[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Those "concrete things" are the things that constitute the class struggle for those people in those countries at this time …i would have thought "concrete things" could well be in different conditions and situations the actual creation of those workers councils you often express sympathy for.

Right. I get it, now!So, not 'concrete things', but workers actively creating new social structures by the method of 'theory and practice', that, as Marx said in Capital, must be theorised in ideas first, prior to the construction of any 'concrete things', in the sense that the vast majority of workers understand by the term 'concrete things'.For a moment, there, I thought you wanted 'practice and theory', that well known ruling class idea, that ensures that 'hidden theory' precedes the so-called initial 'practice', and which allows, as Marx said, a minority above society to covertly insert their 'theory' first, and then pretend it's 'practice and theory'. It's Leninism in science.

ajj wrote:

We educate ourselves when we assume responsibility for ourselves…

No, no, no!!!That is 'practice and theory' – if we 'assume responsibility' prior to educating and criticising in words, then we'll find ourselves following the existing practice, supposedly 'learning on the hoof'. In fact, there is no 'practice' without 'theory', and 'on the job' learning simply means recreating in ideas what exists in practice.Marx argues that we must raise the structure in our ideas first, prior to building.'Assuming responsibility' before we have our democratic ideas in place will lead, as usual, to workers' tears.

ajj wrote:

Did you have a knee-jerk reaction to the words rather than read the meaning and intent that lay behind their use? If not, as i said, i can't see the relevance of either of your comments to the article and they seem not at all in line with some of your previous observations.

I refer you to:

ajj wrote:

I may well be wrong but your two replies, are way above my head…

No, you're not wrong, they are 'way above your head', you won't discuss science, because you consider it 'way above your head'. Whilst you refuse to engage in discussions about democratic theory and practice in science, then you'll remain prey to the next lot who argue that they're merely doing 'class struggle' in practice. Without theory.They're bluffing. Quoting articles which 'sound good' is not a good method. You must clarify your theory, and criticise from that conscious position.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

We need to educate not with words but with “concrete things.”

Who educates us about the 'concrete things'?

Marx, Theses on Feuerbach III, wrote:

The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm'Concrete things' do not talk to us. They are not obvious. They are not amenable to 'individual senses'.That is the myth of 'objective science', of 'positivism', of the bourgeois method that ensures, as in Venezuela, that 'society' remains 'divided into two parts', and ensures the persistence of classes.The revolutionary method is:"We need to educate not with “concrete things" but with words."Openly espoused 'Theory and practice' is the way. We must discuss, criticise and create with 'words', first.'Practice and theory' (ie. 'concrete' first) is the method that hides 'words' and ideas, and is the method of Leninism.Because all humans employ 'theory and practice', the 'concrete things' method allows the minority to hide their 'words' and ideas.Unless the phase of 'theory' (words, ideas) is open to democratic control, then the 'concrete' will always be constructed by the 'part of society' that is 'superior'.Marx warned about this.We workers must educate ourselves. The rocks do not talk to us. The 'concrete' is already in existence and created by another class. To look to 'the concrete' is a conservative method. We must criticise 'the concrete' with new words.

[LBird]

Marx, Capital, wrote:

Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labour-power to market for sale as a commodity, from that state in which human labour was still in its first instinctive stage. We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will.

[my bold]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htmTheory and practice.Words, ideas, imagination, purpose, will. First.The 'concrete' is the 'material substratum' upon which humans employ 'theory and practice'.If we accept the existing 'concrete', we live in a world not actively constructed by us. The 'theory and practice' of the exploiting class produced this 'concrete', and we must first of all criticise the 'concrete', not work from it.'Words' first. We educate ourselves, we don't 'listen to the rocks'.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

I think this post, containing Hud's and ALB's positions, is the most illustrative of the two stances being taken on this thread.I think that these can be summed up as "Workers' Councils" versus "Democratic Parliament".

No, that's not the division of opinion here. It's between (a) those like yourself who seem to want to abolish all the institutions of the machinery of government, including essentially administrative ones, and create a completely new administrative structure from scratch, and (b) those who don't see the point of this and favour adapting, fully democratising the useful administrative parts of the existing machinery of government. Between, if you like, the utopian system-builders and the pragmatists.

Use different names if you like, but you're just reproducing my analysis: your (a) is identical to Workers' Councils, and your (b) is identical to Democratic Parliament.

ALB wrote:

Being pragmatic myself, I can accept that some of the democratic organisations thrown up in the course of the struggle for socialism will no doubt be merged with the democratically-reformed existing structures to create the democratic administrative structure of socialist society.

Yes, 'pragmatists' like you will follow the lead of 'theorists' like me!  That's why Marx argued for 'theory and practice': it's the scientific method, which 'pragmatism' isn't. Your method is not scientific.

ALB wrote:

Nobody has yet made out a case as to why the health service, the postal service, local government, etc should be completely destroyed as part of the socialist revolution and replaced by newly-created institutions to perform the same functions.

