[LBird]

Read my last post, YMS.

[LBird]

I'm not allowed to answer you yet again, robbo, on pain of yet another ban.Please stop asking me the same questions (founded upon your wish to deny workers' democracy), all the while continuing to ignore the same answers.This thread is about your Religious Materialism, and I wish to adher to that topic.If you wish to pursue your topic, please read the answers that I've given before, time and time again, on other threads.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Quote:

Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both.

Shirley, you should be calling the theory naturalism, or humanism, since those are the terms Chucky expressly uses in the above. In the same text, Chaz also praises Feurbach for :

Quote:

The establishment of true materialism and of real science, by making the social relationship of “man to man” the basic principle of the theory

so instead of idealism-materialism, maybe we should use Marx' own word: true materialism?

So, it's not 'materialism', then?

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

Anyway, we seem to be there now!

What happened. You call it ideal-materialism, I call it materialism. You have already admitted that much. Your only bone of contention is that you wish to change the name. So move on.

We can't 'move on', Vin, because all the socialists who think that they're 'materialists' are talking shite, and workers won't fall for it any more. We're discussing this 132 years after Marx's death, and we have less influence in the working class than ever.You naively think that it's just a 'word', but it represents so much more, and until you confront the nonsense of 'materialism' you'll remain in the bourgeois world.What's worse for me, is that I think that you, personally, are a sincere socialist, and I can't understand why you won't listen to other workers, like me, who've sussed the Leninist philosophy.FFS, I've been in the SWP, almost everybody I know has been in one Trot sect or another, and they've all left. Why is the SPGB following a philosophy (Engels' "materialism") that leaves us workers disarmed?

[LBird]

How come the Religious Materialists get to repeatedly post the same old crap, whilst avoiding responding to Marx's words, and so I have to keep responding to their nonsense, and none of them get a warning?Are you an RM-er, mod?

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

You do talk a load of tosh at times LBird, as well completely evading my central point…

And talking to you is like trying to reason with a particularly dense boss, robbo.The 'central point' of a thread about so-called 'materialism' is that Marx wasn't a 'materialist', but an 'idealist-materialist', not your individualist incomprehension about workers' power, collective action, and democracy.And, by god, my 'cheap and empty smears about "elite experts" '… you won't have a bad word said about the bosses' ideologists, will you, robbo?Stop tugging your forelock, loser.It's a shame that the thread has taken the usual turn, where the so-called 'materialists', when confronted with texts written by Marx, always resort to personal abuse, about my 'idiotic, kneejerk'… errr…. evidence.And when I return to insults in kind, the dickheads come out of the sun in squadrons, complaining about my behaviour.I can feel yet another ban coming on… to keep the site safe from critical thought, and safe for the Religious Materialists, like robbo, who won't have workers' democracy in truth production.

[LBird]

As long as you're happy with Marx's 'conception' being called, as it should be according to quotes from Marx already given, 'the idealist-materialist conception of history', I'm happy, too.If you're not, and you want to retain Engels' erroneous formulation of 'the materialist conception of history', you'll have to explain to those workers that you're trying to explain socialism to, how ideas/consciousness/thinking/theory etc. is 'matter'.I'm with Marx, who unified the truth of both.

Marx, EPM, CW3, p. 336 wrote:

Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both.

[my bold]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/hegel.htmProduction requires a social 'theory and practice', which develops historically.If we're to explain Marx's theories to other workers, we have to use terms which make sense.'Materialism' does not, and is also incorrect, according to Marx.Perhaps the real problem, robbo, is that you don't want to explain to workers, and you're quite happy with your own 'individual understanding'. That thesis would certainly fit with your refusal to democratise truth production, and your wish to retain 'elite expert' control in science. You could then pose as the 'elite expert' in philosophy and history, and prevent workers from controlling the production of history writing, too.In fact, this sequence is precisely what happens with the Leninist philosophy, of elite 'special consciousness' being embodied in a cadre party, who will 'lead' the dumb workers to socialism. No workers' democracy there, and none with you, either.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

If one thinks 'material conditions' means human 'ideas and practice' determining, we have no problems.

 

If what I'm saying has clicked, Vin, I'm very happy! 

It is difficult to take you serious, Lbird. I was pointing out that 'ideas' are material conditions 2 years ago and you now finally agree.  Which made me think the penny had finally dropped. Look back. On every thread I have pointed this out to you. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are not being dihonest and put it down to confusion and a memory laps.  

It's difficult to take serious your refusal to call Marx's views 'idealist-materialist', Vin.Why you accept the centrality of 'ideas', but call it 'materialism', is a two-year mystery, which I still haven't solved.It's not my 'dishonesty or memory lapses', Vin, but your refusal to use the English language in way that workers can understand."Marx was an 'idealist-materialist' " is so much more comprehensible than 'materialism'.Anyway, we seem to be there now!

