LBird
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BD, I know that you’re trying to give me genuine advice, but you’re still not arguing with what I’m saying, but with the straw man built by ALB, robbo, twc, etc.
For example, to equate Marx’s ‘democracy’ with ‘plebiscites’ is a straw man that no-one (certainly not me) is arguing in favour of.
ALB wrote: “Socialism is the common ownership of the means of producing wealth and not of people’s personnel possessions.”
I think that ALB has made a key point, which I think has caused enormous difficulties for those employ ‘materialism’.
When we discuss ‘value’, we are not discussing ‘personal opinions’ about ‘value’, but the production of socio-historic relationships, how they emerged, and how we can change them. If someone tries to understand ‘value’, but insists from the start that they as an individual can determine ‘value’, then they’ll never get to grips with Marx’s views about ‘value’. The same applies to ‘matter’.
The idea, put forward by some here, that ‘democracy’ has ‘limits’, when discussing social production, is clearly mistaken, because only democratically organised humans can determine their own ‘limits’. Once again, those proposing ‘limits’ outside of democratic creation of limits (a manifestation of the bourgeois ruling class idea of ‘fear of the mob’) are really talking about themselves as individuals, rather than their future society’s social production.
In this sense, ‘materialism’ is a discussion about ‘personal possessions’ rather than ‘the means of producing wealth’, which is why when ‘materialists’ are asked about ‘matter’, they revert to individualistic explanations about ‘kicking rocks’, rather than explain by who, why and when ‘matter’ socially emerged.
So, ‘materialism’ leads to a ‘fear of the mob’ mentality. Because ‘materialists’ deny the source of their ‘materialism’ (ie. its source is in their society, not their personal ‘senses’), they are wary of ‘social power’, and pretend that ‘bourgeois individual rights’ are the aim of ‘democratic socialism’, rather than ‘the common ownership of the means of producing wealth’.
robbo203 wrote: “…democracy has its limits…”
I don’t suppose that you’ll tell what these limits are, and who determines these limits, and how they do so.
Or are ‘limits’ like ‘matter’?
Perhaps, just like ‘material conditions’, you want ‘limited conditions’ to determine ‘free’?
And seemingly the vast majority of humanity is entirely unaware of these ‘limits’, because only ‘clever individuals’, like you, can determine ‘limits’, and you fear that the ignorant majority will overstep your ‘limits’, and so fear ‘democracy’.
Perhaps you really want ‘limited socialism’, robbo?
robbo203 wrote: “I am still waiting to here your view on Marx, LBird. Do you think he was a bourgeois individualist for saying “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”?”
Christ, robbo, I’ve answered this time and time again – change the record, mate!
We all agree with Marx, I should think. If anyone doesn’t, it makes one wonder why they’re here.
Right, robbo! Who determines ‘free’ and how do they determine ‘free’?
Now, we all want a socio-historical account of ‘free’, preferably accompanied by a musical theme (Baker’s drumming will suit me), to this simple, basic, political and philosophical question.
I think that it’s very interesting how this thread has developed, since BD’s humorous crack about the Beatles (and as it happens, his list of favourite artists reads exactly like one of mine!).
It’s brought out the issue of who and how music is produced. Great Men with genius inspiration (a few, very unusual, musical lads, ‘elite art school’ attenders), or socio-historical circumstances (Liverpool being port city with intensely close contact for thousands with American 50s music development, together with the general prosperity post-war, better education beyond 14, more free time to think for many workers, and widespread music scene).
I’d just compare and contrast ‘music’ with ‘matter’, as part of the general discussion.
Bijou Drains wrote: “No doubt if you get your way all we’ll get to listen to will be The Birdy Song and the Feckin Beatles (the world’s most over rated band)”
Hey, I’ve got a soft spot for The Animals, and Eric Burdon’s voice!
robbo203 wrote: “The answer, LBird, is NO-ONE!”
No, that’s your political answer, robbo.
It’s an individualist ideology that pretends to workers that ‘no-one’ has ‘power’, and so hides from them just who does have power. And ‘someone’ always does.
BD, your ‘materialist’ assumption leads you to downplay the power of ‘ideas’, which is the other side of the coin from regarding ‘matter’ as basic. This clashes with Marx’s views, which was that human social conscious activity (which requires both consciousness and being, as equal factors) was the source of the ‘ideal’ and the ‘material’.
The most famous example, I think, of a ‘materialist’ poo-poo-ing the power of ideas, was Stalin’s response to Laval’s question about Catholics – “The Pope! How many divisions has he got?“.
Obviously, given the collapse of the Soviet Union and the role that Catholicism played, we know that the materialist was wrong to assume the power of ideas was less than the power of the material.
Politics is about power, and who wields it, BD. And ‘music, art, literature, etc.’ are powerful. As is religion.
Bijou Drains wrote: “So if everything that is social produced must be subject to democracy, presumably, this would also include music, art, literature,etc. as all are socially produced.”
If these social products were not subject to democracy, BD, who do you have in mind that would have power over them?
Although you never seem to answer me when I ask who is the social subject, I can make the assumption that your answer would be either ‘individuals’ or ‘an elite’. How am I so confident that you’ll posit a social subject as a minority in society?
Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, 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
Once more, to try to help clarify the issue…
… you mention ‘astrophysics’. And then go on to ask questions based on this concept.
