[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…

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

To incur the wrath of LBird i do accept that division of labour is not all bad particular in science and ideology.

'Division of labour is not all bad'? 'Particularly' in some of the most powerful aspects of human society?

ajj wrote:

I can easily leave the knowledge of…

'Bio-chemistry'. And the other subjects? If we enter a period of revolution with the attitude that we can 'easily leave the knowledge of' 'subject x' to 'specialist y', it won't be long before 'x' will be 'value' and 'y' will be 'economists'.And 'x' will be 'power' and 'y' will be 'politicians'.No-one is arguing that everybody must know everything about everything, because that would be to reduce the proletariat to 'individuals' (which your concerns, about the social 'division of labour' being refracted through your own personal wishes, seem to be focussed upon).Communists must hold that that there will be no 'division of labour' for the proletariat, in which a small, elite group (mathematicians, scientists, economists, chemists, physicists, 'materialists' who 'know matter'. etc.) outside of the democratic control of the proletariat, tell the proletariat anything.There will be worker-mathematicians under the control of their fellow-workers.There will be worker-delegates under the control of their fellow-workers.And there will be no division of labour especially in the two powerful areas that you see fit to regard as worthy of a division of labour.There will be worker-scientists under the control of their fellow-workers.There will be worker-ideologists under the control of their fellow-workers.What's more, any discussion about the social acid of 'value' must be under the control of all workers. And to do that, all workers must already understand the nature of 'value'. That's why we must produce an explanation, rather than quote from mysterious 'economic manuals', that others on this thread say that they don't find useful, as I openly say myself, and which pleas the 'materialists' (they of the cloth ears) keep ignoring. Workers keep saying "we don't understand Capital or Value, Price and Profit", but the 'materialists' insist that they do; 'just keep reading the texts' seems to be their advice.You said in a previous post that you think that there is some 'thin red line' of Communists. I'm not sure about this at all, that there is at this time an identifiable body of workers who understand that power cannot be divisible.To me, workers' democracy implies 'no division of labour'. If it doesn't to you, alan, I don't think our politics are the same at all.[PS. the only thing that makes sense of your argument to me is that you're using bourgeois ideology to understand the meaning of 'division of labour'; that is, it's about 'division of individuals', rather than Communist ideology that it's about 'division of society' into classes. If you are doing this, it makes me think even more that we do not share the same ideology and politics]

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I know i am going to be crucified for this and accused of having a blinkered approach to politics but i really have a problem that over the past year we have had a series of extraordinary long threads on what i shame-faced would describe as abstract Marxist esoterics.

You won't get 'crucified for this' by me, alan.The problem is the poor explanations by socialists, since the 19th century, of really important issues for workers, but which have been explained so badly that most reasonable workers would call them 'abstract esoterics'.I've always tried to give explanations using analogies, and point out the political consequences of the explanations that have been given.On the other hand, if you're minded to leave the "intellectual leadership of workers" to someone other than workers themselves, then the 'Abstractionist-Esotericians' will take charge.I suspect that the 'A-E's will live in the big houses, give the orders, do the thinking, whilst the 'deal with the real world of politics' workers will provide the labour force.Will be a bit like capitalism or soviet communism, I have a feeling…

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Could I ask a question.What is the value of knowing "What is value"?

In the context of the explanations that I've given, SP, perhaps if I put your question into the mouth of a parent who has children who want to play with some strange chemical:

Parent of kids playing with, and about to touch a liquid, wrote:

Could I ask a question.What is the value of knowing "What is acid"?

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

You are even more embarrassing with your attempt to understand 'value'. What with all this about bricks and clay.

I'm truly hurt, Vin.I especially crafted my explanation to take into account your desire to use the ideology of 'Mudpieism', sorry, 'Materialism', to help you to understand reality.Yeah, I should have guessed that the complexity of a 'brick' would be a step too far.My bad, comrade!

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

, you won't explain, any further than quoting from works that are the very ones that are not understood. Surely you can see the logical problem?

LBird wrote:

 Marx, Capital, wrote: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. [my bold]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm

You really are tiresome, Vin.I'm quoting Marx to show he agrees with my explanation, not quoting him as the explanation.Do try to keep up. Ask the 'material conditions' to explain the 'subtleties' to you, if necessary.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

But I'm not quoting Marx back at you, I'm explaining in my own words.

YMS, all the SPGB members have recommended Marx's texts, rather than explain using their own words.You are not explaining in your own words, but using Marx's concepts.

YMS wrote:

Now, I've explained that value is about social production using commodities…

[my bold]Need I say anymore?

YMS wrote:

…something that is readily understandable to anyone who has ever been in a workplace and had a gaffer shouting 'Time is money' at them. That's all you need to understand to understand value.

[my bold]That's just laughable, YMS.

YMS wrote:

I'm not taking the piss, I'm relaying my experience.

No, if there's one thing I've come to understand about you, YMS, you are serious about your position, and humour plays little part in it.My experience is the complete opposite. Workplaces are not teeming with workers who, simply from their experience of bullying 'gaffers', understand the nature of 'value', and why it is dangerous to humans.For me to judge whose 'experience' is the norm, yours or mine, I can look to society today, after generations of the aforementioned 'gaffers'.I see my opinions confirmed, rather than yours.If your opinion on this issue prevails in the SPGB, why does the SPGB bother to argue for propaganda and education by socialists amongst their fellow workers?That's the strategy that appeals to me, and why I came to this site, after reading ALB and alanjjohnstone's contributions on LibCom. But I seem to have found the opposite, just the usual guff about "it's all obvious to workers through their practice and experience" and about "material conditions" talking to/leading/guiding the workers.If what you argue is true, why isn't there a mass movement of worker-socialists on this planet? If it's easy to understand 'value', Capital is a doddle, and both the 'material conditions' and "workers' own experience" are all conspiring in our favour?It's not a world I recognise, YMS.

[LBird]

YMS, I've already pointed out that a 'structure' can form a 'component' for a higher-level 'structure', so I've already said that a 'wall' can also be a 'use-value'.The real problem is, you're already determined not to understand the analogy, because you apparently already understand Capital, from simply reading it. Most workers, including me, don't, and what's more, although you claim to understand it, you won't explain, any further than quoting from works that are the very ones that are not understood. Surely you can see the logical problem?Unless we find a way of explaining Marx's ideas, that doesn't involve merely repeating Marx's ideas (as if the Victorian method of constant repetition to a 'thick child' will suddenly produce 'enlightenment'), then Capital will remain unread and not understood.Of course, for those who claim to have understood, and not have a commitment to democracy, that situation is fine, because a 'knowing elite' who do understand can provide the 'guidance' for workers'. They can, of course, pretend that this 'guidance' comes from 'material conditions', and so hide their active role in the presence of the passive workers…As for:

YMS wrote:

I remember when I first read those first three chapters and being bowled over by the clarity…

I'm not sure if you're taking the piss out of me.I have never, ever, e v e r, heard anyone say that before. Not even the Leninists or Anarchists. Perhaps it's me who's leading the sheltered life.Or, you are the messiah…

[Author]

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