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

It would seem that Engels agrees with you:https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_25.htm

Quote:

So it is not, as people try here and there conveniently to imagine, that the economic position produces an automatic effect. Men make their history themselves, only in given surroundings which condition it and on the basis of actual relations already existing, among which the economic relations, however much they may be influenced by the other political and ideological ones, are still ultimately the decisive ones, forming the red thread which runs through them and alone leads to understanding.

and by economic conditions:

Quote:

Thus the entire technique of production and transport is here included. According to our conception this technique also determines the method of exchange and, further, the division of products, and with it, after the dissolution of tribal society, the division into classes also and hence the relations of lordship and servitude and with them the state, politics, law, etc.

[my bold]So, why didn't Engels (and he, not Marx, is the formulator of the concept) call this the 'idealist-materialist conception of history'?As I've said before, when Engels says 'economic', he contrasts the concept with 'political and ideological', and so assumes that 'economic' is outside of 'ideas'.That's why Engels (not Marx) introduced the concept of the 'materialist conception of history'.So, not only does Engels not agree with me, YMS, but he doesn't agree with Marx, either.Marx never, ever, says that 'economic relations' (ie. outside of politics and ideology) are 'ultimately decisive'.Engels does, and the Leninists followed.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

If one thinks 'material conditions' means human 'ideas and practice' determining, we have no problems.

 

If what I'm saying has clicked, Vin, I'm very happy!The key political consequence of this, is that what 'material conditions' ARE, can be VOTED upon.Thus, 'material conditions' are within the democratic control of the proletariat.If 'material conditions' don't contain ideas/consciousness, then they just 'are', and can't be changed by voting.Marx wanted the proletariat to change 'material conditions', but Engels put the kibosh on that, because for Engels 'material conditions' were outside of consciousness, and he believed that these 'material conditions' (which he called 'economics', too) were the final determinant of our lives.So, for Engels, the 'active side' was 'matter'.For Marx, the 'active side' was human consciousness, engaged in practice, changing their world.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Ecept that the key texts are the ones they both authored, or put their names to, like the German ideology:

Quote:

The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.

and of course:

Quote:

Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting-point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness.

[my bold]

Yes, 'material conditions', 'life' and 'real life' are both ideal and material.That's the whole point, YMS – Engels thought Marx meant that 'material' meant simply 'matter', rather than both 'ideas' and 'material'.When Marx writes 'material', he's talking about 'human production'.When Engels writes 'material', he's (often) talking about 'matter'.This mistake of Engels', his fundamental misunderstanding of what Marx meant, has had tremendous consequences, all politically bad.If one thinks 'material conditions' means human 'ideas and practice' determining, we have no problems.Put simply, humans ideas can change the world.But, if one thinks 'material conditions' means 'matter' (specifically, something outside of human IDEAS), then one misunderstands Marx.Put simply, it's waiting for the rocks to tell us. And since 'rocks don't talk', the party arguing this has to pretend to the class that the party knows what the rocks are saying. Thus the party arguing the Engels' line has to have a 'consciousness' that the proletariat clearly doesn't have. I'm a worker, and I've never heard a rock talk.This is the disastrous political result of Engels' philosophical mistake – he seems to have realised it as a political mistake, at the end of his life, when Marx was already dead, but Engels never seemed to be able to realise that the 'bad politics' flowed from HIS philosophical misreading of Marx, and couldn't be undone by transferring its effects to the very distant 'final' cause, which never actually came.Engels had to reject 'matter' as a cause, but he didn't realise that.Whilst 'matter' determines, humans are powerless.Where parties have the special consciousness required to read the 'material conditions' for us workers, the proletariat remains powerless.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

… the economic base ultimately asserts itself. …a vindication of Marx and Engels.

No, I've shown, Vin, that the notion of 'ultimate economic base' is Engels' own formulation, and not Marx's.Marx never talks about 'ultimate' causes. He talks about human 'production' – this is always ideal-material, because humans are both being and conscious.The belief that there is something outside of humans that 'ultimately asserts itself' (like, for example, 'material conditions') can't be found in Marx's work.

Vin wrote:

Engels was right.

That's an opinion that I don't share, Vin.It can be shown that Engels differs from Marx on the issues of 'matter' and 'material' 'final causes', and Engels' views contradict Marx's, and so one can think Engels 'wrong', but still think Marx 'right'.The two were independent thinkers, not the mythical unity 'Marx-Engels', of Leninist and Maoist imagination.

[LBird]

Since this thread seems to have gone quite comradely, and seems to have generated more light than heat, for a pleasant change, I though that I’d spell out why Engels contradicts himself, as an aid especially to robbo’s request.

Engels, Bloch letter, wrote:

…the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase….the various elements of the superstructure — political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dogmas — also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form….Marx and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger people sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it.

