[LBird]

You still haven't answered my question.Forget it.

[LBird]

J Surman wrote:

ALB wrote:

I don't think that 'we' (if you mean 'Communists') do 'this' at all.I tried many times to give explanations in simple terms of difficult subjects, but there seems to be a preference for obscurity and dogma.I can't give any more detail, because I keep getting warnings for mentioning anything that others don't like hearing about.I think a 'serious idea' would be to take our heads out of the sand. I'm using 'sand' because the other term is forbidden.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

In fact what idealists such as LBird don't understand is that class consciousness is one of the material conditions necessary for socialism

In fact what materialists such as Vin don't understand is that class consciousness is one of the ideal conditions necessary for socialism 

[LBird]

First warning:  1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts. 

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

What? Y'mean the 'materialists' are wrong, and the 'material conditions' don't talk to humans? And that the 'practice' of everyday experience doesn't produce a 'theory' of revolution, so that 'matter' and its 'material usage' doesn't generate 'class consciousness'?

Believe it or not LBird but, unlike your idealism, materialism includes human beings in 'material conditions' and yes it includes ideasIn fact it is the inculsion of ideas as 'material' that actually defines 'materialism'  

Yeah, I know, Vin. You, DJP ,YMS and ALB (to name but a few) keep telling me that.I'm reading what you're all saying, and listening.But I just have one problem, and I'm loath to start on the merry-go-round, yet again… but…Why call it 'materialism', when simply everybody agrees with Marx and me that it includes 'ideas'?The only person who seemed to think (and then only at points, which makes him unreliably and confusing) that 'matter' existed for humans outside of their 'ideas' of it, was Engels. Everyone else thinks that both object and subject are both required for knowledge.Since, for Marx, 'material' meant social production (ideas and stuff worked on), and his method was 'theory and practice', and everybody precedes 'materialism' with some prefix or other (historical, dialectical), why not just have done with it, and use a term which stresses both 'being and consciousness', rather than one which stresses only one aspect (ie. the 'material')?Simple question, comrades – why not call it 'idealism-materialism', if it includes 'ideas' and 'material'?If, on the other hand, it's acceptable to stress only one aspect of both ideas and material (and both are required for social production), why not call it 'idealism', and just say:

Alter-ego-Vin wrote:

In fact it is the inclusion of matter as 'ideal' that actually defines 'idealism'

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

This article from the Socialist Standard in 1933 should amuse you:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1933/no-342-february-1933/how-make-socialists-lenin%E2%80%99s-viewAnother recruit to your "idealism-materialism"

Brilliant!Did the SPGB eventually recruit him?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Soylent green is people.

And…?I didn't ask what the film is about, but what is the underlying philosophical basis of 'soylent green', in your view, that allows us to explain day-to-day, simple experiences of workers, in the first place, as an inital step, and thus provide a basis for an explanation of something much less obvious, that is, the concept of 'value'?After all, if you think that the analogy of 'soylent green' does this better than 'social acid' and its basis in Critical Realism and wider explanations for workers, then you should be able to say why you think that.Otherwise, it seems to be just a mindless resistance to anything that I propose.God forbid that we'll see any of that, here.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Shorter version.Value is soylent green.  Much better analogy.

No problem, YMS.Just explain the bit how 'soylent green' explains why cars, walls, watches, water come about, and how that simple understanding of things in workers' day-to-day lives helps to then provide an introduction to understanding 'value'.Since, 'value as social acid' uses the concepts of Critical Realism, which is able to explain all the things that I've mentioned, what is the underlying explanation of 'soylent green' that is also applicable to cars, walls, value, etc.?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

But, more seriously, it refutes the view that the experience of an economic crisis will spontaneously generate a socialist or even a anti-capitalist consciousness.

What? Y'mean the 'materialists' are wrong, and the 'material conditions' don't talk to humans? And that the 'practice' of everyday experience doesn't produce a 'theory' of revolution, so that 'matter' and its 'material usage' doesn't generate 'class consciousness'?Blasphemy! Whatever next!

ALB wrote:

It emphasises the need for people to hear the case for socialism, for this to become part of their experience, for a socialist consciousness to have a chance of emerging.

