[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I'm sure you being a "culprit" in the past will recognise when a poster oversteps the boundaries of the forum rules. LBird certainly recognises from his own many, many past transgressions what the limits now are and i wouldn't be surprised if he knew just exactly when to suspend himself.

But my 'suspension limit' would not be where a poster cannot get a political response from the site (posters unofficially, party officially) and persists in trying to force one.The proper result of my persistence should be a political answer, not persistent banning.That said, I recognise the difficulties of the task of the moderator, and don't put their actions down to personal reasons (dislike or exasperation with me), but down to the same political failure which is embedded in the party.That is, a political failure to face up to awkward philosophical questions, about the mismatch between the party's supposed support for democratic socialism, and its refusal to countenance, for example, 'the election of truth', or the democratic control of physics and mathematics, which are all implied by the notion of workers' control of the means of production.So, I would regard a suspension justifiable if a poster refused to move the discussion forward after a philosophical and political response, and just continued to ask already answered questions.But, I don't. I ask questions, and don't receive answers, that a democratic socialist who argues for workers' power and proletarian control of the means of production, would understand as relevent answers.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

…how are we definign…

I know that I've said this before, YMS, and that you'll continue to ignore it as part of your own unexamined ideological method, but, for the interest of other readers, unless the community examines 'who' and 'why' a particular 'definition' is produced, that is, the social ideology behind the science, then the issues will remain shrouded in misunderstanding and assumptions.This is as true of physics and maths, as it is of any (so-called) 'human' science, like anthropology or sociology.I know… 'Warning 1'…

[LBird]

The important thing here, robbo, is not your inability to understand philosophical subtleties, but that other comrades get to reflect on their own understanding of 'class', by comparing their present views with our opposed theories of class.I'll leave it at that, because I keep getting banned for patiently trying to explain to you, to no avail.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

The salient factor that differentiates classes is how much capital you have in your possession.

[my bold]No.It's not an 'amount' (a quantitative factor).It's a 'social relationship' (a qualitative factor).Once more, robbo, your philosophical basis is individualist liberalism, not democratic communism.You are interested in 'personal possession' that can be mathematised, counted, quantified, by a method open to individuals, especially an elite of individuals.Social relationships, which are as much 'ideal' as 'material', can't be 'counted'.The act of estimating relationships requires social theory and practice, and so is open to democratic controls.We workers determine what 'exploitation' is: it is not 'a thing'.FWIW, this issue is also related to your mistaken views about 'science'.Science is class-based, and is also relational. Science is not an numerical account of 'reality'.There is an unacknowledged ideology behind your views, robbo, and you should examine them, the better to expose it.

[LBird]

'Income', meaning 'earnings' or 'earned income', has nothing to do with 'class'. The belief that 'income' relates to 'class' is a liberal individualist belief, and comes from bourgeois sociology.'Class' is a 'social relationship' which is 'exploitative'. So, a boss who has a poorly-performing firm, and continues to pay their workers more than they receive themslef, is in a different class from the workers, and is still exploiting those workers, even though they have more income than the boss.This example may be an extreme one, which doesn't often occur, but is used to bring out the exploitative relationship at the heart of the Marxist definition of 'class'.It is not defined by 'income', but by 'exploitative relationship'.Even if the firm is about to go down the pan, and the workers' income is greater than the boss', there are still two classes in that firm: bourgeoisie and proletariat.If I was pressed to put a % figure on classes, I would probably put it at 5% bourgeoisie, 15% petit-bourgeoisie, and 80% proletariat. Of course, these are estimates, and subject to changes in capitalism, and location in world production, but they help us to get away from the liberal nonsense that only 1% (or even less) are our enemies.That is, perhaps 1 in 5 people have a socio-economic interest in capitalism continuing, at present. That's why they are still very powerful and influential. Things will change, but it doesn't pay to underestimate the difficulties facing us at present.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Ultimately, though, all lengths would never be resolvable to all measurements.

But for any society to act, there has to be a social and historical (and thus temporary) resolution of 'length' and 'measurement'.And if this resolution is a social act, and the society doing the resolution is a democratic society (as a socialist one would be), then this necessary socio-historical resolution is amenable to a vote.The alternative is that an elite 'tells' us. We have that now.

[LBird]

[quote-Vin]If you already have an understanding 'value' you will understand the difficulty in converting or relating it to 'price'  This does not invalidate Marx's theory[/quote]But this is precisely what is at dispute, Vin.If you believe that 'value' can't be related to 'price', as I do, you are at odds with 'materialists', for whom 'value' is not a social relationship.If 'value' is a relationship, it clearly can't be 'counted', which would be required to give a 'price'.A 'relationship' can only be estimated by a consciousness, and not measured by reference to its 'material reality'.This means that 'value' can only be estimated by workers: if they democratically decide to reject 'price' as a measure of our needs/wants, then the bourgeois academic 'problem' of relating value to price disappears.It makes one wonder why any 'Marxists' think that there is a problem… unless these 'Marxists' regard 'value' as 'material and measureable' and so able to be converted to 'price'.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I don't think these exchanges make it any easier for me to understand Marx, the transformation problem and TSSI. As we have always argued and LBird too, our theory isn't too complicated and all workers should be able to understand it. When they don't it is often the communicators failure.  I wish i never asked the question now

I thought that you would have had a read of DJP's link to TSSI on wikipedia.In that text, it is clear that the status of 'Marxism' is in dispute, with differing 'Marxists' offering differing opinions on TSSI.It seems to me, that to have some understanding of that dispute, requires some understanding of what might be the root of these inter-'Marxist' disagreements.I'll put my money on it being between Engelsian 'materialists' and those who take inspiration from Marx and the 'relationship' between 'ideal and material'.If you are starting from the assumption that 'Marxism is Marxism', and that you simply want 'The Truth' of TSSI, I think that this is a mistake.There is an interesting and informative discussion waiting to be had, from which I'll learn much, too.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

