has been expropriated. The answer which seemed to be generally agreed was that the proletariat would exploit itself. I wonder what comrades think of the concept of the the proletariat exploiting themselves?

Not much, but did they really say that !The concept of "workers' self-exploitation" and rejection of it is a view which we probably pioneered in the 1960s in our criticism of various proposals for "workers control" of a market economy. For instance's here's an extract from an article from the Socialist Standard of February 1969 criticising the old Solidarity Group (from which, ironically, some of the founding members of the ICC group in Britain emerged when they realised this. Even more ironically this was written by David Ramsay Steele who later became a leading anarcho-capitalist)):

Quote:

"Capitalism without capitalists" could never in fact come about. Should the working-class reach a level of understanding where they could pressurize the ruling class out of existence, they would long since have passed the stage where they would have abolished the wages system and established Socialism. And there are several purely economic arguments why escalating differences in access to wealth would always result from a wages-profits system. But even if we suspend these judgments, and consider "Capitalism without capitalists" in our imaginations, we can see it would be no improvement on capitalism with capitalists. Workers collectively administering their own exploitation not a state of affairs which Socialist aim for.

I think the ICC member calling himself Alf is on this forum so perhaps he could clarify things.

[ALB]

Here's the results of a recent opinion poll on various conspiracy theories of 1247 US voters — for what it's worth (Do people really believe what they say? Do they reply what they think they are expected to reply? Do some of them take the piss?):http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/04/democrats-and-republicans-differ-on-conspiracy-theory-beliefs.htmlGood to see that only 6% think Bin Laden is not dead, only 4% (say they) believe in David Icke's shape-shifting reptiles.and only 5% in chem trails and only 7% that the moon landing was faked.  More worrying is that 21% (say they) believes in UFOs and 29% in aliens and 37% that global warming is a hoax.Of the issues that have come up here, 51% believe that a conspiracy was at work in Kennedy's assassination. More re-assuring only 11% believe that "the United States government knowingly allowed the attacks on September 11th, 2001, to happen."28% believe that

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a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order.

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Immigration officers told to go home:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pQ0_TFBVotsThe comments suggest, unfortunately, that the Tories could have judged well that their "(illegal) immigrants, go home" vans stunt will be a vote-winner.

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Pannekoek was developing the ideas of Joseph Dietzgen and defending them against Lenin's charge of "idealism". Dietzgen has in fact always been held in high regard by the SPGB and by our comrades in North America. See (or listen to):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/dietzgen-and-dialectical-thoughtand this article:http://mailstrom.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/joseph-dietzgen-workers-philosopher.html

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This reminds me of an incident during one of our election campaigns when our candidate (Ralph Critchfield,  think) declared "yes, we have made some mistakes". When a member of the audience asked "what mistakes?" he couldn't answer..

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But that's the programme of the Green Party ! See this. So why don't these Left Unifiers join them instead of splitting the anti-austerity, pro-welfare state, take-back-the-utilities into public ownership section of the population?

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