[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'.

[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'.

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