[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Surely concerns over "power" are more an anarchist concept whereas Marxists are more concerned about "ownership".

I find this a very 'economistic' argument, ALB. Surely the events surrounding the Russian Revolution and the founding of the Soviet Union, and its political results, ended forever the 19th belief that once the problems of 'ownership' (ie. private property) were removed, that 'political freedom' would inevitably follow. I think that the Anarchists are correct to ask questions about 'power' in itself: not all power is rooted in 'ownership'.

ALB wrote:

Only if you think that there is some propensity for humans to want to exercise some power of others, i.e, the human nature argument.It is the same in socialism. Why would those elected or delegated to positions in socialism abuse or want to abuse their positions?

There are plenty of reasons why some humans want to exercise power over others, besides the 'human nature argument'. For example, there are always some people who think that they 'know better' than the majority, and will attempt to get their 'own way' for 'the benefit of the majority' (as the elitists see it). We've seen strands of this sort of thinking on the 'Science for Communists?' thread, where there is a strong tendency by some to want to place 'power' into the hands of an unelected elite of academics, mathematicians and 'proper scientists'.

ALB wrote:

In fact, how could they? With everyone having free access to what they needed they wouldn't be able to allocate themselves any material privileges. And they wouldn't have any armed forces at their disposal to enforce their will.

Unless everything is 'free access' (and I think we all know that some things will be restricted, because of rarity, worth or danger for example, and allocated according to whatever parameters we decide) then this would provide a 'material basis' for influence and favours, at least. This doesn't necessarily require 'armed forces' (although surely there will be some coercive mechanisms, if we are to retain prisons/asylums/hospitals for some socially dangerous categories of people), but just the power of distribution and patronage. All societies, including pre-class societies, have had these issues to be dealt with ('Big Men' or 'Chiefdoms', at least).

ALB wrote:

Having said this, of course I'm all in favour of checks and balances on elected people or delegates, eg shorter terms, rotation, recall, regular reportback meetings, etc. That's part of what a genuine democracy is and socialism will be a participatory democracy. It's just that I think the danger of abuse of "power" may be exaggerated and that therefore we won't need to prioritise direct democracy as the ideal to be resorted to as much as possible.

I, of course, agree with most of what you say here, but I still think that you underestimate 'power' and its negative potential. I think that your stress on 'participatory democracy' is spot on. But then…

ALB wrote:

I don't want to wake up every morning in socialism and switch on my computer to be confronted with hundreds of decisions to vote on. I'm prepared to delegate all but the most important to elected councils and committees and get on living my life rather than voting all the time.

This seems to undermine the precisely 'participatory' nature of Communist democracy. It's a simple fact that this will require 'decisions and voting all the time'. I take your point about 'morning hundreds' and 'delegation', but I think that it's often very underestimated just how much time we'll have to spend on 'living our lives as voters'. That is the nature of 'participatory democracy'.On LibCom, there seemed to be a lot of posters who seemed to think that Communism will involve them doing exactly as they please, getting up whenever they liked, and never going to meetings or internet exchanges. Whenever I asked who is going to be doing the running of society, or how their duty to others (from each according to their abilities…) is to be organised, they seemed to be stumped by the question.To them, Communism was lying in bed all day, partying all night, never doing any unwelcome work in rota, and some seemed to think that they would do no work whatsoever. They certainly weren't going 'to attend boring meetings, man'.How this fits with the notion of 'participatory' was never explained to me. They really just wanted to see the myth of bourgeois individualism come to fruition for them.To me, the nature of 'getting on with living our lives' needs much further discussion. Unless we're going to just leave it to those nice people in parliament to organise production, distribution and consumption (and science) for us?I can't believe that the working class, once it's organised and educated itself and carried out a revolution, will become a disconnected crowd of '60s hippies and 'layabouts'.Production will eternally remain the natural basis of any society, and we have to deal with that, collectively and democratically.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Well, you kept askign for us to discuss CR, I went out and did more reading …

[my bold]Can't you tell the difference between 'discussion' and 'reading', YMS?One is social, interactive and critical, the other is individual, isolated and trusting – guess which one you chose, given your ideology?You have the chance to discuss with Communists, or passively accept what non-revolutionary academics tell you – guess which one you chose…

YMS wrote:

i suspect that unless all post to say "I agree wholeheartedly with LBird" you'll be disatisfied.

