[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird,matter was here before mind, including the need to keep a human brain runnign before it can do any thinking.  No matter what the logic of a position, deeprive a brain of oxygen or proteins for a sustained period, it'll styart producing poor ideas.  hat need ultimately comes down to the exterior world and any set of ideas we posses must be consistent with our ability to go on providing our brains with oxygen and proteins.

This, once again, proves that YMS is not reading what I write, and neither are the other 'materialists'.No-one is arguing that 'matter' wasn't here before 'mind'.But that is a historical question.As I've said before, many times, our problem is not an issue of 'which came first', upon which historical answer we all agree, but the problem of, once it emerges after matter, how consciousness knows what matter 'is'.I know that in a month's time, YMS or some other materialist will say this again, as they do regularly, and accuse those who accept Marx's 'theory and practice' of saying 'mind came first' or 'matter emerges from mind' or some other nonsense. It doesn't matter how many times I say rocks were around before consciousness, I'll be accused of saying the opposite, again, sooner or later.The rest of your post, YMS, is nothing to do with the epistemological question of 'knowledge'.Unless you and the other materialists address this question, you'll remain sidelined by any worker, like me, who can read, not only Marx, Engels, Dietzgen and Lenin, but also modern philosophers of science, who seem to take Marx's side in these debates.Your separation of 'mind' and 'matter' is pre-Theses, and returns to the ancient debate about 'being' and 'consciousness', of 'idealism' versus 'materialism'.Marx tried to put this to bed with his claim that both ideas and material are interlinked, through human practice, by the application of human ideas to their real, external world, with the active aim of changing it.If only the 'materialists' would read Marx. They'd soon see how he differs from Engels.But, they haven't read Engels, either, so they wouldn't know.The reason 'materialism' is a religion is that, not only won't its adherents have a word said against it, and argue that 'it says 'materialism' in their bible', but when they're asked, they admit that they haven't actually read their bible, but have been assured by others that it is the case.We're back to taking the stance of the Young Hegelians, and arguing against Christianity, by exegesis of the Christian texts.Except that 'Christianity' is 'Materialism', and we're nearly two hundred years later, having surpassed the Y.H. due to Marx's criticisms that they didn't go far enough.You couldn't make this up – and we pretend to be capable of offering advice to workers, and the problem is that they won't listen?My advice to workers, quite frankly, is not to listen to this nonsense about 'materialism'.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Lived experience is the whole of the human, mind and senses …

[my bold]So, why call this philosophy 'materialism', when it contains 'ideas', too?Unless we stop calling our philosophy 'materialism' (which makes workers think that it's just about the 'material', or 'matter' or the 'physical'), then we ignore Marx's whole point in the Theses.That is, 'ideas' and 'material' are both as equally important in the method of 'theory and practice'.It's clear that many here, members of the SPGB, also subscribe to 'materialism', in the sense of 'matter' being 'basic'. This is a travesty of Marx's position, and issues from Engels.It's only when Socialists/Communists openly say that we're 'idealist-materialists' (or whatever phrase also reflects this reality to our philosophy) that we'll make any progress.Mind is as basic as matter. They are a unity. Dietzgen is good on this particular issue, and he uses 'dialectical' as a synonym of 'ideal'. That is, 'talking through', using our consciousness, which is what 'dialego' means in Greek.This is all a long way from 'matter' determining 'experience' and 'ideas'.We have to plan to change things, first. Things changing don't produce plans. That is passivity, and denies the 'active side' of humans, contrary to Marx's view.

[LBird]

ALB, I think my reply to YMS also covers your post about 'spontaneism'. I obviously agree with you, about its passivity regarding 'material conditions'.[edit] I've just chosen to focus on the dangers of 'Leninism', rather than 'spontaneism', because I think the former is the one being espoused by some here, with talk of elites, experts, academics, etc. in science.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Unless and until their lived experience accords with socialist understanding…