…LBird.  I really cannot be bothered to take you seriously anymore

Suits me, robbo, Bye, bye.I can turn my attention to those who do take these issues, that I raise, seriously.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I don't think these exchanges make it any easier for me to understand Marx, the transformation problem and TSSI. As we have always argued and LBird too, our theory isn't too complicated and all workers should be able to understand it. When they don't it is often the communicators failure.  I wish i never asked the question now

That's a shame, alan.My initial response was tailored to your (self-admitted) lack of awareness of these issues.I've tried to 'communicate', but you haven't reciprocated. Discussion requires a dialogue.So, the 'failure' is not simply the 'communicators', but also your failure to 'reciprocate'.We all share the blame for 'failure'.But, at least mine is a 'failure of trying'… an active failure, not a passive one.

[LBird]

gnome wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Please do not try to divert attention yet again from these questions otherwise we will be compelled to conclude that what lies behind your assertions is just a whole lot of hot air signifiying nothing of substance whatsoever

I'll stick with Marx's dynamic 'hot air'; you stick with Engels' stationary 'cold matter'.

Actually you'll just stick with LBird's 'wind and piss' …

You wouldn't know what I'm saying, gnome, because you've never read Marx or Engels.If you had, the differences between them, and the impossibility of Engels' 'materialism' being the philosophical basis of workers' power, the changing of circumstances to suit the revolutionary proletariat, would be obvious to you.You just continue to add nothing whatsoever to this discussion – 'empty vessels', and all that.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

Please do not try to divert attention yet again from these questions otherwise we will be compelled to conclude that what lies behind your assertions is just a whole lot of hot air signifiying nothing of substance whatsoever

The materialists, including you robbo, have already 'concluded' that there is 'nothing of substance' to 'ideas'.That's the whole point of Engels' 'materialism'.The bourgeoisie removed 'consciousness' from its considerations of 'nature/being', to reflect their removal of 'society' from 'property'.They supposedly 'discover' an 'external static reality', whereas Marx argued for the 'changing' of a 'malleable relationship between consciousness and being'.I'll stick with Marx's dynamic 'hot air'; you stick with Engels' stationary 'cold matter'.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

You are missing the point arent you? Its still a matter of counting – even by your own admission – and so therefore involves a quantitative aspect as well.  I mean how can you exercise democracy without such  quantitative "counting"?

Y'know, sometimes I wonder at the childishness of all this.I say 'theory and practice' – the materialists say 'what about practice, LBird'.I say 'subject and object' – the materialists say 'what about object, LBird'.I say 'ideal and material' – the materialists say 'what about material, LBird'.I say 'mind and matter' – the materialists say 'what about matter, LBird'.I say 'consciousness and being' – the materialists say 'what about being, LBird'.I say 'quality and quantity' – the materialists say 'what about quantity, LBird'.I just know that if I said that 'I love cheese and onion crisps', the materialists would complain about my hatred of onion.I have to believe that you're all doing this on purpose, because the alternative is that 'materialists can't read'. It's so circular and depressing – we never take the discussion forward.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

The simplest explanation, alan, is that Marx's 'value' is qualitative (relational), whereas his bourgeois detractors regard science as quantitative (countable)..

Here's another thing I cant quite figure out LBird.  So help me our here.  You say the question of value will be subject to a democratic vote in a workers democracy.  Isnt that a matter of counting heads – something that is quantifiable?

No, it's not 'a matter of counting heads' (a physical count of material beings), but 'a matter of counting minds/opinions' (which includes, obviously, consciousness). So, it's as much qualitative as quantitative. 'Counting heads' is merely quantitative. You might argue 'it's only a matter of words', but I think your choice of words is very revealing.If we remove 'consciousness' from our social estimation of 'what things are', we revert to pre-Marx 'materialism', which is precisely what Engels did do.That's why Marx was discussing critical theory and practice, focussed on the relationship between consciousness and being, and not on the supposed absence of consciousness from being, as is supposed by bourgeois science, which claims that 'knowledge' is eternal, fixed, non-social, non-relative, once-discovered-always-True, and so cannot be changed by us workers, in the future, in pursuit of our ideals, of the good life for all.In fact, even physics and maths are social creations, and do not 'reflect' the so-called 'material' world. They are 'ideal-material', as were Marx's views. Physics is just like sociology, and its methods and the knowledge it produces are just as class-based.Because our world is our creation, by social theory and practice, we can change it. Different classes produce different worlds, in physics and maths, history and sociology.To control the means of production, we have to control all of our social activities. There can't be an elite who claim to know, outside of our democratic control. That leads to 'private property' in both ideal and material.

[LBird]

gnome wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Yes but how will 7 billion workers vote on the question of value in the workers democracy?  What are the mechanisms involved and will postal votes count as well? What form will the question of value take upon which the workers are expected to vote?

You really detest any mention of "worker' democracy", don't you, robbo?

And you really detest robbo's logistical question which you are repeatedly asked and which you fail to answer…

Apparently, you 'practical men' can't tell the difference between 'logistics' and 'philosophy' (that is, 'practice' and 'theory'). For you, 'practice' is the driver (as it is for the bourgeoisie), and not 'theory' (as for the revolutionary proletariat).The end result of Engelsian 'materialism' is a pragmatic dealing with 'hard facts', rather than a philosophy of 'change'.If one starts from the 'logistical impossibility' of workers' democracy, how can we workers 'change the world'?The answer is that 'practical men' don't wish to 'change the world', but simply want to 'deal with the reality' of the present one.You might as well join the Labour Party, and forget Marx's ideas regarding 'theory and practice' to change our world.

[Author]

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