The words of someone both fearful of discussion and of being persuaded.Can't you stand up for your ideology, YMS? I can stand up for Communism.

YMS wrote:

I've discussed Science and Socialism, and heard nothing back. I discuss Critical Realism, and get nothingback.

You haven't discussed anything, YMS. You keep telling me what liberal and conservative academics say (and you uncritically accept their word), but not discussing what is your (or their) ideological position on science.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

This seems to accord with the previous quotation from the MIS paper. So I suspect that that source was accurate and reliable, and my opinion remains the same.

And nothing to do with the thread title 'Science for Communists?'.That's what I want to discuss, not your mistaken opinions about some mistaken academics' opinions about an incorrect variety of Critical Realism.When will critical discussion start on this thread?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I thought I'd look up the position of the old Socialist Labor Party of America (now more or less defunct) on this issue. Here is what they said in Socialist Industrial Unionism: The Workers' Power by Eric Hass, first issued in 1940 (but this is from the 1977 edition):

Quote:

…finally3.  It is to complete its mission the moment its candidates are elected, by adjourning the political State sine die and by itself disbanding…. Instead of taking office to govern, the candidates of the political party of labor will take office only to abolish political office. It captures to destroy, in the same sense that a conquering army captures, only to destroy, the fortifications of the vanquished foe, though blood and treasures were poured out to secure possession of these fortifications. The political State is the robber citadel of capitalism, and can serve capitalist purposes only. The political State is a weapon of suppression and oppression — a weapon designed to enable the skinners to keep in subjection the class that is being skinned. The true Industrial Union is a tool designed to direct the processes of production for socially useful purposes. Hence the victorious workers will turn the reins of government over to the administrative councils of the Socialist Industrial Union!

In other words, quite similar to LBird's scenario except that power is to be handed to the "Socialist Industrial Unions" rather than to "Workers' Councils" and they don't mention the armed forces.It is obvious that the SLP and us came from the same stable and outsiders might not notice the subtle differences in our position (but both them and us did at the time!), I still think they are wrong, if only because they are advocating a species of syndicalism.

[my bolds]I agree with you that they are syndicalists, ALB, and that I disagree with them.To me, they confuse 'political office' with 'political state'. Politics is universal, and so there will always be 'political office', but not 'political state'. The difference is 'class' and 'exploitation'. Politics within a 'state' is 'class-based'; politics within Workers' Councils is not, it is democratic. They don't see 'power' being 'handed' over, but destroyed entirely. I think you are mistaken to characterise their position as otherwise.But power will always exist, which is why we have to be so aware of its holders. Even short mandates to delegates must be tightly observed and controlled.To summarise, they talk of 'administrative councils'.That is a mistake. Councils will always have power (not least because administration itself is a form of power) and to pretend that they won't is to fool both ourselves and the proletariat.This question of 'power' (eternal quality of human society or temporary class product?) is what I think separates Communists from Anarchists. Whilst on LibCom, I tried to get a discussion going on this issue, but just received the usual abuse by 'individualists' who won't discuss 'sovereignty' and was called a 'Leninist', etc.'Power' and its problems won't go away with Communism, comrades. That's why we have to be concerned to construct democratic relations, and always have a 'Plan B', etc.Factions 'R' Us.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Well, a clear example of bad science would be throwing mice off a tower and reading their entrails to predict the weather (myomancy).  I think we can both agree that that is bad science now (although, I'd happily accept that taking a handful of mushrooms, staring at a river and deciding that river spirits moved it was once good science).  Then our capabilities changed, and previous accounts became unsupportable.  Since there is a real world out there that filters out inaccurate statements, what we have left is degrees of wrongness.  The latest "truth" is the best we can do (and we can make a value judgement between the quality of efforts to understand the world, according to CR).

This is just contradictory drivel, and undermines most of the arguments you've been making about 'good science'.Who is 'we'?Who determines 'best'?Who determines 'value'?Who determines 'quality'?Either 'elite scientists' or 'humans'. Either by minority or by democracy.Which one best suits Communism?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

I'm not sure what to get, other than that four or five paragraphs in a journal article seemed to explain CR more clearly than you have over a couple of months.

But it hasn't!The CR explanation you've found is bollocks! It doesn't agree with Marx, for example, and doesn't provide a basis for Communists to take science forward. That text is just good, old-fashioned, induction. It only 'seems to explain' because it fits with your own ideology of science (which you won't declare, so either you don't know you have one, or you're a bluffer).You really do believe anything academics write, don't you, YMS?What part of 'the world turned upside down' don't you understand about revolution?