[my bold]I know I've said this before, YMS, but this is 'induction', that 'material facts' produce 'ideas'.I'm not using this as a term of abuse, but trying to point out the very different philosophy underpinning Marx's 'theory and practice', from your 'practice and theory'.'Lived experience' will come from ideas, not ideas from 'lived experience'.That's the whole point of changing the world. The world doesn't change and produce ideas (and thus 'matter' is the 'active side'), but humans criticise what exists, and create a new world in their ideas, and then proceed to consciously change the 'material condition' / 'lived experience' in line with their new ideas.If you disagree with my viewpoint, and many here do, we should discuss this philosophical difference, because it has political implications.Who is to introduce the 'lived experience'?Workers unconsciously? A conscious minority? Or a majority of conscious workers?'Materialists' have to argue either unconscious workers (because 'matter' is the 'active side') or a conscious minority (Leninism).Otherwise, they'd be forced to agree with me and Marx, that 'critical ideas' allow the mass of workers to change their world. And thus that the task of Socialists/Communists is to stimulate critical ideas within the class, and not passively await 'lived experience', which will never achieve our goals.

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

The workers do not vote FOR capitalism. To vote for capitalism suggests the workers have an alternative that is known and presented to them. The opposite is true. The socialism/communism we talk about on this forum is something that the majority of workers worldwide have never come across before.

Personally, I place the the blame for lack of 'presentation' upon generations of Communists/Socialists, who have signally failed to 'present' an understandable alternative to workers, including to many who have, not only asked, but have actually got involved. Many, even millions of, workers have come across what passes for socialism, but have found that it is actually nothing to do with their democractic control of their own lives, and so have rejected it.I'm of the opinion that, since I believe that active 'ideas' (not passive 'material circumstances') are the key, that Communists/Socialists need to explain the ideas of, for example, Marx. We should be searching for ways of simplifying difficult ideas, so that workers can more easily get a handle on what's being said. From my own experience, cadre seem to prefer it the other way, and keep ideas difficult to maintain their own power. Further, and wider than 'party politics', I think that this method is followed in education and science, too, to maintain the power of academics and scientists.This restriction of 'knowledge' to an elite cannot be acceptable to any Socialists/Communists who argue for democratic workers' control of production.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

We know your views on what you define rather narrowly as  "materialism" and have argued about this to a standstill. So no point in going over this again.

You started this new thread, with a quote from me, and accuse me of 'going over this again'?I'm forced to ask, if there's 'no point', what was your point in starting it?If you prefer your 'wider materialism', why not discuss it? If you're confident that there is something to this 'wider materialism', why not defend it?If, by being 'argued to a standstill', you mean you've been overwhelmed by evidence and yet still refuse to be convinced, that's a problem for you, not for me.What's more, my 'enforced absence' last week gave me some time to read a bit more Dietzgen (of whom I know you know a bit), and now I'm convinced that much of his ontology agrees with my views, if not his method.So, if your 'wider materialism' equates to Dietzgen's 'dialectical materialism', we could discuss that. But I warn you, I think that his term 'dialectical' could be replaced with 'ideal', and suffer no loss.That is, Dietzgen's 'dialectical materialism' is, at least in ontology, very similar to Marx's 'idealism-materialism', and both are different to Engels' 'materialist conception of history', which turns out to be good old-fashioned, mechanical, 18th century, pre-Theses, 'materialism'.The ball's in your court.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

I prefer what Engels wrote. Its easier to read.

Yes, you're spot on, jondwhite! That's why people read Engels in preference to Marx, who never used one word where ten would do, and constantly added sub-clauses and caveats, so as to render his main point incomprehensible.Unfortunately, Marx was suggestive, stimulating, and requires us workers to discuss just what he meant. It's not obvious at all.Engels, on the contrary, is simpler. But, he's saying something very different to Marx.You want 'easy', whereas Marx talked about there being no royal road to understanding.Whilst workers do 'easy', they won't do 'revolution', which requires 'difficulty' in both theory and practice.The 'easiest' thing, of course, is to simply assume the god 'Marx-Engels' spoke with one voice. Easy, but wrong.

[LBird]

ALBs link to the article wrote:

Later in the 9th party Congress Lenin denounced the “still surviving notorious democratism”, and characterised the “outcry against appointees” as “pernicious trash”. Lenin observed that “the fact that a class is the leading class does not make it at once capable of administration”. Would one be too wrong to conclude that the proletariat (in Russia) was incapable of administering its own state?

