[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

… truth will be available to all, there will be a barrel of truth, and each can take from the barrel of truth, and do what they want with it. 

As I've always said about your ideology, YMS, it's bourgeois liberalism, with the emphasis on 'individual choice of what exists', rather than the emphasis of Marx upon 'social production of what we democratically decide to produce', and your method is essentially US pragmatism.Thanks, anyway.

[LBird]

Well, I've given you a fair crack of the whip to answer a simple question, YMS, so I'll leave it there, and let other workers reading come to their own conclusions, as to why you won't give a simple answer.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

I take it that 'fixed' is a synonym for 'material',

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/intangible-fixed-assets-24612.html

Quote:

Intangible assets include operational assets that lack physical substance, such as patents, copyrights, trademarks, franchises and goodwill. A company’s intangible assets are often not reported on a company's financial statements or will be reported at significantly less than their actual value. This is because assets are accounted for at their historical cost. Unlike tangible fixed assets such as a building or machinery, intangibles are often developed internally without any direct measurable cost that can be capitalized. When an intangible is purchased, however, or when costs can be directly traced to the development of the asset, the cost is recorded as an intangible asset on the balance sheet.

Never assume…

I'm not 'assuming', YMS, I can see that you're not answering whether the SPGB thinks that physics, maths and truth is a social product, and thus should be democratically controlled by workers.This is not an 'assumption' that 'you're not answering': you're not answering.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Though, of course, the subtitle of one of Meiksins Wood's books was "Renewing Historical Materialism"Lbird does have a point, Meiksins does highlight the active party of human agents played in the creation of society, but as always it gets lost in his jumbled ontology and epistemologogy…

That's the closest you've come for some time, DJP, to even acknowledging that I might 'have a point'.I indeed do 'have a point', and it is both Marx's and Wood's, too.And why you keep hanging onto stressing 'materialism', as if it's of special significance, when for the last 2 1/2 years I've constantly pointed to Marx's 'Idealism Materialism', beats me.The point is, of course, that 'materialism' alone is Engels' misunderstanding of Marx's 'materialism' (meaning 'human social production', as opposed to 'idealism' as 'divine production').Marx could have been clearer, of course, but put into socio-historical context, his 'materialism' clearly encompasses 'ideas and inorganic nature' in a relationship. This relationship is 'idealism-materialism', not a pre-fixed, ahistorical, asocial, 'matter', or 'the physical'.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

Simple question, YMS: does 'intellectual wealth' include 'physics, maths and truth'?

Intellectual wealth contains the all intangible fixed assets.

[my bold]I take it that 'fixed' is a synonym for 'material', and so, since you haven't answered a direct question, that you are arguing that the SPGB will not have workers' democratic control of the production of maths, physics and truth.Why not just say so, and define 'socialism' as 'not workers' control, but elite control'?Then any workers interested in the democratic development of our class can move on in their search for fellow Democratic Communists, and leave the SPGB to its 'materialist', Engelsist, concerns.We Democratic Communists are concerned with the active, conscious production of all 'assets', that do not even yet exist, and so can't be 'fixed', as we workers haven't actively produced them, yet.The 'materialists' are interested in the already existing 'fixed', like bricks and mortar, not the dynamic production of our future world, which requires our class' 'theory and practice'.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

The SPGB reserves the right for itself to define for workers what 'knowledge and consciousness' actually covers.

The Socialist Party has no such policy.  The working class must liberate themselves, and decide for themselves how their world will be organised, the SPGB makes no claim for how socialism will be run, save that it will be based on common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of producing and distributing wealth: that includes physical objects and intellectual wealth alike.

[my bold]Simple question, YMS: does 'intellectual wealth' include 'physics, maths and truth'?If it does, why not simply say so?If it doesn't, what the fuck is 'intellectual wealth'?

