[LBird]

ALB wrote:

There is no logical reason why a an exchange economy composed entirely of independent producers owning their own instruments of production could not have existed (and so given rise that way  to the concept of such a society). It's just that, as a matter of historical fact, no such society ever did exist.  On the other hand,  capitalism, as an exchange economy with wage-labour, exists as well as the concept of capitalism.

[my bold]Oh dear, ALB.You seem to have reverted to the bourgeois method of quoting 'facts' and 'existence' as the basis of 'theories'. That is induction.I'm not sure if you can see the problem here, but if you're saying that Marx's theory of the 'capitalist mode of production' simply reflects an 'existing capitalism', you're not following Marx's method.If you are saying that Marx's concept comes from 'existence', then who (and how) is that determined? It seems that the claim that it merely reflects a 'reality' is also the basis for Dave's claims, too.The notion that 'theories' are based upon 'facts' is the bourgeois method, and lends itself to 'experts' telling us that their 'theories' are based upon 'facts', and so can't be argued with.The problem is 'facts' can't be voted upon, and unless we espouse a democratic method, then we can't be in control. The 'facts' are in control (and thus, those specialists who can tell us 'the facts'), and workers remain powerless (and thus, the elite remains powerful).

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Oh dear. I agree with LBird or vice versa (don't know which is worse).

I'd like to regard it as us both agreeing with Marx, ALB, and us both disagreeing with Engels.For that is what is at stake, here.Either a 'mode of production' (itself a Marxian concept) based upon 'simple commodity production' existed prior to Marx's explanatory construction, or it did not.'Materialists', following Engels, regard 'concepts' as reflections of reality. So, for them, for Marx to merely think and speak of a 'concept', he must have got it from 'reality'. So, for materialists, it did exist.You (thank god) are following Marx's method of 'theory and practice', which assumes critical thought and concept formation prior to any engagement with 'reality'. So, it is an explanatory concept, whose purpose is to explain the capitalist mode of production.

[LBird]

Moderator, how can the issue of Engels' materialism not be relevant to the materialist myth of a 'simple commodity mode of production'?Even Dave B, who disagrees with me, can see the relevance of it to a debate about 'simple commodity production'.In fact, it's the most relevant thing that's been said on this thread for (simply) ages!

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Hi LBird,With reference to your post #122 above. The way I see it education is key. I'm not talking about reading the complete works of Marx, who as you point out is very vague and far from user friendly.The education I refer to is the stuff we can all relate to, from school onwards. My experience of education once I got to comprehensive level was one of boredom and frustration. In contrast education in a socialist society would be designed to be stimulating and fun. Education can and should be enjoyable. But I'm straying off my point slightly, so I'll get right to it.Wouldn't education within a socialist society be vastly different from today? Pupils would be encouraged to enjoy learning and be allowed to explore and develop at their own pace. As such I see education within socialism as being a lifelong habit for most people, should they desire it. This could mean, in theory, a highly educated global population capable of a great deal of flexibility and creativity.

Hiya, SP!You've had enough conversations with me to know that I agree entirely with what you've written above: it reflects my own experience of schools, universities, teachers, academics and Marx, and my hopes for a future socialist society.If you wish to explore these issues further, please start another thread, because I'll be banned for answering you, otherwise.

SP wrote:

Given such a scenario, I see the likely hood of social academic ideas falling into the hands of an elite, very unlikely.The only way I see an elite controlling the production of social academic ideas within a socialist society, would be from the start. If such a scenario were to take place during the build up to a socialist/communist revolution, it wouldn't be the socialism I envisage. It would be a technocracy.

Yes, if from the start there were people pretending to be 'socialists', who in reality did not want workers' power expressed through Workers' Councils, which would democratically control all social production, including scientific knowledge, then there would be an undemocratic, elite expert, 'technocracy', based upon a control by 'scientific' experts in physics, maths, politics and academia, who would see themselves, and not workers, as the 'active side'.

SP wrote:

In all my years of exposure to the SPGB/WSM, as a teenage sympathiser, later a member and back to a sympathiser, I've never got the impression a technocracy was on the agenda.

