[LBird]

ALB wrote:

By coincidence there's an article in the latest Socialist Standard (February) on Labriola written by one of our comrades from Italy and so with access to his writings in the original Italian including on "materialismo storico":http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2016/no-1338-february-2016/antonio-labriola-strict-marxist

Yeah, seems a pretty even-handed article.Labriola was especially correct on the need that:

Labriola, article p. 15, wrote:

‘We must insist on the expression ‘democratic socialisation of the means of production’…

But our argument seems to be about  the content of 'means': simply 'material' tools, or including scientific ideas and techniques.If 'means' includes Marx's 'theory and practice', then it's as much 'ideal' as it is 'material'.If 'means' are just 'tangible things', then the rocks are in charge of us.

[LBird]

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?

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

Is it fair to say Walsby rejected materialism as a SPGB member?

I'd be interested to know if he adopted Marx's 'theory and practice', jdw, as a replacement for Engels' 'materialism'. Many thinkers have suggested this need for a wariness of Engels, since Labriola in 1896.Do you have any links, that I could read up on Walsby's views?

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

AFAIK robbo is a non-member which leaves about 2% of total SPGB membership at most who have disagreed with you on this forum.

But 100% of active, posting, members, jdw!I notice that you haven't denied the 'materialist faith' in the god 'matter'!It might only take one poster to restore the democratic credentials of the SPGB, which have been so roughly dismissed by the, err… ahem… '2%'.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

And where does it say in the SPGB Object that 'there will be no democratic control in science' ?

No one here has ever said that, we have repeatedly said how scientific resources and institutions will be democratically managed. Universities would have to become democratic associations; learned societies would continue to exist and would be able to freely produce and distribute their journals to libraries which anyone would be able to access ; individuals would have the free time to study and learn.  the community would allocate resources to these activities: land, buildings, lab equipment, ICT.  Worlwide bodies would promote conferences and the distribution of ideas; the internet would be barrier free and all learned journals would be free to read online. etc.  The whole community would have access to the information they choose to access and the capacity to join the ongoing openm ended debate, which no-one would have the right or power to shut down.Of course, democracy means the right of minorites to try and become majorities, so that must include promotion and protection of heterodox views.

Whilst I agree with the above, YMS, I see that you've avoided my question about 'democratic control' of physics and maths, amongst other human social productive activites.If not us, 'who' or 'what' determines 'scientific truth'?The bourgeoisie claim to have a 'neutral', 'non-political' method which allows 'academics' or 'elite experts' an access to 'Truth', and that the rest of us do not have the ability now, or capability to develop along with our developing class consciousness, and so this 'Truth' must be produced by an elite.The bourgeoisie introduced this ruling class idea (and myth) when they began to achieve political and economic domination for their class. They call it 'being objective'.But we now know that that claim was a lie, and even their own physicists (those who bother to consider it, anyway, not the majority) admit that they do not have a 'neutral' method, but that their method is entirely 'human' (and thus, for us, socio-historical).Once the revolutionary proletariat realise that 'the bourgeoisie are making it up, and always have been', they'll realise that we, too, can make up our 'socially-objective' world, to our own purposes, and thus change it.The 'materialists' object to this, because 'materialism' is a bourgeois ideology, which fits elite political control, hence the history of Leninism and its philosophy, materialism.Materialists regard 'matter' as the determining, active side.Socialists regard human social productive activity as the 'active side': theory and practice.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Since we're being asked:

SPGB Object wrote:

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.

[my bold]Surely physics and maths come under 'means and instruments', YMS?Surely the 'interests of physics research' and the 'interests of truth' come under 'the interest of the whole community'?And where does it say in the SPGB Object that 'there will be no democratic control in science' ?

[LBird]

twc wrote:

Thus, we all would be in your debt if you will kindly point us to the source in the 49-volume Marx–Engels Collected Works in which Marx states categorically that truth can only be decided by universal voting on it.

Marx, Rules of The International, wrote:

Considering,That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves…

http://marx.eserver.org/1864-international/1864-rules.txtSorry, twc, but no matter how hard I search, I can't find the point where you claim that Marx 'states categorically' that 'Truth can only be decided by an elite, unelected minority'.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

… and an entire party aguing that 'socialism' means 'elite control of the means of production'.

 Untrue. You don't know what we mean by socialism. 

Oh, I do know what youse mean, Vin!I keep asking you to confirm that, for the SPGB, 'socialism' means 'the democratic control of the means of production', and youse all keep refusing to confirm that.The reason that you can't do that, is that the ideology employed by the SPGB is 'materialism', the same ideology employed by Lenin, and this ideology insists that 'matter' determines 'what it is'. Hence, no room for 'democratic control by workers' in determining just what 'matter' is.Only a party that argues for workers' power is interested in 'socialism'; a party imprisoned in 'materialism' can't do this, because 'materialism' denies the role of class consciousness in determining 'matter'.For 'materialists', 'matter' just 'is'. And we workers cannot argue with this assumption, and must obey those who 'know matter' just 'as it is'.The SPGB makes such an elitist claim, that they are 'materialists' who have a special insight into 'matter', and so the party denies the right and power of the class conscious proletariat to 'change its world', as defined by the proletariat.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

If i was interested in discovering more about what socialism means, this thread cannot be recommended, can it?

On the contrary, alan, it's enormously revealing!There's one worker arguing for the 'democratic control of the means of production'…… and an entire party aguing that 'socialism' means 'elite control of the means of production'.This is the SPGB, alan. Wake up. They've been doing this since 1904, just like Lenin, with the same ideology.I'm sure any workers reading, wanting to find out how they can collectively come to control the means of production, will draw the appropriate conclusions.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird running wild on yet another thread as people feed him.