Doesn't this sound like YMS's objections to my arguments that workers should control science?To YMS, I'm displaying 'notorious democratism', and arguing that 'the leading class is capable of science' and 'capable of administering its own science'.I'm warning you all, comrades, that 'Materialism' is the source of such thinking. If 'matter' is the determinant of 'consciousness', then those who claim to have access to 'matter' (ie. 'materialists') will determine 'political consciousness', in the face of democratic objections from the class.'Matter' trumps 'democracy', according to the 'materialists'.

[LBird]

ALBs link to article wrote:

Let us now examine the author’s points. First, the idea of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”. The way he connects Marx with this idea shows, we are sorry to say, his very superficial reading of Marx (in his rush, it seems, to connect the Commune with the Bolshevik regime). There is no textual evidence that Marx “based his idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Paris Commune”. There is no extant text where Marx calls the Commune a “dictatorship of the proletariat” for the simple reason that Marx never thought that the communards’ revolution was a socialist revolution in his sense. He makes this very clear in his 1881 letter to Domela-Nieuwenhuis where he stressed that “this was merely the rising of a city under exceptional conditions, (and) the majority of the Commune was in no way socialist…” It was Engels who used this expression for the Commune, though more in a kind of rhetoric against the “Social-Democratic philistines”.

[my bold]Once again, as for 'science' and 'materialism', it is extremely important to separate out 'what Engels wrote' from 'what Marx wrote'.There is no god called 'Marx-Engels', as the Leninists/Trotskyists/Materialists assume.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Why would it be "elitist" to say that they were mistaken?

I haven't said that 'it is elitist for Communist workers to say to non-Communist workers that they are mistaken'.To simply hold a minority opinion, and aim to persuade the majority to change its mind, is not elitism.Elitism is arguing that the minority should have the power to impose their minority opinion on the majority.This is what 'materialists' do. They argue that they have access to 'matter', and that 'matter' itself trumps the opinions of a majority of what 'matter' is, if the majority opinion differs from the minority 'materialist' opinion.That is, 19th century positivist scientism, which confused Engels, and then infected the Second International, and thus formed Lenin's opinions, necessarily leads to 'materialists' telling workers what the 'material conditions' actually are.There are philosophical issues at stake here, which have political consequences.Furthermore, I can't see how the SPGB can hold to a democratic political strategy, without an underlying democratic philosophical strategy.To me, this demonstrates confusion within the membership.This is why I can argue for the democratic control of science, including the production of knowledge, whilst the 'materialists' object to this stance, because they follow Engels and Lenin is assuming that a minority of humans can have an access to 'matter' that is denied to the majority.The 'materialists' are mostly hidden (uncomprehending?) elitists; and in the case of Young Master Smeet, an open elitist, who openly denies democracy in the production of 'truth', which he insists should be kept within the realm of a mathematical/scientific elite.This is no basis for Socialism/Communism (of the sort I think we all mean, or I wouldn't bother my arse to argue the point). It is the basis for Leninism.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Exactly. Those of us who have become socialists/communists are just members of the working class arguing the case for socialism with our fellow workers. We are not an elite from outside the working class, not even those of us who have got together in a separate organisation to do this more effectively.What in fact we are doing is trying to ensure that hearing the argument for socialism is part of the "experience" of the working class since (as all of us here know) there is no such thing as experience without thought.

[my bold]Yeah, Communists are no more than workers who argue for Communism/Socialism. They cannot be an 'elite' who 'know' better, but simply a group of workers who hold another opinion out, for the consideration of the wider class. If the wider class say they prefer capitalism, the wider class are 'correct'. There is no route allowing the 'knowing elite' to compel the class to 'understand the truth'. The class always 'knows best' what its interests are. If we can't persuade the class otherwise about their interests, then we are wrong. Simple. We are not an external elite, but a group of workers who have 'got it wrong' in the opinion of the majority of workers.On the bolded part, this is the 19th century myth of 'positivist science', that 'untheorised experience' leads to 'knowledge', that 'induction' from 'facts' is the method to produce 'theory'.The only humans who experience 'untheorised', are those ignorant of their theory. Social theory always comes before social experience, and as scientists we must expose our theory prior to our practice. That is the scientific method, not pretending to be 'objective' and having neutral access to 'The Truth', as physicists erroneously thought they had prior to Einstein. That was the bourgeois myth unfortunately followed by Engels, and then propagated by the Second International, including Kautsky and Lenin. It is simply elitism.

