[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.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

Why don't you answer our questions?I believe Robbo has asked you over and over again. Will the whole world vote on advanced physics, mathematics, chemestry? Which will require us all to fully understand all knowledgeWill every adult human be capable of carrying out a complex brain operation?If we vote that the moon is static will that become the truth?Here is where you either disappear of come out with personal slander

I've answered your questions many times, and since you refuse to accept my answers, I've stopped giving them. I'll leave that to others who wish to repeat what I've already said, on other threads, if they wish.I'm more interested in discussing with those members and followers of the SPGB, who are committed to the democratic control of the means of production, how this will apply to, for example, the social production of academia: the education system and all its disciplines, including the most ideologically powerful for the bourgeoisie, physics and maths. Those are a central pillar of the non-democratic ideology of the bourgeoisie, together with 'individualism' and 'the free market'.It seems pointless to try to discuss 'democracy' with those who start from the presumption that 'democracy is not required' or 'democracy is not possible'.My starting point is the necessity for workers' democratic control of the means of production: I define this as 'socialism'.Youse don't, and you've made that very clear, so I've learnt to ignore your pretended requests for answers.

[LBird]

A number of comrades have tried to convince me that the SPGB is not Leninist, and have been at pains to persuade me that the SPGB really is committed to "workers' democratic control of the means of production", and so the SPGB is 'socialist' in the sense that it claims to be.But, as I keep asking those well-meaning comrades, can't they read what is being written, by those opposed workers' democracy, on this site?Here, once more:

robbo203 wrote:

Communist democracy will apply not to the production of scientific "truth"…

I really don't understand how those comrades who are defending the SPGB can interpret this in any other way than a denial of workers' control, that is, a denial of democracy within the means of production.Apparently, for those within the SPGB who agree with robbo, the social production of scientific knowledge and social truths will be in the hands of a self-selected elite. They keep saying this, so I take them at their word, and I'm not sure why other comrades are not taking them at their word.To me, this is not any form of 'socialism', but simply a retread of Leninism, where an elite with a 'special consciousness' (which by their definition is not available to all workers, otherwise they'd agree to workers' democratic control) tell the 'unconscious masses' what the 'Truth' is.robbo and others keep saying this, and I can't see how this is any form of socialism. For them, 'socialism' seems to be about workers running factories, but not academia.Once again, why the SPGB doesn't disown this anti-democratic nonsense, beats me. I can only assume, in the absence of a rebuttal by the SPGB, that the 'official line' of the SPGB is this non-democratic version of 'socialism', which we workers have seen and experienced so often before, either in the Eastern Bloc or in the Trotskyist parties of the West.

[LBird]

Yes, twc, we've discussed Marx's introduction in the past.But it doesn't answer our present question, about the significant differences between Marx's ideas and Engels' ideas.To do that, we'd have to compare their respective ideas, not just quote-monger.I've said that before, too, but the faithful like to quote from the Good Book, and circumvent difficult questions.It's the mark of a cult. Cults do not like their followers critically discussing their alleged 'founders'. Another aspect of Leninism, eh?

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

It does not mention 'democratic control' by the direct producers.

 I wouldn't agree with him if he did. It will be Democratic control by all in communismWould you read our Object and D of P and raise criticisms of them instead of strawmen  

[my bold]So, Vin, would 'all' democratically control maths, physics, etc.?It's a simple question – will 'all' control the production of 'truth'?

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

Haha thought this might happen. Is Socialism Utopian and Scientific part of a larger work? The German Ideology? Should the SPGB reprint as a pamphlet Socialism Utopian and Scientific? Lbird?

I think that the SPGB should discuss seriously the significant differences between Engels' 'materialism' and Marx's 'theory and practice'.Unless this is done, and thus the significant differences openly being displayed to all workers, for them to discuss, then the erroneous assumption that there was a being called 'Marx-Engels' at work, will continue to be propagated.The being 'Marx-Engels' was of course created by Engels, and thus started the tradition that ended up with 'Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin-Mao' composite being, an unimpeachable authority for workers, that workers cannot criticise and reject.I ask you, jdw, why should a text authored by Engels, which has on the cover Engels' name alone, be simply assumed to be in concert with Marx's ideas?Why is any attempt to discuss the issue subject to abuse? What have those faithful to 'Marx-Engels' got to hide?Only if workers can vote upon this issue, of the question of whether there are significant differences between the ideas of Engels and the ideas of Marx, can the issue be resolved.Let's face it, not many SPGB members have actually read both Engels and Marx (probably neither, mostly), and simply take these issues on trust, from 'someone' who has read them (allegedly) and says that 'Marx-Engels' is a unity.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Yes, Socialism Utopian and Scientific is the best introduction to "Marxist" ideas. Better in fact than the more widely-read Communist Manifesto.  Can be found here:https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm

No, ALB, Socialism Utopian and Scientific is the best introduction to "Engelsist" ideas.Unless workers are aware of the substantial differences between Marx, and the trajectory Engels-Kautsky-2nd International-Lenin, then they won't understand the importance of workers' conscious self-activity in the building of our socialism, that is, the democratic control of the means of production.'Production' includes all socially-produced ideas, not just 'factory widgets'.So, 'truth' must be consciously built by the direct producers.Any other formulation will lead (because it always has) to elite Leninist control of science, maths, physics, etc.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

So, not the direct producers, except that the direct producers are the whole of society.

So, whether we use the terms "direct producers" or "the whole of society", do you agree that the social production of scientific knowledge, maths, physics, logic and reason, should be under the democratic control of [insert approriate term here]?That is, we vote upon 'truth'.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

Scientific socialism is democratic control.Scientific socialism is common ownership.By far the best work on this is Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels or if you fancy something longer The German Ideology by Marx.

I think that it's a mistake to recommend Engels' book, jdw.It does not mention 'democratic control' by the direct producers.In fact, it's one of the sources of Engels' 'materialism', and is a serious departure from Marx's concerns about workers actively building their own socialism.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

The problem is 'facts' can't be voted upon, 

 lol ha ha ha haThe fact is facts can be voted on!! Ha ha ha lol Hilarious What about your factsIs it a fact that facts can be voted on? Who voted on this fact?he he 

It's a surprise to me, Vin, that you find "Workers' Democracy" a 'hilarious' prospect. That's just what the bourgeoisie say, in 'fact'.

[Author]

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