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

The sun didn't go round the Earth, it was just good science to say it did. This was wrong, and has been disproved [presumably, by more ‘good science’], and no good science can make it right again.

[my bold and insert]Can’t you see the philosophical problems with this, YMS?Your ‘good science’ seems to say ‘yes, black’ then say ‘no, white’. Other examples could be found to display your ‘good science’ saying ‘yes, black’, ‘no,white’, ‘oh err… grey’, ‘oops, it’s brown’, ‘hang on a mo… this time it’s definitely blue’, ‘ahhh, it had us fooled a bit, then, it’s red! Deffo!’, ‘damn and blast , it was black all the time…’, ‘Fuckin’ hell, now that bastard Einstein says it’s a spectrum of colours!’.The fact that you use the term ‘good science’ suggests that you can identify ‘bad science’, too. But who are these scientists employing ‘bad science’? Or are scientists only ‘good’ when they use your particular version of ‘good’?Unless we accept the actual results of science, that tell us that ‘truth’ has a history, so that we can determine when something became ‘black’, ‘white’, ‘grey’, etc., and when it ceased being so, and realise that we can’t keep pretending that the results ‘now’ are the ‘really deffo, ‘truth’, no probs!’, then we’ll continue with this elitist charade that ‘scientists produce The Truth’, and will remain beholden to their authority.All you’re saying, YMS, is that the latest ‘truth’ is ‘Really True!’.It isn’t, ‘truth’ is socially produced, and while we’re not in control of everything produced by humans, we won’t have a Communist society.Perhaps, instead of putting ‘QED’ after scientific results, you’d prefer them to put ‘Honest, Guv!’. And you’d believe them…

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

This was wrong, and has been disproved, and no good science can make it right again.

You still don't get it, do you, YMS?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

This word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανικη (Prettanike) or Βρεττανίαι (Brettaniai), used by Pytheas, an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Islands around 320 BCE.

The nearest word I can find to ‘Βρεττανίαι’ is the verb ‘βρέχω’, meaning to ‘wet’, 'drench' or ‘soak’.Perhaps Pytheas meant 'the land of the wet people', 'the soaked people' or 'the islands of the drenched'.Clearly, the weather didn't improve with the changes in the mode of production.

[LBird]

Johannes Kepler, in Astronomia Nova, regarding Mars, wrote:

…the observation took the side of my preconceived ideas, as they often did before.

[my bold]Physics as 'theory and practice'.Kepler backs up Einstein's "it's the theory that determines what we observe".

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

This strikes me as being different from what LBird has espoused…

What bit about 'engagement and discussion' do people on this site not understand?Anything (videos, links, summaries, extracts) but 'engagement and discussion' with me.

YMS wrote:

In rpactice, though, it doesn't, as I've noted before, seem to change anything about how science is performed, since it still requires data, experiement and evidence to reject variant explanations.

Again, what bit about 'theory and PRACTICE' don't you understand, YMS?Y'know, it's like talking to the bloody wall.No matter how many times I say 'theory and practice' upon 'an external reality', we keep getting a regression to materialist/positivist/physicalist 'Janet and John' childhood.LBird ignores 'practice'; LBird is an 'idealist'; LBird denies 'reality', LBird is a 'PostModernist', etc.YMS, will you ever read what I write? Will you and the others ever respond to what I say, rather than your own made-up fantasies?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Assuming that more or less fair elections are possible, a socialist majority outside parliament would reflect itself as a socialist majority inside parliament. So why not go for it? Why take the longer and more risky route of trying to ignore or by-pass parliament and so lose the "legitimacy" aspect you emphasised?

Of course, I've said before many times (and it's at least one reason why I moved to this site to discuss) that while 'more or less fair elections are possible', it's one way of illuminating the growing 'socialist majority outside parliament', and thus, through this illuminating, of also strengthening it. It's basically free propaganda, organised and paid for by the bourgeoisie.But where we differ is not the 'road' (although I'd characterise it as a 'twin-track' of parallel parliamentary and external activity, so perhaps our 'road' is different, too), but what happens when we reach the terminus.The purpose of 'the parliamentary road', to me, is to destroy the parliament.There seems to be both of these tendencies being expressed on this thread, both by non-members and SPGB members.That is, 'Capture Parliament to Use it' versus 'Capture Parliament to Destroy it'. It's the same means, but different ends.I think that if the SPGB was to emphasise the latter (if that is what SPGB members actually envisage), this will go a long way to undermine other Communist/Socialist groups criticisms of the SPGB as being 'parliamentarian cretins' (or whatever the phrase is, that's in vogue with the Anarchists/Left Communists, who otherwise agree with the SPGB about 'free access' Communism).