[LBird]

It's been pointed out for a long time that 'Political Marxism' is a 'Marxism' that stresses 'consciousness' ( active class struggle and 'ideological' factors) and 'social production', as did Marx, rather than the simple, and simple-minded, 'materialism' ('being' alone, 'matter', 'bricks and mortar', rather than 'maths and physics') of Engels, Kautsky, 2nd International and Lenin.This also becomes evident by the immense outcry against 'Political Marxism' by the Trotskyists parties, like the SWP, who are 'Engelsian Materialists', and thus stress the power of the 'material' to determine (rather than human agency). This emphasis on the 'material' is a lie, of course, because 'theory' is required to 'practice', as Marx said, and so 'materialism' always requires a 'hidden elite' to provide the missing 'consciousness'.Thus those parties, like the SWP, Militant, WRP, RCP, etc., etc., who claim to be 'materialists' always substitute an elite for the conscious working class. They, of course, see themselves as that elite, and any 'Marxism', like Wood's, that openly states that 'matter' does not determine 'thought', is seen as a threat to their political power over the working class.The 'materialist' parties will not allow the proletariat to develop their own consciousness and agency to the point where the class takes democratic control of 'maths and physics'.'Materialism' separates 'consciousness' from 'matter', and claims that 'matter' determines 'consciousness', and so they claim that anyone, like elite-expert 'physicists' and 'mathematicians', have an access to 'reality' (material conditions) that the entire proletariat can't have, and so their elite-expert activites must be left to their elite-expert control.In effect, 'Political Marxism' means the democratic control by workers of all their production, including maths and physics, because the so-called 'Marxists' of 'materialism' oppose democracy.Any worker interested, simply ask a 'materialist' about democratic control, and they are compelled by their ideology to deny it. They never speak of either 'Political Marxism' or 'Political Materialism', because they think that they alone 'know' 'material conditions', and so workers cannot vote about 'material conditions'.Wood was an important theorist who attempted to bring back 'consciousness', and therefore democracy (as her other books make very clear just by their titles), into 'Marxism', and so she suffered the political and ideological attacks from the SWP materialists, who detest any mention of 'workers' democratic power'.I know, I've been in a 'materialist' party, and was taken in at first, until I realised that the SWP was never going to allow workers to vote upon maths, physics and truth.The 'materialists' claimed that they already knew 'The Truth', before workers had even constructed it.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Knowledge and consciousness are a key part of the revolution.

Except when it's 'knowledge and consciousness' about 'maths and physics', YMS.The SPGB reserves the right for itself to define for workers what 'knowledge and consciousness' actually covers.ALB, on the other thread, argues that it covers 'bricks and mortar', but not 'architecture and aesthetics'.'Materialism' lets workers run the factories, but not the academies.Marxists say that it should be put to a vote of workers, to decide for themselves what 'k & c' covers, but the Engelsists insist that 'matter' speaks for itself.

[LBird]

Don't try to think too hard, Tim, the effort shows.You wouldn't recognise a philosophical idea if it ran up to you and bit you on the arse.And you still don't say how workers can control the means of production, if 'matter' speaks only to the SPGB elite.

[LBird]

Peter Newell wrote:

…Antonio Labriola's criticism of the "Great Man" theory of history, wherein Labriola claims that the establishment of socialism "cannot be the work of a mass led by a few"… Labriola's view was that of Marx and Engels, that the workers must emancipate themselves.

Unfortunately for Peter, the SPGB do not share that view.The 'materialists' of the SPGB think that 'matter', as interpreted by an elite 'few', will emancipate the workers.The workers will be left to 'emancipate' a few factories and offices, whilst the elite 'materialists' do the workers' thinking for them.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Yes, but you fed him whiskey and prozac. I just slap him down once and then ignore him

You haven't got the intellect to slap anyone down, ALB.You're merely a sad disappointment. And your ignorance is shocking, frankly.