ALB wrote:

So the Trotskyists (and others) are wrong to argue that the working class can learn to be against capitalism through mere struggle or by the experience of failure to achieve some reform without them also hearing the case for socialism argued. Which they reject as casting pearls before swine.

Yeah, they're all from the same cast of thought – Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky – that they had access to a consciousness not available to the mass of workers, through their 'neutral scientific method', which thus gave them the right to ignore workers and their 'benighted' opinions, and thus laid the ground for Stalin.They believe that if they have the theory (which the workers don't need to be cognisant of) and push workers to have 'experiences' driven by a theory which is provided for them by this 'knowing' elite, then the unconscious workers will then develop the correct consciousness after their experiences.It's bollocks, of course. If workers 'fight for higher wages', and lose, they don't conclude that they should get rid of wages, but that since the bosses have the power to set wages, and that workers need higher wages (as the 'knowing' elite have told them, thus the need for their 'struggle'), then they need to cosy up to the all-powerful bosses, and their bosses' ideas. Thus, 'low wages are caused by immigrants'. "Everybody knows that!".Struggle without conscious theory is not only scientific nonsense, but is nothing to do with workers developing their consciousness, and realising, prior to their own struggle, that they need to destroy the wage system.Are we 'casting pearls before swine'?If one answers 'yes' to that question, how can one be a Communist/Socialist? I'm more inclined to blame us Communists, for failing to explain things like Marx's Capital and the theory of value, never mind epistemology.If workers can't grapple with theory (as the 'scientists' here argue), and make democratic decisions based upon their understanding, then workers really can't run the world.Those who argue for elite science, an activity that produces something that is outside of the democratic control of all humans, are basing their views upon outdated 19th century philosophy, which comes from Engels and ended in Stalin.Workers must vote upon the results of science. Any other theoretical position is elitism. We humans must tell ourselves what nature is. Truth must be socially controlled, not in the hands of a lying elite.And they are liars. Science tells us so!They only alternative explanation is that they are ignorant, and they don't subscribe to the view expressed by you, that I have bolded above. They probably still think that they are 'individuals', and can simply use their senses to tell them what's in front of their own eyes.The ruling ideas in any society are the ideas of the ruling class. That goes for 'socially-neutral science', 'material/physical' basis to the world, and 'we're all individuals'.

[LBird]

gnome wrote:

Although this particular individual claims to be a communist he insists that the class struggle alone will be the basis for the change without the need for education by an external 'elite', by which he means, in this instance, the SPGB.What would your response to this person be?

My response would be: "Communist workers are not an 'external elite' ".The resolution of whether they are 'external' or not, is a vote.For the 'materialists' (which in effect means Leninists), they cannot accept a position where workers can outvote the 'cadre' (ie. those who know what the 'material conditions' are 'saying').Communists can accept this position: we as workers argue that the 'material conditions' should be interpreted thus; if other non-Communist workers argue that the 'material conditions' should be interpreted differently, then the 'material conditions' are as they argue, even though we disagree.We must hold to the position that our interpretation of 'material conditions' is the better one; but we have to pursuade non-Communist workers it is so. If they disagree, after a vote, their interpretation is the 'true' one. And so, capitalism continues.Any other stance must be of necessity an elitist stance. We must argue that 'the truth' depends upon a vote. The fact that we disagree with that 'truth', and will continue to argue against that 'truth', is neither here nor there.We have to win the battle of ideas, and the test of the winning is a vote.The 'material circumstances' do not talk to us alone. That would be an elitist position. And Leninism.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

All the effort to get the working class to demand that the rich be taxed till the pips squeak would have been better directed to get them to abolish capitalism. Certainly the socialist movement should built itself up on this basis not of demanding reforms, unrealisable or no.