That belief of yours is very surprising, SP, because, on this site, the 'technocratic agenda' is the only one that is expressed.The other terms for 'technocratic agenda' are, of course, 'Materialism' and 'Leninism'.Perhaps you can point me to the threads (or even single posts) which express agreement with Marx's views about only the working class being able to liberate itself. After all, there must be some basis to your 'impression' since your teenage years.Perhaps there are parts of the SPGB that agree with Democratic Communism, but since my exposure is only to its website here, I've never heard those 'anti-technocratic' views expressed. I've only read of support for Engels' 'materialism' (ie., elite 'practice and theory'), which is a very different ideology to Marx's 'idealism-materialism' (ie., democratic 'theory and practice').

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

Here in Chapter Thirty-Two we find Karl returning to his old chapter one tricks again; and dreaming and theorising about something that never existed, or flourished for that matterKarl Marx. Capital Volume OneChapter Thirty-Two: Historical Tendency of Capitalist AccumulationOf course, this petty mode of production exists also under slavery, serfdom, and other states of dependence. But it flourishes, it lets loose its whole energy, it attains its adequate classical form, only where the labourer is the private owner of his own means of labour set in action by himself: the peasant of the land which he cultivates, the artisan of the tool which he handles as a virtuoso. This mode of production…..https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm

I've made this point myself many times in our debates, Dave.Charlie (and even more so, Fred) provided textual support for both sides of this debate: Marx through seemingly loose usage (Fred through ignorance).That's why the debate cannot be satisfactorily concluded by the method of exegesis of religious texts, but only through contemporary debate between workers about the aims and purposes of the revolutionary proletariat, that is, their own 'theory and practice'.If one wants workers to control the means of production, including the social production of scientific knowledge and truth, by democratic means, than one can find support in Marx (and to a lesser extent, in Engels).If one wants to keep workers' mucky hands out of the glorious, shiny 'Truth' that is the result of bourgeois physics and maths, then one can find support for that, too (a little in Marx, but mostly in Engels).Personally, since Einstein, I think that it's clear that Marx was onto something, with his notions of the revolutionary overturning of the backward bourgeoisie by the 'theory and practice' of the proletariat.That's why bourgeois physics is in such a mess: their physicists are still trying to avoid the political and philosophical implications of 'relativity', and are still searching for an 'individual, existentialist' basis to their work, and are ignoring the social history of science, and the emergence of 'modern science' and its 'methods' with the triumph of the bourgeoisie in the 17th century.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

To L Bird The alleged counter argument is simple enough. All the early Marxists from and including Fred and Gabrielle onwards misunderstood, deliberately or otherwise, Karl. They were in that respect all Engelists; I asked them the question as to whether Fred was a liar or a fool and they refused to give me an answer. So what we appear to have is Karl be praised as a genius by a host of people who didn’t understand him. One could ask who Karl would have ever been without this early pre modernist fan base. Then after almost one hundred years in the dark ages of Marxist theory we become enlightened by some ‘German professors’ from the bourgeois intelligentsia in the 1970’s’.

Yes, all the early so-called 'Marxists' (including the 'French Marxists' that Marx himself complained about) did not understand Marx's ideas.The reason for this is that Marx's ideas are poorly expressed, unfamiliar to bourgeois science, and only partially worked out. Any worker reading Marx's works soon discovers this for themself: Marx is obscure, appears to contradict 'materialism' and bourgeois physics, and often appears to contradict himself.So, we workers now can see that Fred, Kautsky and the 2nd International were a bunch of bourgeois bluffers, who were never going to agree to workers democratically controlling production, and so had to 're-interpret' Marx's Democratic Communism, which insisted that only workers could liberate themselves, employing democratic methods, and so ditch Marx's 'theory and practice' and return to 19th century bourgeois positivist science, that insisted that elite experts could 'know nature' by employing a 'neutral method' which did not require a vote: ie., 'individual genius practice and theory'. After all, they can't have workers voting against Newton, can they?So, Fred was neither a liar nor a fool, but a follower of bourgeois ideology. Since they have to have 'geniuses', they had to praise Charlie as one.Charlie, of course, wasn't a genius, but a man who seems to have had some insights that are of some use to the revolutionary, class conscious, proletariat.It's not some '1970s German professors' who are the source of this view, but many thoughtful workers, who, since the late 19th century, have continued to ask why workers can't take democratic control of production, according to so-called 'Marxists', but have to defer to an elite of a experts, political and scientific.I know where you and many others in the SPGB are situated in this debate, Dave.Youse are 'Engelsist Materialists', and so won't have workers deciding upon maths and physics, but instead allege that maths and physics 'reflects reality', and so can be done by an elite, without the active intervention of the revolutionary proletariat.This latter is neither pre-modernism (bourgeois materialism) nor post-modernism (academics and professors), Dave, but Democratic Communism, critically informed by some of Marx's ideas.Democratic Communism alone provides a theoretical basis for Workers' Control of the means of production. Only the class conscious working class can decide 'truth' for itself, for its own purposes.Materialism will lead to Leninism, the control of production by an elite, for the elite, non-democratic purposes of that elite, in which workers at best will control 'factory widget production', but not the production of social academic ideas, scientific knowledge and their own 'truth'.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