[my bold]Here we have the Engels who echoes Marx. The ‘ultimate determining element’ is ‘production’. It’s obvious to all that human ‘production’, being social, involves both ideas and materiality, in equal measure. He admits that ‘more stress’ is laid ‘on the economic side than is due to it’.Fine. Engels argues for Marx’s idealism-materialism.But… wait…Engels then goes on to throw away, once again, Marx’s notion of human ‘production’ (theory and practice, plans and product, human social and historical creativity), and reverts to the ‘economic’ as ‘ultimately decisive’, and specifically says that ‘human minds’ do not play ‘the decisive one’.

Engels, Bloch letter, wrote:

We make our history ourselves, but, in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions. Among these the economic ones are ultimately decisive. But the political ones, etc., and indeed even the traditions which haunt human minds also play a part, although not the decisive one.

[my bold]Engels seems to assume that ‘matter’, ‘material’, ‘economic’ and ‘production’ are all entirely equivalent terms.He can’t see that ‘matter/material’ is ‘material’, but that ‘economic/production’ is ‘ideal-material’.His use of ‘economic’ excludes ‘mind’, and so he thinks that the term is equivalent to ‘material’, something to do with ‘matter’, to the exclusion of ‘mind’.I know that this quote from the Bloch letter is often quoted by Marxists to prove that Engels agreed with Marx about ‘ideas’, and I think that this was how robbo (and Dave?) intended it to be taken.But, in fact, any critical reading of it, shows that Engels reverts to ‘materialism’ and the finality of the ‘economic’. This is not taken from Marx, but is an invention all of Fred’s own.The ‘ultimate determining’ factor is human production (idealism-materialism), not the ‘economic’ (materialism).Engels was himself confused, and has proceeded to confuse Communists since.It's time to put this right, comrades, and arm the proletariat with a theory that actually puts the proletariat in democratic control, and forget about 'the rocks of material conditions' telling us what to do, and stop baffling future generations of workers with the nonsense of Engels' so-called 'materialism'.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

For the reason hinted at, I think, in the Bloch letter – it was called the materialist conception of history to redress the balance somewhat in the light of the predominately idealist conceptions of history making the rounds at the time.

Yes, that was the reason: to redress the balance of simple idealist history.But, as Engels belatedly admitted, it was a huge political mistake to redress by emphasising their view as simple materialist history.For one, that wasn't true: as I've shown on this thread with a quote from Marx in the EPM, Marx was actually engaged in idealist-materialist history. And secondly, Engels' failure to recognise the philosophical difference, later led to political problems of the sort that led Marx to declare 'All I know is that I'm not a Marxist!', when confronted with so-called 'materialist' accounts.

robbo203 wrote:

Whether or not "materialist conception of history" is the right phrase or an inappropriate description –  I am sympathetic to the latter conclusion – the main point is that at least in the hands of Marx (and Engels despite what you say) it does not  preclude consciousness and  the role of ideas in history at all.

I'm happy that you can see that it is an 'inappropriate description' (I'd rather say 'complete nonsense', but I'll leave it be, for now).But, once again, you're not reading what I write about Engels. I keep saying that both Marx and Engels stress the centrality of ideas in history – the problem is, Engels also says the complete opposite (which Marx doesn't), that 'material' (or, even worse, 'matter') is the 'final' determinant. Engels could never see the difference, as the Bloch letter shows, even when he was trying to make amends!Either one subscribes to being/consciousness, subject/object, ideal/material, theory/practice, as both being equally necessary to produce knowledge, or one subscribes to one being the 'basis' of the other.Those two positions are completely opposed, and the latter leads either to 'materialism' (where 'being' is stressed as the basis) or to 'idealism' (where 'consciousness' is stressed as the basis).Marx, coming from the German Idealist tradition of Kant and Hegel, was clear that the 'active side' of human knowledge production had been stressed by the idealists, and took great care to preserve their insight (of course, also incorporating French and British Materialism, too, as the 'practice' counterpart to 'theory').

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

None of this has anything to do with the assertion that ideas are not part of our material existence. 

Since no-one, to my recollection, has made that 'assertion', Vin, I'm not sure why you feel the need to argue against it.

Vin wrote:

Both base and superstructure are 'ideas'. We enter into relations independent of our will.

Yes,"Both base and superstructure are 'ideas' "."We enter into relations independent of our will."The relations into which we enter are 'base and superstructure' ie, as you say, 'ideas'.Thus, 'ideas' determine our 'will'. Not the 'material'.Simple. As Marx argued, social production determines our ideas. Social production is both ideal and material, because 'theory and practice', being social and producing things, requires both ideas and material. The world is both being and consciousness, both ideal and material.Why the hell Engels kept on about 'matter', perhaps we'll never know.

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