[LBird]

ALB wrote:

That's a bit sad.

It's more than 'sad'.It's a tragedy for workers that they're still being lead astray by Engels' half-witted 'materialism'.The solution for you though, ALB, is to recognise your ideology of 'Engelsian Materialism' (in private, if you wish), and thus come to understand why you disagree with Marx and the 'matterlessness' of 'value'.There is not an objective position in the universe to un-ideologically observe 'matter'.'Matter' is an idea made up by Engels, as far as Communists are concerned.

[LBird]

Given the turn the other thread has taken (where you, just like DJP and Vin, just can't resist dishing out insults when I'm being entirely comradely and answering questions in depth), I think that I'm wasting my time discussing with you, ALB.For those not following the other thread, ALB insinuated that I'm a liar.Why not just announce that you are an Engelsian Materialist, given your posting of his texts on the other thread, and bugger Marx off?'Matter'? It's effin laughable that anyone in the 21st century should keep bangin' on about it. No wonder we're going nowhere – and by that, I mean both this thread and the workers' movement.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I agree with you, Vin, I don't know why we bother to continue discussing with him. Probably because he's a socialist even if he's all over the place with philosophy and because we believe it's possible to convince people by rational argument. Actually, I doubt if he's actually read Engels's book.

Getting desperate now, aren't you, ALB? Just about calling me a liar.I suppose you'll, too, go crying to the 'authorities' if I return the insult?I've tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it appears that you are a muppet.Just why do you bother to continue discussing with me? You've got cloth ears.

[LBird]

From ALB's link:

Ruth Groff wrote:

… in my view… critical realism bears the mark not just of Aristotle, but of Marx.

Spot on.If one has problems with the ideology of Aristotle and Marx, one will have problems with CR.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

You are playing Humpty Dumpty again and making words mean what you say they mean.

Spoken like a true irreconcilable materialist, ALB!Unless you reveal your ideology (if not to us, then secretly to yourself), then you won't be able to make sense of 'idealism-materialism', because it goes against the ontological assumptions of 'materialism'. For a materialist, everything must be at base 'material'. If you follow that ideology, fine, then why not say so, and you can stop pretending to be in an 'objective position' which allows you to pronounce on the 'Humpty Dumpties' of the world, and you can come to realise that there are others, from other relative standpoints, who just won't accept your ideological assertions.

ALB wrote:

The trite observation that people are influenced to act by ideas is not what Bhaskar and his philosophy mean by "non-physical causal powers" and, as a "critical realist" yourself, you must know it.

Yeah, other ideologies are always 'trite' to the pseudo-non-ideological.

ALB wrote:

No doubt too, you must take up some position in this debate about amongst your fellow "critical realists" about the nature of these mysterious "causal powers…

I know I've said this a million times before, and you've ignored it, but my 'fellows' are Communists, not 'critical realists' as a group. FFS, Bhaskar's gone and got religion, and Margaret Archer is a bloody Catholic, apparently.On ontology, I follow Dietzgen: ideas and things have the same ontological status. So, if by 'free-floating powers', the more materialistic/physicalistic of the CR-ers mean simply 'powerful ideas', then I don't agree with them. Ideas are never 'free-floating', but are socially-produced and change historically. By 'free-floating', though, they mean 'non-material'. For Dietzgen, Marx and me, 'real' means ideal and material. So, nothing can be 'free-floating' from both ideas and material.It seems to me that 'value', in that sense, is a 'free-floating power', because, as Marx says (and as you keep hiding your eyes from), there isn't an atom of matter in 'value'. For a 'materialist', this is a very inconvenient statement by Marx, and he apparently wrote this in the little-known chapter of Capital entitled 'Humpty-Dumpty explains value'.Ontology is a human decision, and if we want 'free-floating powers', we start from 'free-floating powers'. This, of course, is roundly condemned by the ideological materialists, as 'Evil Idealism'! Engels told them so (but he later recanted, or at least tried to, when he saw where 'materialism' was heading).We'll have to have a vote on that, too, ALB.It's going to be a bugger of an argument, this Communism, isn't it?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

This might be the time and place for you to explain Bhaskar's concept of "non-physical causal powers" that you avoided before…

I haven't 'avoided before', and neither has Marx. You've just been ignoring both what I've previously said, and what's in front of your face in Capital, for ideological reasons, I presume, connected to your defence of 'materialism'.'Value' is a 'non-physical causal power'.

Marx, Capital, wrote:

The value of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality of their substance, not an atom of matter enters into its composition.

[my bold]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htmValue causes humans to act in predictable ways, both capitalists and workers, but it is 'non-physical', according to Marx.Funnily enough, ALB, this statement of Marx's was one of the drivers behind my desire to read Bhaskar, amongst others.And there, too, we have yet another 'non-physical causal power': the statement above by Marx.His idea had the causal power to direct my research practice.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

From January 2002, eh?