The other side of the argument for balance is as below; …. 

Here are the two arguments, Dave.Marx was using his usual method of 'theory and practice': that is, he theorised (produced concepts), and then applied those newly created concepts to the practice of capitalism, to help to explain what capitalism was.Thus, there is no need for a 'pre-existing' or 'real' 'small commodity mode', because the 'small commodity mode' is an explanatory concept, introduced by Marx to help explain to workers how a more complex capitalism worked.This view is only a problem for those who follow, in contrast, Engels' materialist views, of 'practice and theory': that is, the 'material' world speaks to a passive observer through their (usually individual) practice, and the 'theory' emerges from the 'reality'.So, for Engelsists, to even think of a theory requires that the 'concepts' must already exist, in the real world. Thus, any talk by Marx of 'simple commodity production' must reflect an existing reality. Then, it's a short step to searching for 'empirical evidence' of that mode, which, from their ideological perspective, must exist 'out there' in real history.To sum up:Marx intoduces a concept, and then uses it to explain 'what is out there' – theory and practice.Engels passively examines 'what is out there', and allows the concept to emerge as a reflection of reality, which is thus already there to be empirically examined – practice and theory.These are the two conflicting arguments at the root of the debate about the 'historical existence or otherwise' of a 'simple commodity mode of production'.Marxists say 'No, it's a simplified model of capitalism, to help explain'.Engelsists (and thus Leninists) say 'Yes, it must have existed historically, because that's how Marx came up with the theory of it'.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

…L. Bird like ideology that is unaffected by the material world.

Dave, you haven't got a clue, mate.Marx argued that 'social theory and practice' changes the 'material world'.It's Engels, who you follow, who thought that 'ideology' is changed 'by the material world'.Humans are the 'active side', not 'matter'.Keep me out of your laughably ignorant debates, about 'the material world affecting ideology'.Marx would weep, that people calling themselves 'Marxists' would believe in the power of 'matter'.And because 'matter' is not the 'active side', you, like all so-called 'materialists', will deny the power of the proletariat to consciously change their world by democratic means, and will substitute an elite of experts, like you, who will explain to the dumb workers 'what matter says' when 'matter' is 'affecting' workers' 'ideology'.How the rest of you can't see this link between 'materialism' and 'Leninism' beats me. And how you think that class conscious workers will look to the SPGB for inspiration, when you're all saying the same thing, "No to workers' control, Yes to the god 'matter' ", is just as mysterious.Anyway, Dave, back to your materialist mud-pies, eh?

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

LBird's views on the SPGB which he expressed i think can be treated with scepticalism since now with his own answer it is not based on a investigation or a full awareness of the history or practice of the SPGB but limited to the responses of just a few online members. His accusations that we are Leninists can be dismissed as founded upon lack of knowledge and study…