But, given that the commencement of democratic communism, a new, revolutionary, mode of production, will produce a ‘revolutionary science’ which will replace ‘[bourgeois] science’, how can one predict that the discipline of ‘astrophysics’ will not be replaced by a more ‘unified’, interdisciplinary, ‘science’, which has different categories of study, compared to present-day ‘science’?
It might be retained; it might not be. It might be partially kept/transformed/replaced (aufheben/sublated).
This determination can only be made by those actively involved in socially producing their new mode of production, by democratic methods.
So, your political, philosophical and ideological assumption about ‘astrophysics’ can be questioned.
I hope this helps clarify the depth of these problems.
Again, to politically and philosophically answer your questions, robbo, which I think that many/most non-democrats will have about ‘democratic communism’, we need to resolve what assumptions are behind those questions.
It’s like someone demanding – ‘Just answer the question – if I’m not going to Heaven to be with God, where will I be going after death? You must mean to Hell with Lucifer!‘
It’s impossible to ‘just answer’, without discussing the various assumptions (life of some sort continues after death) and concepts (Heaven, Hell, God, Lucifer).
If we have differing assumptions, our answers are going to be different.
It makes sense, surely, to state our assumptions, link our concepts to those assumptions, and compare and contrast our conflicting answers.
robbo203 wrote: “Sigh. Once again LBird – of course I hold that communism would be “democratically organised”. I just don’t believe democracy can and should be extended to the origination and validation of scientific theories. Please stop mispresenting me!!!”
I’m not ‘misrepresenting’ you, robbo.
I argue: “I hold that communism would be “democratically organised”“.
You argue “I hold that communism would be “democratically organised””
I argue ‘scientific theories’ are socially produced.
You argue ‘scientific theories’ are * produced (I’ve never got you to tell us what * represents).
If something is ‘socially produced’, since ‘I hold that communism would be “democratically organised”’, I argue that social production would be democratically organised.
You seem to argue for, on the one hand, ‘democratically organised’ communism, but on the other, regard ‘scientific theories’ as not part of ‘communism’.
We can’t resolve our differences, and thus answer our political questions of each other, until you give a satisfactory answer to why you regard ‘scientific theories’ as separate from democratic socialist production/ communism.
robbo203 wrote: “What precisely do you mean by “democratic methods must be employed” in the creation of knowledge?”
robbo, don’t you get sick of asking the same question, over and over again, mate?
The statement means what it says, for any worker wanting democratic communism.
You (apparently) don’t want democratic communism, which is fine by me, but means you don’t share my ideology. It would be better for all of us if you did expose your ideology, but that’s up to you to do.
So, I’m a ‘democrat’ and a ‘communist’. A democrat believes that ‘democracy’ is the best political method. A ‘communist’ believes that ‘democracy’ should be employed throughout the communist mode of production. Humanity socially produces its social production, and ‘knowledge’ is an aspect of this social production. Democratic communists do not believe that there is an ‘expert elite’ of humans who know better than the entirety of humanity. Any elected experts can be removed if they fail to follow their mandate.
Now, if anyone doesn’t share these ideological beliefs (which were also Marx’s) of ‘democratic social production’, then they won’t accept that
“ “democratic methods must be employed” in the creation of knowledge“.Most probably, those who don’t hold these revolutionary beliefs will hold others, given to them by the present ruling class. These usually are:
1. individualism.
2. elitism.
3. a minority of ‘clever’, active, individuals contrasted with a majority of ignorant, passive, ‘normals’.
4. ‘science’ is politically-neutral (hence, a fear of ‘politics in science’), carried out by a clever elite, who disinterestedly (ie. in the interests of the whole of humanity) just passively discover ‘reality’ (a ‘reality’ that is not socio-historical, but is ‘just there’ waiting for the disinterested elite to pronounce ‘discovered’).
5. the majority can’t ‘do science’, because it is inherently ‘difficult’ and requires a mysterious language which the majority cannot fathom (bless their little earnest but thick socks!).robbo203 wrote: “Could you tell us once and for all whether this means “scientific theories should all be put to a vote””
It depend whether one believes that there is any source of ‘scientific theories’ outside of a humanity which socially produces its theories, robbo.
I suspect that if anyone hides the fact that they actually believe that a ‘clever, disinterested, elite’ forms the conscious active core of a mostly thick passive humanity (which is just what bourgeois ideology tells us, with its ‘Nobel Prizes’, etc.), then they will claim that ‘scientific theories’ shouldn’t be subject to democratic production.
On my part, as I’ve said, time and time again, ALL SOCIAL PRODUCTION MUST BE DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED. It’s called ‘democratic socialism’, robbo.
Marx wrote: “The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.
Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the thought objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective activity.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm
I know already that you won’t read or understand Marx, BD, but at least other workers who want to read and understand Marx’s social productionism will benefit.
You’d better stick to ‘kicking stones’ as your way to contemplate ‘matter’. It’s the same individualist method as when someone is asked about ‘value’ and replies, not that ‘value’ is a social relationship, but that ‘value’ is what an individual determines, without any socio-historical explanation.
I’ll bet that the ‘materialists’ can’t even see the similarities between the concepts ‘matter’ and ‘value’, and the opposed accounts of them. On one side, the materialists’ individualist passive assimilation of knowledge (they play no part in creating the knowledge, and leave that to the ‘experts’), whilst on the other, the Marxists’ social active production of knowledge (they play an inescapable social role in creating the knowledge, and insist that democratic methods must be employed).