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

In any event, once there's a socialist majority outside parliament the game is up for the capitalist class…

[my bold]Doesn't this statement rather undermine the SPGB strategy?That is, if a 'socialist majority' comes into existence within society whilst socialists are still a minority in parliament (for example, workers don't follow the SPGB strategy of 'electing MPs', but concentrate on building extra-parliamentary Councils), the 'game is up' anyway.I would have expect you to have said "In any event, once there's a socialist majority inside parliament the game is up for the capitalist class… "

[LBird]

gnome wrote:

The reason why we say it is essential to win control of the machinery of government, which in countries such as the UK is parliament or its equivalent, is that the state is both the historically-evolved centre of social administration and, in class-divided societies like capitalism, the institution with the power to employ socially-sanctioned physical force. The state is an expression of and enforcer of class society. Intrinsically it is a coercive institution.

There is some analytical overlap here between 'parliament' and 'the state'.'Parliament' is only one aspect of 'the state', and whilst any parliament is the focus of legitimate decision-making in socially-peaceful times, in more revolutionary periods of increasing class warfare, there always seems to emerge a 'shadow' decision-making body which is ready to usurp 'the power to employ socially-sanctioned physical force', when the moment is right. This is most often some sort of 'junta', composed of other arms of the state, like the military generals, judiciary, top civil servants, chief police officers and heads of local councils. At the moment of the final triumph of 'democracy' (ie. an SPGB revolutionary majority), the shadow body will spring into action (during the '70s in the UK, perhaps Column 88 in the armed forces and 'Clockwork Orange' in NI are relevant historical pointers). At this point, 'parliament' becomes useless as a tool of 'power', and the junta then heads 'the state' and its coercive bodies.What parliament does retain, is democratic legitimacy, and this 'legitimacy' can act as a pole of attraction for those members of the state who wish to retain democracy, are already at least partially disposed to Communist ideas, have now had it proven to them by popular vote that Communism is what 'the people' want, and are opposed to military juntas.In line with this legitimacy, as parliament is held to be the supreme body in constitutional theory, then that body can dissolve itself and hand 'legitimacy' over to the parallel Workers' Councils, which necessarily will have developed during the period when the SPGB was also gaining more votes, ending in a parliamentary majority.Thus, those members of the armed forces, judicial machinery, police bodies and civil and local authority workers, who wish to adhere to 'democracy', 'legitimacy' and peaceful means, will have a route which allow them to follow their wishes.The alternative will be an undemocratic, unknown, constitutionally-illegitimate junta, which only has a violent coup as its means of political action.Our 'coercive institution' must be Workers' Councils, as the newly legitimate authority set above the other components of the state, and which will immediately proceed to democratise all power and authority within those bodies, so that any 'officer ranks' are elected and revokable. This will, of course, be the end process of the confidence building of the 'non-officers' within those state bodies of their own abilities to run those bodies. There will have been parallel development by all workers, both outside and inside of the state, and links would already exist between emergent Workers' Councils and Councils of soldiers, civil servants, judicial workers, and, even if perhaps a minority in this case, the police; the handing over of 'legitimacy' from parliament to Workers' Councils would already have been part of proletarian propaganda, and openly stated as the only aim of voting for the SPGB (or other proletarian parties), the strategy of 'Parliamentary Suicide'.This act of parliamentary self-destruction won't come as a surprise.The assumption by Workers' Councils of the legitimate control of state organs, with the aim of destroying any old elite power mechanisms within them too, and only retaining whatever functions we perhaps temporarily need (eg. police SPG/DSU disbanded, detective/forensic capabilities retained?), would be the ultimate symbol of the destruction of bourgeois rule.

[LBird]

Bertolt Brecht, The Solution, wrote:

After the uprising of June 17thThe Secretary of the Authors' UnionHad leaflets distributed in the StalinalleeWhich said that the peopleHad forfeited the government's confidenceAnd could only win it backBy redoubled labour. Wouldn't itBe simpler in that case if the governmentDissolved the people andElected another?

[Author]

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