I think that you severely underestimate the support for my criticism, alan, based on two factors:1. the continued statements of all the members/supporters of the SPGB who post here (including you, even though you still seem to be unaware of it, even given your openly stated lack of knowledge), and all those who read and fail to post against, that they will not have workers' democracy in the means of production; and2. my far wider reading and understanding of the philosophical links between Engels, the 2nd International, Kautsky, Lenin and the SPGB. All those listed have rejected Marx's views of the need for discussion about socio-historical production, in favour of a focus upon a timeless, asocial 'matter', which emerged from Engels' ignorant adoption of bourgeois materialism.Whereas the others here are using Leninism as a mere term of ignorant abuse (even 'Maoism', from twc!), I'm using it as a term of political and philosophical analysis. As you've pointed out, I don't think that the SPGB is a carbon copy of Trots like the SWP, because of its democratic structure (unlike the SWP), but that, given your ignorant adoption of Engels' materialism, if the SPGB gets anywhere near power, it will ditch the 'democratic facade' of 'socialism=workers' power', and, like the Bolsheviks, who too pretended to be a 'workers' party', the underlying philosophical materialism will come to the fore. So, my views of the SPGB are becoming ever more critical.One only has to read this thread, to get a feel for the utter hatred of any mention of workers' democracy amongst my opponents.

ajj wrote:

…just as my opinion upon this philosophical debate cannot be treated the same as those with wider understanding…

You said it, alan.I'm one of those workers with 'wider understanding' of the socio-historical development of Engels' materialism and Leninist politics, and what I read here scares the shit out of me.They might as well call me a 'Fascist', 'devil-worshipper', 'witch', 'bogeyman'… I'm beginning to wonder why you even associate with such politically dangerous people, who openly state they will not have workers' democracy… to the point, they never even mention 'democracy' in their arguments about power, even without the term "workers' ".They trust an elite, and their politics will match their philosophy.Materialism is an ideology of an elite, which emerged with the bourgeoisie, and which suits their ruling class purposes, not those purposes of the organised, class conscious, revolutionary, democratic proletariat.PS. this debate puts into perspective the support for 'parliament' amongst the SPGB members, who don't seem to think that parliament will self-disband in the face of workers' councils. The SPGB seems to think the electoral and organisational structures of parliament will survive the blossoming of workers' power.Materialism would be a perfect accompaniment to 'parliamentary power'. Both will deny wider workers' power, in science and in politics.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

You can vote till your blue in the face, but someone has to actually make the car.

Here we see, once again, YMS's continuing tactice to prevent any advance in our discussions. I can only presume that, with it being employed so often, that it is a deliberate obfuscating tactic.We'll state 'the bleedin' obvious', once again, after so many times, just for those unwary workers who are reading, and are confused by YMS's ideological materialism.Marx argues that our method is 'theory and practice': that we determine, by prior ideas, what our purposes and aims are, then put those ideas into practice, by changing inorganic nature into organic nature. We can only know if our social process of production has been a success, when we decide it has been a success.So, we decide, for example, that we want 'an integrated free transport system' alone, and not 'individual cars' (it could be otherwise, of course, but this assumption will suffice for this example).So, our 'purpose' (free transport for all, within the environmental constraints of our planet) is made plain in our plan, an 'idea', freely chosen by democracy.We then put our plan into action, by democratically producing our product, 'an integrated free transport system'. This is our object, created by our labour upon inorganic nature.When constructed, though, we might think that it now doesn't realise our purposes, and decide to change the plan, and retry. Only we can decide ourselves, by a democratic vote, whether the IFTS suits our purposes.Thus, we, and we alone, will have voted into existence our IFTS, our object, our creation.We can now see that YMS, having had all this explained many times, and pretending not to remember, tries to pretend that workers' democracy is a form of idealism, and that democratic production is 'things out of nowhere'.Be wary, any workers reading, the materialists constantly do this, because they cannot answer the question 'If not workers, who?', when asked about production.They pretend that any Democratic Communist that espouses Marx's democratic method of 'theory and practice' is an 'Idealist', which for them plays the role of 'The Bogey Man'. They got this dichotomy from Engels, and I've given the pamphlet and page number many times.NB. YMS will now plead ignorance, and deny everything that has been said, time and again, on these threads, about democratic production.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Just as you cannot vote a car into existence, you cannot vote scientific knowledge into existence.