[LBird]

ALB, I can praise Engels for some things, and have done, because Engels is a mixture of Marx's 'idealism-materialism' and bourgeois 'materialism'. I've said this before, and given from Engels quotes that are 'idealistic-materialistic' in Marx's sense.What's more, I've given quotes from Marx that support Engels' 'materialism', too.The real question for workers looking for an ideology in the 21st century, is whether to continue to follow 'materialism', which points in the direction of Engels-Kautsky-Lenin, or to attempt to make sense of Marx's very obscure writings, and formulate a philosophical approach commensurate with our purpose of building class consciousness and confidence in workers, and will provide us with a sound basis for the democratic control of the means of production.Materialism does not now, never has in the past, and cannot do so in the future.Unless you can explain how workers can control maths and physics, then you can't provide any direction for those workers looking for answers to how they can control the means of production.From what I can tell, the SPGB intends to let workers to run factories and offices, where they can produce widgets, but keep the production of ideas in the hands of a minority, the elite who have the confidence, ability, education and interest to do so.This is not socialism.Socialism is a society in which the majority have the confidence, ability, education and interest to produce, not only 'tangible objects', but also their own ideas.And our role as socialists is to participate in the organic development of our class.It's become clear to me that the SPGB does not share that aim.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Actually, Labriola and Engels seem to have been great mates. At any rate, there is no criticism of Engels in anything he wrote.

Except in the quote that I gave, about 'finality'.Engels thinks 'matter' is 'final'.Marx thinks 'material' is social production, which is historical, and thus can't be 'final'.At a philosophical level, Marx sees both 'consciousness and being' as being in an inescapable relationship, whereas Engels commits the mistake of reverting to bourgeois 'materialism', which separates 'being' from 'consciousness'.That's why 'materialists' regard 'material' as something outside of social consciousness, whereas Marx regarded 'material' as something related to the creativity of social consciousness.For Engels, 'matter' simply 'is', and so is not socio-historical, and cannot change or be changed.For Marx, 'matter' is a creation of a socio-historical relationship, and thus changes and can be changed.I'll leave you to consider which view of 'matter' is the Marxist one, and most suited to a class conscious proletariat intent on changing their world.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

LBird wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

The early parts of this text suggest a critique of materialismhttps://libcom.org/library/spgb-utopian-or-scientific-fallacy-overwhelming-minority

Can't get access to those documents, jdw.Do you have a pdf?

I have now added documents in other formats docx, odt and rtf. Hope this is easier to read.

I've had a very brief look at the rtf, jdw, and his main problem seems to be a failure to distinguish between Marx and Engels.That is, as far as I can tell after a quick browse, he, like the SPGB, still regards the being Marx-Engels as a unity.If you know differently, could you point me to the relevant passages?

[LBird]

For those seriously concerned with these issues, a few quotes from Antonio Labriola, ‘Historical Materialism’, pp. 95-246 in ‘Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History’, (first published 1896, for those who think that these are new debates, or simply made up by me).

Labriola, p. 113, wrote:

…there is no fact in history which is not preceded, accompanied and followed by determined forms of consciousness…

Labriola, p. 127, wrote:

…even the materialistic conception of history may be converted into a form of argumentation for a thesis and serve to make new fashions with the ancient prejudices… To guard against this, and especially to avoid the reappearance in an indirect and disguised fashion of any form whatever of finality…

Labriola, p. 165, wrote:

The boldest of these idealists were the extreme materialists…

http://www.amazon.com/Materialistic-Conception-History-Antonio-Labriola/dp/1596055189Labriola had no time for a ‘matter’ outside of a ‘consciousness’, or Engels’ talk of ‘in the final analysis’, which gives ‘matter’ the final say.He agreed with Marx’s views about social production, or ‘theory and practice’, which require human ideas and consciousness being actively employed on ‘inorganic nature’ to produce our world.This is nothing to do with Engels’ concerns with ‘matter’ and its alleged ‘final’ say, and the passivity of workers.

[Author]

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