'Hearing a case' before 'experience'? 'Ideas' prior to 'action'? Theory informing practice? Consciousness emerging after thinking about ideology?Heresy! This is 'idealism'! The 'materialists', 'physicalists', 'inductionists' and the 'practice and theory' crowd just won't stand for it!Seriously, though, ALB, we've been through all this before, and I won't take this thread in that direction again.But your words, and political prescriptions, fit far closer to the philosophical basis of Marx's 'idealism-materialism', than it does to Engels' 'materialism'.Theory and practice means ideas preceding material practice. Both are entwined. 'Material' for Marx meant 'social production', not 'matter'.The view that 'ideas' determining our 'practice' is 'idealism', is suicidal for workers.All the 'experience' of capitalism, for hundreds of years, will not produce 'class consciousness', unless workers who are Communists provide other workers with unfamiliar 'ideas'. Those new 'ideas' will then make a different sense of the 'experience' of workers. The 'ideas' and 'experience' they have now is leading to UKIP. Current 'theory and practice' produces Farage.These views of mine are why I'm still participating on the SPGB site, because the truth is that the SPGB in its practice is not 'materialist', but is 'idealist-materialist', in that it believes in the power of 'ideas', education and propaganda, to help develop the working class.The rhetoric of 'materialism' (and that's all it is, rhetoric) is at odds with party practice, and all it does is leave the party open to charges of either hypocrisy or ignorance.PS. This is well-meant advice, comrades, not the seeking of another internecine row.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

Bit unfair, LBird. You did note my caveat?I take your point tho'  it is a little cold and 'economic'  but I am perhaps talking about someone already 'stirred up' about capitalism. 

Sorry, Vin, of course I took your point about an 'oversimplification', but I also said, for what it was, it was fine.My point, which was the one you 'got' anyway, was the necessity for 'explanation' to be also 'stirring up' as well as a 'simplification'.Emotional engagement, combined with intellectual curiosity, might get some more workers to look a little more closely at our ideas.If yours and YMS's less 'dramatic' explanations suddenly take root in the class, without my melodramic 'acid' ones, I'll be as happy as you.But, from my personal experience of reading Marx's works, and from what many other workers have told me, I don't think, what you've called 'cold and economic' explanations, really work.Whether my Critical Realist-inspired analogies work for others or not, I think that they've worked for me, and now find that I can at least make some explanation of 'value' to others, whereas, before my CR readings, I couldn't either understand 'value' myself or explain it to others.Of course, it's always possible that I don't know what I'm talking about, when it comes to 'value', but if that's true, then I don't think that I'll ever grasp its meaning for workers. I'm prepared to conclude that, if 'value' remains a mystery to me (as someone who has made constant attempts over the years to understand it), then Marx's Capital will be useless for most workers.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

The world market consists of millions of commodities being exchanged and every commodity has a price tag roughly determined by the cost of its production (labour and matrials) and these costs determines the ratio of exchange. Our wage is our price tag for our time and abilities. The commodity purchassed with a 'wage' is a unique commodity in that it produces more than it costs. The surplus is taken by the capitalist class.

That seems fine in itself, Vin, and I don't think we could argue with what it does say.But, we are talking politics, here, and so we need to address how we emphasise the point that I think your passage doesn't say.The whole point of political explanations (as opposed to detailed, academic, unsimplified ones) is to jolt workers out of their present ideology (free markets are good, money is good, etc.) and to get them to start thinking a bit more about the socio-economic consequences of markets and money.This, it seems to me, is where Marx's concept of 'value' comes in.If it's explained properly, it can form the ideological basis of an attempt to undermine markets and money. Once workers are familiar with the notion that commodities form a socio-economic structure, and that that structure of capitalism produces a social substance that is dangerous to workers, that is 'value', then we might start to make inroads into 'free markets equal freedom' ideology, which is so strong at present.Thus, the notion of 'value' as 'social acid' makes an instant impact, both as a 'truth' and as an explantion. It's a picturesque, even horrific, image.Anyone who can understand that things put together in a certain structure can produce emergent properties, and that this is just simple science and everyday experience, can understand 'value'.Put the bits of a car together properly and we have a car that goes.Put the lit match and inflammable petrol together and we have a fire that produces warmth.Put all the commodities together and we have an capitalist economy that produces social acid.It can't harm us to try both ways (simple economic explanations like yours and more striking metaphorical images like mine) to try to influence workers.It's just my opinion that your way has been tried for 150 years, and that it is making next to no impact with workers. This is not a criticism of you as a person or a socialist, Vin, but a criticism of a failed method, a method that is unfortunately widespread.We can tell that it's failing even within the SPGB, as on this very thread we've had members compare discussions of 'value' as akin to discussions of 'angels on a pinhead'.What should be a useful concept for Communists to help explain to workers 'how their lives really work', is proving, in the hands of us at present, to be of no use whatsoever. In the opinions of SPGB members, not just me.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

The original question was 'How do we explain value?' Detroit does not explain value (and there are factors other than value involved, geographic, constitutional and cultural, I'd suggest, to Detroit's destruction).