What an odd statement to make – of course we can.You heard it first here, workers!The SPGB intend to deny you the right to decide whether to vote cars for individuals into existence, or to vote an integrated free transport system into existence!Or, a bit of both, Or, neither.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

Get robbo to give a detailed plan of socialism

Well the nearest a socialist model to my knowledge he has posted has been thishttps://libcom.org/files/CommonVoice3.pdfSo feel free to critique the "democratic control" it proclaims …i am sure he would be interested in where you find it in error or where his socialist ideas are badly expressed.  Fire away your broadside. LBird…you have the first shot…then Robbo can return fire…

I think that you miss my point, alan.We can't offer detailed plans of democratic production – my point was, anything that robbo argues about 'widgets' can be argued about 'knowledge'.That is, academia is much the same as a factory or office.All must produce for the purposes of the producers: purposes, of course, in a society which claims to be democratic, as I presume socialist society will, can only be 'democratic purposes'.The real debate, here, is not 'the future', but why some argue 'now' that 'knowledge' is an elite product, and so can't be voted upon.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I did try one time to study philosophy but it did make my head sore. But who i tried to read was Dietzgen…"the workers philosopher" as i think Marx called him on one of his better days when discussing people and Pannekoek's summaries of him. 

Quote:

“Mind is as real as the tangible table…Mind is material and things are mental. Mind and material are real only in their interrelations”

As he did in actual politics, blurring the differences between socialists and anarchists , his philosophy tried to join together ideas and matter and end a false dichotomy dissolve things into one big giant melting monism pot…So …perhaps i can offer an alternative to your challenge here 

Quote:

If I could quote just one example of a member saying 'I agree with Marx and not Engels', I would revise my views.

"I agree with Dietzgen…and by extension, Pannekoek…rather  than either Marx or Engels" 

You should ask me for help, alan. To me, that's the whole point of being a Communist – to help other workers to develop, by shortening the time it takes for them to achieve one's own depth of knowledge, which took so long, so that we all get up to the same speed as fast as possible.On Dietzgen: he's spot on about looking to 'interrelations', rather than mind and matter as 'separate' things.But… his big failure is to look to 'induction': this, in simple terms, means 'practice and theory'.This is a contradiction: 'induction' implies starting from 'matter' (outside of 'mind'), rather than mind and matter in their socio-historical 'interrelations'.So, he ends the 'false dichotomy', on the one hand, and then introduces a 'false dichotomy', on the other.Read Dietgen further, in the light of my comments, and ask me further questions, if necessary (on a new thread, I think).

[LBird]

ajj wrote:

…he fails to understand totally why the SPGB relegates so much of the actual mechanisms of how socialism works to the future and to the people living in socialism…

So, why is the very same argument, that I've made before, not valid?

Quote:

…alan fails to understand totally why LBird relegates so much of the actual mechanisms of how democratic science works to the future and to the people living in socialism…

What's good for the SPGB goose is good for the LBird gander!Get robbo to give a detailed plan of socialism, and I'll take the same plan, and add 'democratic science' every time he mentions 'democratic production'. Widgets and knowledge are of the same order: products produced by society.Unless, he doesn't actually mention 'democratic control of the means of production'…

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

When he explained his ideas on materialism and ideal-materialism they were valid for all i know but when he was asked how ideas were to be democratically controlled and asked just how that control of scientific ideas be accomplished then he dug himself into a hole and instead of stopping digging, he dug deeper.

This is completely untrue, alan.I've addressed the issue time and again, but robbo refuses to accept my answer, and so keeps asking the same questions, as if by doing so, and knowing I won't bother to keep saying the same thing, he hopes to gain credibility for his allegation that I can't answer.And what happens? You take his allegations at face value! What a surprise!

ajj wrote:

For me personally as i said, this philosophical exchange is beyond my ken…

But robbo's unfounded allegations are not 'beyond your ken', alan. You've just said so.So, why are my arguments 'beyond your ken', but robbo's are 'within your ken'?

ajj wrote:

No, LBIrd isn't a Leninist but he fails to understand totally why the SPGB relegates so much of the actual mechanisms of how socialism works to the future and to the people living in socialism….a sign that we are innocent of his charge of being an elite…Even if we were a democratically elected elite we abdicate our responsibilities of rule.

No, alan, I don't 'fail to understand'. You 'fail to understand' – you keep saying so.The posters here say that they won't 'abdicate their responsibilities of rule'. They see workers' democracy as a danger to 'objective' science. They think that an elite will determine 'Truth'. You fail to understand this, even though they plainly say so.

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