I couldn't agree more, ALB, and this is what I thought that the SPGB would have its philosophy based upon. That is, ideas are the basis of, and key to, the change.I don't want to resurrect the debate, and stir up the religious fanatics once again, but 'material circumstances' won't tell us that this is what is required. The 'rocks' don't talk to us, and unless we attempt to explain our case, rather than assuming it is 'obvious' due to 'material circumstances', then the explanation of 'material circumstances' that will be accepted, will be the louder, better organised, simpler one, of UKIP (for example).We should be able to simplify Marx's ideas, to then organise their dissemination within the working class, and then to watch our case grow louder as more workers 'come to consciousness' of their 'material conditions'.What's more, is that, if we explain what Piketty is actually saying, some bourgeois thinkers are making at least half of our case for us.The problem is, many prefer to adore Piketty as an academic, rather than to criticise his nonsensical recommendations and to slate him as a 'bourgeois thinker', and simplify his immense tome.We should be laughing at Piketty, and pitying his inability to draw proper conclusions 'from his data', rather than giving him respect as an academic. We should be consciously working to undermine the thinkers of the bourgeoisie, rather than paying them any respect whatsoever. I think most workers can soon understand that Piketty, like the rest of them, is a bluffer.Unfortunately, their bluffs put us in uniform. Piketty says as much, if read from a conscious Communist/Socialist perspective, rather than from the mythical 'open-minded' view of liberal academics.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

But, as Joan Robinson is quoted in the article as saying, if a government (that's her term, we'd say the working class) is strong enough to impose, say, heavy penal taxation on the rich it (they) would also be strong enough to abolish the whole capitalist system.

I prefer to use her term, ALB. She says 'government', not 'proletariat'.And, in her terms, she was wrong. To take an example, a strongly 'nationalist' government, perhaps even a future more rabid UKIP one, would be 'strong enough to impose heavy penal taxation on the rich', for nationalist war aims (obviously described as 'defensive', as were the recent ones in Iraq and Afghanistan as defending us against 'terror'), without being 'strong enough to abolish the whole capitalist system'.Piketty's real message is clear enough, to me, at least.Bloody big wars reinvigorate capitalism, and the methods and consequences are acceptable to the rich.He's laying the basis, inadvertently, of course, for our case.If workers don't want to put on those uniforms, once again, and kill other workers, they have to reject capitalism.Our problem is a movement that thinks that 'material circumstances' talk to humans. Whilst it retains that philosophy, it won't take the necessary steps to build a conscious workers' movement, because it believes that ideas, propaganda and education are not the basis of the change. Whilst we keep pretending that consciousness emerges from material circumstances, we will continue to be irrelevant.

[LBird]

J Surman wrote:

"Michal Kalecki, who had shown as early as in 1937 that capital taxation, which served to reduce inequality in society, was also the best way to finance government expenditure for raising employment in the economy, had ended his essay by saying: "It is difficult to believe however that capital taxation will ever be applied for this purpose on a large scale; for it may seem to undermine the principle of private property."9 

Kalecki was wrong: the 'application of large scale capital taxation', which did not 'undermine the principle of private property', was successfully tried, as Piketty's book itself details, by fighting World Wars 1 and 2.This both 'reduced inequality' and 'raised employment'.

J Surman wrote:

"He had gone on to quote a part of Joan Robinson's remarkably insightful comment: "Any government which had the power and the will to remedy the major defects of the capitalist system would have the will and power to abolish it altogether, while governments which have the power to retain the system lack the will to remedy its defects."10  While reading Piketty we should not forget this basic insight of Joan Robinson."

Once again, Robinson was proved wrong, according to Piketty.The 'major defects of the capitalist system' can always be 'remedied', without 'abolishing it altogether', by recourse to heavy taxation of the rich, massive government spending, and full employment, all without damaging the 'principle of private property'.Piketty shows that wars achieve these ends.The rich accept the taxation of themselves, for 'national' ends, but it doesn't threaten their essential property.Piketty's book says all this; so why he didn't draw revolutionary conclusions from his own arguments, only he can know.Personally, I blame academics and their closeting: in my opinion, many are none too bright to start with, and are simply selected by the methods of society which suit their social origins (academia is not a meritocracy), and their ever-shrinking focus on ever-smaller issues, means that they simply can't see the whole picture.Has anyone here ever spoken to academic economists? I have, and it's very enlightening.Not about 'economics', but about why Piketty can't see the woods of 'political economy' for the trees of 'economics'.

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