Yes, but the explanation being made is not "the complexities of Detroit's destruction", but "why workers should fear and reject value".To follow your method would be to reject any metaphorical explanations (like comparing 'value' to a 'social acid'), whose purpose is to explain complex theories, concepts and proposed practices.To me, the didactic worth of a metaphor or analogy outweighs the obvious failings if the explanation is taken too literally. Of course, opponents of Communism have a political and ideological reason to encourage 'literal' translations, so that an easier route, into the complexities of the issues, is blocked.Perhaps the explanation of 'value' as a 'social acid' will enlighten other workers to the dangers of 'value' (and thus money, markets and capitalism), and thus cause them to look deeper, perhaps even to take a look at Capital.And once the roots of 'value' in money and markets are understood, this will have a prophylatic effect of making the dangers of the blandishments of the so-called 'market socialists' apparent to any worker, who then comes across these views.I've got no problem with you continuing to try your methods, if you think they work; it's just that I don't think that they do work, and so I propose what I consider will prove to be better methods.Whichever works is fine by me; but if neither works, other workers are going to have to come up with one that does, because Communists have been failing workers for 150 years.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

I'm afraid there is no short cut but I don't think we all need to digest the whole of 'Capital'

I agree with you here, Vin.If by 'digest' you mean 'quote whole passages'.But there is a need for all workers to understand the whole of Capital.To me, the role of Communists is to help develop that understanding amongst workers, and I don't think that simply 'reading the text' (or even remembering huge chunks of it) fulfils that aim.Explanation is not repetition.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

And if we're doing rough and ready one sentence definitions:

Right, let's see what looks best, inscribed across our revolutionary banners:

Workers slogan 1, wrote:

value is the share of the total human effort of producing things for exchange that goes into producing a given good

and,

Workers slogan 2, wrote:

Remember Detroit comrades, and its destruction by 'Value'!

Which one captures the political essence of a socio-economic description of 'value', which is most useful for helping the development of workers' consciousness of their real world?

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

A myth may help. Imagine a society in which everyone has a similar set of skills. They use these skills to make/find goods A to E. Not everyone makes these objects, some make A and exchange with others, somoe make B, etc. Each though could make the other objects, and they know both how much effort it would take them to make them and how long otehrs would take. When exchanging, they take great care not to swap goods for objects that it would take less effort to get themselves than they have invested in the the thing they are swapping.Some people may have to put in more energy, or find some tasks harder in their minds and have to concentrate harder, but the others can't se that, all they can see is a rough output each per day.So, the people know that in terms of exchange A>B>C>D>E : that is, A is worth more than B, etc. As with our chess pawns, since E is the least valuable, it becomes possible to express these relative worths in terms of E, i.e. E=1. So D=2E, C=3.5E, etc. so to get a fair swap of D's and C's you'd need to swap 7 D for 4 C's (or fractions to that equivilant). Now, a certain number of hours of effort go into an E, but that doesn't enter into the bargain directly, goods are evauated in terms of the number of E's they are worth, and the relative human effort behind an E remains hidden, but it is there.

Versus

LBird wrote:

Value is a social acid, and it's dangerous to us workers – look at Detroit!

I rest my case, alanjjohnstone.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

T o be uncharitable about these discussions, workers' democracy implies to me that i can safely leave to others to argue the number of angels dancing on a pin-head because in the bigger picture, the threads i have been referring to are not going to be contributing to any social change. It simply isn't engaging the majority, its ideas aren't relating to their reality.

But, is 'value' similar to 'angels on a pinhead'?In fact, I agree with you that it is, for the vast majority of workers, including yourself.But, I draw the conclusion that 'value', being so important a concept, must be explained properly, and the reason that you and many others draw the 'angels/pinhead' conclusion, is that it isn't being explained properly.To me, talking of 'value as a social acid', and then illustrating the socio-economic effects of that 'acid' by showing workers pictures of contemporary Detroit, works well as an explanation. Detroit is clearly being eaten away, decomposing before our very eyes, as if it had been doused with a 'social acid'. Closed factories, boarded-up houses, empty streets… Yeah, Detroit has been exposed to the deleterious effects of 'value', and it's a 'social chemical' coming your way! How hard is that for workers to grasp, and thus recognise the future dangers to them of market, money and capitalism, which produce 'value'?

ajj wrote:

Stop being a diva and prima donna, Lbird. It's cold out there. Come inside, sit yerself down, take off your boots, and warm yourself with the glow of cameraderie and solidarity. No-one i think is suggesting your views should be silenced even if membership may require you to temper you exhortations…

Well, I'm still here, posting and arguing, aren't I?Though, I think the picture of 'the glow of cameraderie' is a little overplayed.Quite frankly, I think there are now 'comrades' on several sites who would quite happily put their political principles into temporary abeyance, and join a 'popular front' with the Nazis to kick f…k out of me.To be serious, I put most of these problems down to the issue of 'materialism'. A few years ago, I was unsure of the depths of the problem, and thought it could be smoothed over by comradely debate, but I'm now totally convinced, thanks to the internet, that 'materialism' is politically dangerous for the proletariat.In fact, I'm not sure of which is the most immediate danger to workers, 'value' or 'materialism'…Both Detroit and so-called "workers' parties" across the world are in a similar state of disarray…

[Author]

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