[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.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

It's not called idealism-materialism, the correct term is Underpantism-Struddlism (as Marx wrote in his seminal text "Materialism, my Arse").  Only bourgeois deviationists, led by Engels in his viscious text "Why I love Oxymorons" use the term Idealism-Materialism.

That's just about your level, YMS.Philosophical debate is a closed book to 'materialists'.And democracy certainly is off your agenda, since you think that you can tell workers that 'matter is the active side', and they have to obey an elite with access to 'matter'.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Marx himself defines what he means by "means of production" in section 1 on "The Labour Process or the Production of Use Values" of  Chapter 7 of Capital but he had already used the term in the second paragraph of Capital. Also in the first chapter, there's his well known reference to socialism/communism as "a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common,"Here's the key passage from that section (the whole section is worth reading for its clarity):

Quote:

The elementary factors of the labour-process are 1, the personal activity of man, i.e., work itself, 2, the subject of that work, and 3, its instruments.The soil (and this, economically speaking, includes water) in the virgin state in which it supplies man with necessaries or the means of subsistence ready to hand, exists independently of him, and is the universal subject of human labour. All those things which labour merely separates from immediate connexion with their environment, are subjects of labour spontaneously provided by Nature. Such are fish which we catch and take from their element, water, timber which we fell in the virgin forest, and ores which we extract from their veins. If, on the other hand, the subject of labour has, so to say, been filtered through previous labour, we call it raw material; such is ore already extracted and ready for washing. All raw material is the subject of labour, but not every subject of labour is raw material: it can only become so, after it has undergone some alteration by means of labour.An instrument of labour is a thing, or a complex of things, which the labourer interposes between himself and the subject of his labour, and which serves as the conductor of his activity. He makes use of the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties of some substances in order to make other substances subservient to his aims. [2] Leaving out of consideration such ready-made means of subsistence as fruits, in gathering which a man’s own limbs serve as the instruments of his labour, the first thing of which the labourer possesses himself is not the subject of labour but its instrument. Thus Nature becomes one of the organs of his activity, one that he annexes to his own bodily organs, adding stature to himself in spite of the Bible. As the earth is his original larder, so too it is his original tool house. It supplies him, for instance, with stones for throwing, grinding, pressing, cutting, &c. The earth itself is an instrument of labour, but when used as such in agriculture implies a whole series of other instruments and a comparatively high development of labour.  No sooner does labour undergo the least development, than it requires specially prepared instruments. Thus in the oldest caves we find stone implements and weapons. In the earliest period of human history domesticated animals, i.e., animals which have been bred for the purpose, and have undergone modifications by means of labour, play the chief part as instruments of labour along with specially prepared stones, wood, bones, and shells. The use and fabrication of instruments of labour, although existing in the germ among certain species of animals, is specifically characteristic of the human labour-process, and Franklin therefore defines man as a tool-making animal. Relics of bygone instruments of labour possess the same importance for the investigation of extinct economic forms of society, as do fossil bones for the determination of extinct species of animals. It is not the articles made, but how they are made, and by what instruments, that enables us to distinguish different economic epochs. Instruments of labour not only supply a standard of the degree of development to which human labour has attained, but they are also indicators of the social conditions under which that labour is carried on. Among the instruments of labour, those of a mechanical nature, which, taken as a whole, we may call the bone and muscles of production, offer much more decided characteristics of a given epoch of production, than those which, like pipes, tubs, baskets, jars, &c., serve only to hold the materials for labour, which latter class, we may in a general way, call the vascular system of production. The latter first begins to play an important part in the chemical industries.In a wider sense we may include among the instruments of labour, in addition to those things that are used for directly transferring labour to its subject, and which therefore, in one way or another, serve as conductors of activity, all such objects as are necessary for carrying on the labour-process. These do not enter directly into the process, but without them it is either impossible for it to take place at all, or possible only to a partial extent. Once more we find the earth to be a universal instrument of this sort, for it furnishes a locus standi to the labourer and a field of employment for his activity. Among instruments that are the result of previous labour and also belong to this class, we find workshops, canals, roads, and so forth.In the labour-process, therefore, man’s activity, with the help of the instruments of labour, effects an alteration, designed from the commencement, in the material worked upon. The process disappears in the product, the latter is a use-value, Nature’s material adapted by a change of form to the wants of man. Labour has incorporated itself with its subject: the former is materialised, the latter transformed. That which in the labourer appeared as movement, now appears in the product as a fixed quality without motion. The blacksmith forges and the product is a forging. If we examine the whole process from the point of view of its result, the product, it is plain that both the instruments and the subject of labour, are means of production, and that the labour itself is productive labour.

Yes, Marx includes both ideas and tangible things. He's talking about 'theory and practice', not 'matter'. He's describing social activites by humans, not 'active matter'.This is a text about 'idealism-materialism', not Engels' bourgeois 'materialism'.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

You can get a pocket paperback here if you want it in printhttp://www.lulu.com/shop/harold-walsby/spgb-utopian-or-scientific/paperback/product-21092281.html

I was going to order the book to read, jdw, but it doesn't seem to be available in the usual sources.Have you got an ISBN?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Labriola will have meant by "means of production" what nearly everybody else did and still does, i.e. the materials that originally came from nature, the machines and tools used to fashion these into useful things, and the buildings where this takes place. Actually, our Object, drawn up in 1904, is even more precise by distinguishing between "means of production" and "instruments of production", i.e between materials from nature ("means") and the human-made machines and constructions ("instruments"):

Quote:

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

Whilst I would class 'social products' in the 'means of production' (as would Marx), if Labriola didn't, then he was wrong. That would be 'materialism', the ideology of Engels.But, you claim that the SPGB also includes 'instruments' within the 'democratic' purview.Does 'instruments' include maths and physics, are are you still employing Engels' 'materialism', which defines 'stuff' as 'material', rather than both social products, thoughts and stuff.We've had some initial discussions before on this issue of 'definition', when we spoke of Dietzgen: for him, as for Marx, the ideal and the material had equal weight.So, the problem once more is whether one is an Engelsian 'materialist' (who defines, like you, 'production' as about 'machines, tools, buildings, constructions', ie. 'tangible matter') or if one is a Marxist 'idealist-materialist' (who defines, like me, 'production' as  including social ideas as well as your list).I suggest that unless we define what 'means' include (either 'material' or 'ideal-material'), then we will talk at cross-purposes.I further suggest that Marx was discussing 'social production', not 'matter'. The latter is Engels' misunderstanding.'Social production' clearly includes 'ideas' (and so, maths and physics).

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

I may have suggested Walford http://gwiep.net/wp/?page_id=95

Thanks for the link, comrade.I'll have a read later, busy for the next few hours.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

 Do you have any links, that I could read up on Walsby's views?

I referred you to his work a long time ago

But apparently you're keeping hold of your ball this time, eh, Vin?Or you could provide a link, unless it's now your personal property, and you're taking it home, so the naughty kid can't play with it, too.

[Author]

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