Well I'm sure that's not the last words they uttered. But read the article and click on the link below, what exactly is it about them that you think that "workers" can't understand?http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/video/marx-and-economics

I've had a listen to the opening minutes of the talk, but I haven't got the time to sit through what seems to be a fairly standard account of a history of political economy, of which I'm sure I'd agree with probably 99% of it.What caught my attention, though, was this statement:

Darren, at 5:12-5:35, wrote:

…theorists sought to build a theory based more closely on the mathematical models of the physical sciences and sought to downplay the importance of the social and historical factors…

Although this was made in the context of a discussion of the development of neo-classical economics, you don't seem to realise that exactly the same criticism can be made of 'the physical sciences' themselves, that they 'downplay the importance of the social and historical factors'.The key problem is not simply that a return to political economy which does not downplay the importance of the social and historical factors would solve the issue, but that the 'physical sciences' (including physics) can't be simply based upon 'mathematical models', either.That is, the solution is that 'physics' itself becomes more like 'political economy'.Our concepts of the 'material' (or, 'matter') are also based upon 'social and historical factors'. Inescapably intertwined in the 'material' for any society is the 'ideal'. It's a 19th century myth that 'matter' simply tells us 'what it is', and that 'knowledge' of this 'material' is, once 'discovered', a final 'Truth'. This model holds that 'matter' is simply reflected in our minds, and that a individual has access to this 'copy knowledge' through their own senses. That is, one can know a rock simply by picking it up and looking at it.The alternative is to recognise that all 'knowledge' is socially and historically produced, and is not a 'copy' of 'matter'. All human knowledge contains both ideas and material, and social and historical factors influence how an individual 'understands' the 'rock in their hands'.The upshot of this is that, for a Communist society based upon democratic controls of production, that 'what matter is' has to be subject to a democratic vote. It is not in the power of an individual to tell themselves what 'material' things are. That is a continuation of the bourgeois myth of the commodity, that any individual can simply judge for themselves 'what it's worth', because 'value' is a psychological category and open to the sensual judgement of its prospective possessor.'Value', just like 'the material', is a socially-created category, and to understand either requires a social theory.That is, human ideas.It is not 'idealism' to suggest that social ideas are employed to determine 'what is'. Theory and practice are as important in physics as in political economy.Your comments against 'mathematical models' in political economy are as valid in physics, too. Humans can't 'downplay the importance of the social and historical factors' in either.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

I don't expect you to answer my points, 

 You don't make any. Just unsubstantiated assertions. and of course the usually aunt sallies.

[my bold]I've provided links to most of the quotes that I've provided from Marx, Engels, Dietzgen, Einstein, etc., so that interested comrades can check up on the context of those quotes.I've provided book titles and page numbers from dozens of later Communists like Pannekoek, Korsch, Lukacs, Gramsci.Same from commentators like Hook, Lichtheim, Schimdt, Kolakowski, Avineri, Ball, Farr, Carver.And those talking about science, like Schaff, Chalmers, Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos.There are dozens of others that I've mentioned, but are not on that list.But you, Vin, just hang on to your religious 'matter', which has no substance. You think the alternative is 'idealism', which plays the role of 'evil' in your simplistic view of the world.And because you can't have a detailed discussion, because you don't know the academic basis of your arguments, you turn to personal abuse of me. And when I return the favour, you call me a troll.Anybody coming to these discussions, and having an ounce judgement, can see that I can substantiate my position, just by looking at the short list of references above. You just turn to abuse.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

Criticise MY beliefs: Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are the result of material interactions.

This is nothing to do with Marx.Your ideological beliefs have nothing to do with Communism and democracy.The focus on 'matter' is a conservative philosophy.What's more, you can't define 'matter'.The concept is a 19th century concept.I don't expect you to answer my points, just to continue to personally attack me, and then complain when I do it back.I've even told you where you get these ridiculous ideas from: Engels, in Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German Philosophy.You haven't read this, though, because you just uncritically repeat what your ideologists have told you about comforting 'matter'.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

Not least, because I've got 666 arguments to defeat 'materialism'.

 Give me one. Not 666. Just one.

Materialism is the philosophical basis of Leninism.It pretends that a select elite have a neutral access to 'matter' or 'material conditions'. Materialists must claim that the knowledge they have is not accessible to the mass of workers, otherwise they'd allow a democratic vote on what constitutes the 'material conditions'.All the adherents of 'materialism' on this site have the same philosophical problem: they can't agree with me that 'workers should determine for themselves what 'material conditions' actually are, by a vote'. This implies workers would democratically control all science, its activities and products. Including 'Reason' and 'Maths'.Thus, 'materialism' is fundamentally undemocratic, and politically dangerous for the proletariat, who must organise democratically.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

 At least it's not a 'material world', Maddy.

 I think we have all guessed that. The material world doesen't exist for you. 

The old 19th century engineering metaphor, eh?You'll be regurgitating 'base and superstructure', next!

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

The bottom line, Vin, is that if you're going to promote a viewpoint, like 'materialism', you have to expect it to be criticised, by those who can see the political dangers of it, because they've read further into it. Sticking your head in the sand, and simply repeating 'materialism, materialism, materialism', like an incantation to ward off the devil, won't succeed. 

 You really are  twisted 

And you're straight as a conservative. Ramrod Vin, they should call you.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

You  continue to lie about my opinions. You obviously can't help yourself.   

You've got opinions?That's news to me. All I ever read is regurgitation of outdated 19th century ones.You clearly don't understand them, either, or you wouldn't consider what I say about them as 'lies'.Don't forget, Vin, I've actually read both those opinions, and dozens of criticisms of them.Unlike you.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

Not least, because I've got 666 arguments to defeat 'materialism'.

 You live in your own fantasy world don't you?  

At least it's not a 'material world', Maddy.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Vin wrote:

LBird is contantly abusive and attributes unsavoury beliefs to other forum members.  Would you suggest we simply ignore him and allow him to attack and abuse forum members?

This is true and I still think something should be done about it. If LBird was a member of the party, or was at a physical meeting, he would not be allowed to continue behaving in this manner.

What, in response to verbal criticism of your muddled ideas, you'd hit me with your handbag?

[Author]

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