Have you never heard of Mengele and his academic professor, for whom his research was done?Or Harold Shipman? Or Beverley Allitt? John Stonehouse? T Dan Smith? There are thousands of criminals, psychopaths, liars, corruptors, elitists, snobs, etc., sown throughout the management of institutions that you name, and they created and structured those institutions for bourgeois purposes, just as they did academia and science.The case is, we need new revolutionary institutions for revolutionary purposes. And the 'functions' will be different, too. Many of their present functions will be not needed, and there are many functions that workers will require which those institutions are not suited to function for. Not least, democratic organisation and critical thinking from below.

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

It seems you have got the wrong end of the stick again….Pity is that you have not figured this out yet, and that is your headache not ours!

I can only go by the answers given on this site, Brian.'Evolutionary and adaptive' is not 'revolutionary and creative'.FWIW, your post seems much closer to what I have identified as the "Workers' Councils" position, than ALB's.

Brian wrote:

But give it time and no doubt you will.

Whilst there is such a lack of clarity between, for example, yours and ALB's posts, I doubt that I will 'figure this out'. If anything, the longer I remain here, the more mystified I become about the politics of the SPGB.It all seems to be a bit of a mish-mash.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Anyway, it's not how social (as opposed to merely political) change takes place — it's evolutionary and adaptive.

[my bold]This has only reinforced my view that within the SPGB there is a strand of thought that restricts the 'revolutionary' to the 'political' (and so the final seizure of parliament by election is the only 'revolutionary' act).Thus, given that, this view sees all other change as 'evolutionary and adaptive': social, cultural, ideological, scientific, mathematical, artistic, etc.I think that this is a massive underestimation of the 'revolutionary and creative' that will take place in all human activities.Perhaps we're now getting to the root of the reason why my arguments for 'the democratic control of truth production' are causing so much heartache.It seems that the SPGB really does see 'revolution' as only a narrowly political act, and so can satisfy itself with the 'taking of parliament'.And physics and maths (as two examples only) will remain outside of any 'revolutionary' change, because, apparently, neither physics nor maths are political.Needless to say, this 'evolutionary and adaptive' approach to social activity in all its forms, is, to me, entirely unrevolutionary.

[LBird]

Hud955 wrote:

LBird wrote:

I think this post, containing Hud's and ALB's positions, is the most illustrative of the two stances being taken on this thread.I think that these can be summed up as "Workers' Councils" versus "Democratic Parliament".

I disagree entirely.  I am not specifically arguing for workers councils, and I do not think there is a necessary opposition here.

'Entirely'? I'm surprised.

Hud955 wrote:

…a new administrative system altogether…

What would be the political nature of this 'altogether new admin. system', if not a structure built by class conscious workers, on democratic principles, from the bottom up? It sounds like "Workers' Councils", to me.If you "do not think there is a necessary opposition here", between the old parliamentary structure and your new admin structure, how would they operate together?If there is no opposition, and given the present nature of 'parliament', how would the two be reconciled? The only way I can see is to retain a "Democratic Parliament" as the top body, grafted above your 'new admin system', where political power is retained at the top, and not diffused throughout your 'new admin system'.On the contrary, I think the 'opposition' is fundamental, and necessary, because it is an opposition between the creativity of two different, opposed, classes, who create structures for their own political purposes.Still, if you think a third position, between what I've called "Democratic Parliament" and "Workers' Councils", could exist, could you perhaps give it a name and outline the commonalities of this third 'middle' view, with the other two?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Hud955 wrote:

Government machinery could be restructured to provide the administrative needs of a new society, though I suspect that would not be easy.  It might be just as easy to set up a new administrative system altogether. 

It might be theoretically possible but hardly "just as easy".  Just as easy, for example, to set up a system of local government from scratch than to take over and democratise and reform the existing structure? Just as easy to set up a new health service from scratch? "Pretty pointless" is the alternative description that comes to mind.

I think this post, containing Hud's and ALB's positions, is the most illustrative of the two stances being taken on this thread.I think that these can be summed up as "Workers' Councils" versus "Democratic Parliament".That is, an entirely new structure that has emerged from workers' self-activity and which is thus fundamentally democratic in its structures, roles, locations, ethos, etc., versus the re-using of an existing structure which emerged from very different socio-conditions and which has merely had the very top of the structure replaced.I think that my views are closer to the "Workers' Councils" position, than to that of the "Democratic Parliament".The only use that I can see for a "Democratic Parliament" is  self-abolition, and I think that those, like ALB, who regard the creating of new proletarian structures as "pretty pointless" are underestimating greatly the changes that will happen with a revolution.But then, I assume that all science (including physics), education, universities and 'truth production' itself will be changed massively by a class coming to consciousness of its own power, and thus wanting to destroy the old and create the new in all areas of social life.As I said to YMS earlier, I get the feel that the "DP" strand merely want to change the signs on the ministries, and that they think that most social practices, embodied in existing structures, will just continue, much as they are now.Put simply, it doesn't feel 'revolutionary', to me.

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

LBird wrote:

Brian wrote:

…I suspect this thread is going to go completly off-topic with your invite to LBird to put some meat on the bones on his version of a functioning democracy.

You could always 'put some meat on the bones' on your 'version', Brian.For example, how would you see the education system being democratised, in a way which would increase the power of students and undermine the power of experts?