ALB talking shite, as usual.Back to your ignorant 'materialism', bluffer.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

Why don't you answer my question? I have answered yours

I have answered your questions, Vin. And robbo's, YMS's, etc. You all keep ignoring what I write, and either make it up for yourselves, or constantly go back to what was asked and answered previously, like a mad merry-go-round.You tell me that you start from the assumption of workers' power, 'the democratic control of social production', and we'll discuss 'how'.Until then, you're going to have to continue with your present unexamined ideological belief, 'materialism', for which 'matter' determines what workers can know, rather than they themselves actively determining their world, and changing it from the mess we're in, now, under the bourgeoisie.Whilst an elite of 'physicists' determine 'physics', mate, we're fucked.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

By the way LBird it is dishonest to reproduce someone's post after you have altered it

By Christ, Vin, you're getting desperate now, aren't you?I 'bolded' your quote, and wrote 'my bold' after your named quote, so no-one could mistakenly think that the bolds were yours.Then, I repeated, for rhetorical effect, the flow of your words, but with the parts I altered in bold, so that no-one could miss the comparison of your statement with my statement.Anyway, you stick to elite control, Vin. You won't have democracy in truth production, will you?Why not just openly announce your opposition to workers' democratic control of the means of production?And you and robbo can continue to abase yourselves before bourgeois academics, and tell them that you're 'not worthy' of criticising academics.And you call this abject grovelling before the bourgeoisie, 'socialism'?It's not what I mean by 'socialism', Vin.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

Answer the questions put to you? Are you suggesting that socialism is only possible when we all understand every bit of every discipline. History, physics, maths, biological sciences etcYou ARE actually saying this, are you not?

[my bold]Answer the questions put to you? Are you suggesting that socialism is only possible when only an elite understands only their bit of separated disciplines. History, physics, maths, biological sciences etcYou ARE actually saying this, are you not?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Ahem wrote:

The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man's own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have, hitherto, governed history,pass under the control of man himself.

So, if 'man' (sic, actually 'humanity') has 'control', then…… if 'man' is defined (as the bourgeoisie define) as an 'individual' or as an 'elite', then it means either 'individual control' or 'elite control'.However, if one is not a bourgeois ideologist, but looks to Marx, then 'humanity' means all humanity (after a successful proletarian revolution), and so this 'control' is 'under the democratic control of all' of us.That is, we can vote upon 'laws of nature', 'scientific knowledge', 'truths', maths, physics, logic, etc., etc.Materialists deny this, they define 'man', the 'active side', as a person or group who have a special consciousness/education/genius/interest/ability, which gives them, and them alone, access to 'material conditions'.Socialists, on the other hand, believe that 'material conditions' can only be defined by the class conscious proletariat, and not by a Leninist elite who claim to 'know matter'. For the class conscious proletariat, who organise on the basis of democratic controls, only a vote can suffice when declaring 'definitions'.'Definitions' are socio-historical, and humanity has the power to change its definitions, and so has the power to change 'material circumstances'.Materialists merely wish to 'interpret' what 'matter is' for a passive, disorganised, uninterested, uneducated, disabled, unwashed mass – the 'materialists' will not allow a vote upon 'matter'.Materialists have an 'elite' consciousness – ask them, any interested workers reading this.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

…democracy is … not about establishing Truth…

Once more, robbo can't be any clearer.He holds to an ideology that claims that 'Truth' is not established by democracy.It doesn't take much thinking about his ideological claim, that 'democracy is not about establishing the Truth' (which is also a claim that bourgeois ideology makes), to start to wonder, if not the democratic proletariat, then just who does 'establish the Truth'?From logic alone, we Democratic Communists must assume that robbo has in mind an 'elite' who are to 'establish the Truth'.Those who know the events of the 20th century, and are aware of regimes that claimed to be 'socialist', but also refused to allow workers to actively participate in the production of truth, also refused to allow workers to participate in politics, or in the distribution of social production… in fact, those regimes, which also claimed that 'Truth is not established by democracy', weren't 'socialist' at all.Only the class conscious proletariat, building towards a socialism in which they will themselves determine production, can be the source of any claims for 'truths'.Whilst workers look to any persons or organisations which clearly deny the active role of the revolutionary proletariat in all areas of social production, then those workers will be lied to and fooled. The result will be 'expert rule', by an 'elite' which claims to have a 'special consciousness', a consciousness which is denied to the 'thick working class'.This is the fruit of 'materialism'. Materialism claims that the 'material' ('matter' or 'physical') speaks alone to a 'special elite' (but doesn't speak to workers, who are too poorly educated, or even have no interest, to participate), and so, from the very outset, denies the possibility of democracy in the means of production. For materialists, 'matter' is the 'active side', and so workers cannot vote upon what 'matter' actually 'is'. The materialists argue that 'matter just is', and they claim that they (and they alone) 'know' matter, because they have a non-political method which allows elite minorities to access 'matter', outside of considerations of socio-historical consciousness, or the wishes or purposes of the proletariat.They claim physics is non-political. This is a bourgeois claim, and its emergence can be located in history.This claim leads to the ideological belief that 'Truth' is outside of any considerations of social consciousness, and so outside issues of democracy.Beware, any workers reading, an elite plans openly to deny democracy in the means of production: this elite actually says so, and you should take their open claims seriously.

[Author]

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