And provide you with an opportunity to go off-topic.  No thanks.

The topic is about politics, Brian. There is politics in education. Or is thinking about politics now off-topic in the SPGB? You seem to like the phrase off-topic. What are you hiding?

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

…I suspect this thread is going to go completly off-topic with your invite to LBird to put some meat on the bones on his version of a functioning democracy.

You could always 'put some meat on the bones' on your 'version', Brian.For example, how would you see the education system being democratised, in a way which would increase the power of students and undermine the power of experts?

[LBird]

Hud955 wrote:

As far as I understand it, the SPGB believes that workplace organisation by the working class is essential for a successful revolution.  That to me is a much more important part of the argument.  If the coercive forces of the state are on board with the revolution at that time, then taking control of parliament would seems perhaps useful, but inessential.  Government machinery could be restructured to provide the administrative needs of a new society, though I suspect that would not be easy.  It might be just as easy to set up a new administrative system altogether.     

You seem to be agreeing with what I said earlier, Hud, about the 'twin-track' approach, of a major track of Workers' Councils and a minor track of (what I've called) 'Parliamentary Suicide'. The latter is merely a way of 'legitimising' the revolutionary process in the eyes of state officials and those loyal to bourgeois democracy. Of course, our legitimacy comes from our own democratic theory and practice.'Useful, but inessential' just about covers the minor track. It can ease the way for those wanting to remain loyal to bourgeois forms and who are opposed to a military coup, but any coup which manifests will have to be put down by force of arms, hopefully with the help of those military officers who wish to remain democrats.And a 'new administration system', which has emerged from democratic activity by workers, would seem to be, not only easier, but preferable and better.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

you won't have the proletariat electing the truth, because you claim that you know the physical, and that you can know this without a vote.

So what makes the above statement true, in the abscence of a vote?

It isn't. It will only be true when the proletariat has developed its own consciousness of its own power, and takes the vote into its own hands. That's the role of socialists, to try to help build the confidence of the proletariat.You wouldn't know that, because your faith is placed in physicists and academics, whose authority you quote, in keeping democratic control out the hands of the organised working class, when dealing with knowledge production. You undermine workers' belief in their own abilities.

DJP wrote:

But we're digressing and we've been here a million times before… I'm out of here.

You, once again, argue that I'm 'strawmanning' you, and you've done worse before, in insults.But you won't discuss.Why not just admit your ignorance in these political issues about the social production of knowledge, and stop insulting me, and running away?Or give up trying to participate in discussions about 'power' and the politics of knowledge?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

…that is there will be no body that exists as a structure seperate to and above the whole of society…

Of course, for you, there will be.

You're confusing me with comrade Strawman again. But like I said a while back 'discussing' with you is a waste of my time.

It's not a strawman – you won't have the proletariat electing the truth, because you claim that you know the physical, and that you can know this without a vote.And you think scientists and academics are the only ones capable of this, but not society as a whole.Since you won't discuss this, because you fear the political results, you pretend my questions of you are 'a waste of time'.I'm wary of those who claim to want socialism, but won't allow physics to be under our control. What have the elitists, like you, got to hide from us?This is a question of power.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

…that is there will be no body that exists as a structure seperate to and above the whole of society…

Of course, for you, there will be.You consider 'matter' (or, 'the physical') to be outside of democratic control, because you believe that 'scientists' have an access to 'matter' that is individual and expert, and that can't be voted upon, or understood by the majority.Therefore, you do want a "body that exists as a structure separate to and above the whole of society": you won't have knowledge produced by a body of physicists 'connected to and under' the democratic control of 'the whole of society'.You have your faith in the Latin-Priests and Maths-Physicists.Revolution must be based upon the translation of the bible into English and the breaking of the political power of priests, and the translation of maths-physics into English and the breaking of the political power of physicists.[Hu]Man[ity] is the measure of all things. In a socialist society, humanity's measuring must be democratic. Not the 'measuring' by an expert elite.Marx warns against this in his Theses on Feuerbach.

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Anyway, I agree that there would need to be some democratic "authority" under socialism. … I followed the previous discussions of yours regarding democracy and how far it should extend. So seeing as it is a related topic, I was hoping you could put some meat on the bones regarding how you see such extensive democracy functioning?

I regard 'democracy' as the eternal search for a new minority opinion to oppose the old majority opinion.The cultivation and stimulation of the new is the basis of advance in science and politics, in opposition to those who think science produces 'The Truth', a 'mirror image' of 'reality', or that elite politicians 'know better' than the majority which is the seedbed of the minority.That is the death of both science and democracy.I'm not sure if this counts as 'meat on the bones', but I can't think of anything more of an 'extensive democracy' than 'electing the truth'.Whilst workers refuse to 'elect the truth', they'll be in the hands of an elite minority.And the 'materialists' have ensured that workers don't believe that the proletariat has the potential to 'elect the truth'.'Matter' can't be elected; but 'knowledge of matter' can.I'm aware that this response is a bit philosophical, but unless we get the 'theory' sorted out, we can't even imagine moving onto the 'practice' of proletarian democracy.

[Author]

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