[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?

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

I should point out that I understand and accept the idea of using existing democratic structures to get to socialism, but if democracy changes dramaticaly from what we see today, why would any socialist think the old structures would have a place in a socialist future?

[my bold]Yeah, I can see the revolutionary logic of 'using existing democratic structures to get to socialism', as propounded by the SPGB, but I'd replace SP's 'if' with 'when'. To me, it's clear that 'parliament', and all its electoral and procedural 'old structures', will be useless for the proletariat.Once this route is accepted, the inevitable and necessary destruction of the bourgeois anti-democratic institution (in our socio-economic terms) should be stressed by the SPGB, to help undermine or even forestall entirely the criticisms made by other (sometimes broadly sympathetic) Communist groups, of the supposed 'SPGB parliamentary reformist route'.I'd recommend that the SPGB adopts a clear strategy of 'Parliamentary Suicide', and clearly states that "a vote for the SPGB is a vote to dismantle parliament".To me, this is the essence of 'using existing democratic structures to get to socialism'.Let's face it, if that strategy alienates our 'constituency', we'd be better (in the spirit of Brecht's view that the East German Stalinists should dismiss the people and elect a new one), to find a 'constituency' other than the proletariat, and, as SP joked, really ditch Marx!

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

Do I have to keep on prompting you to use critical thinking?

Sorry, I keep falling into SPGB mode.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

But there will still be a place for committees of elected delegates to examine and decide more complicated issues.

[my bold]This, to me, is where I fundmentally disagree. I'd phrase it as:"But there will still be a place for committees of elected delegates to examine and make recommendations on more complicated issues"The 'deciding' will be done by the widest vote possible. The 'delegates' won't be doing any 'deciding', unless for a specific issue that they are given a mandate to decide. I would expect this 'mandate of decision' to be only given for very unimportant decisions (colour of toilet rolls at the Commune building?).But, you go on to say:

ALB wrote:

Of course, these delegates (and they would be delegates not "representatives" with a free hand as todays MPs see themselves) can be subject to much more democratic accountability than are today's so-called "representatives", as by short terms, restrictions on re-election, recall provisions, regular report-back meetings, etc.

This is far closer to my position, but is less precise, and leaves room for the 'delegates as pseudo-representatives' interpretation put on the SPGB's line by other organisations.Personally, I think it a mistake not to be brutally honest with any potential 'delegates', and better to tell them, from the start, they won't be making decisions.The proletariat will. (and, for the clowns who can't stop being childish, that means during the build-up to a revolution; afterwards, as we all know, there won't be a 'proletariat', but humanity).

ALB wrote:

So, let's be practical and talk of a combination of direct democracy and delegate democracy in socialism.

I'm not a 'practical' man, ALB. I'm an ideologist. And I always see talk of 'practicalities' as a mark of conservative thinking.I want 'direct democracy'.Too much talk of 'delegate democracy' will slide into 'representative democracy', which is precisely what other organisations criticise the SPGB for. I think that there are some in the SPGB who would very easily slip from direct, to delegate, to representative, to dictating. We've only got to look at our discussions about science to see that trend emerging.As long as we make it clear that the 'delegates' decide the toilet roll colours, and the proletariat directly decide the meaning of scientific research, I think we're on the right track.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Why create another wheel when a workable one already exists?

This is clarifying things for me, anyway.'Parliament' is not 'workable' for a class conscious proletariat, because power must reside in the political organs of the class.Of course, the physical buildings of The Houses of Parliament could be retained and used for a higher level commune within these islands, for example, but the political structures of the present 'parliamentary democracy' would be destroyed.I thought that the SPGB was arguing for 'Parliamentary Suicide'; that is, a vote for the SPGB was a vote to abolish parliament. This would legitimise the handing over of political control of the armed forces, police, civil service, etc. to the Workers' Councils, so that troops loyal to the proletariat, perhaps at the behest of revolutionary junior officers, could legitimately arrest any senior officers who had not yet declared for the new regime.That was my understanding of the SPGB strategy. It looks like I was wrong.

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

What were the hurdles regarding the adoption of 'Critical Realism' you had to jump? Can you identify them and explain the reasons for their occurrance?

One hurdle is 'physicalism'. This is a bourgeois ideological construct, which is based on tangibility and individuals being able to touch. It's merely another name for 'empiricism'.This 'occurs' because of the necessity for the bourgeoisie to make everyone believe that 'they are individuals' and their 'individual experience' of the 'world they can see in front of their own eyes' is the basis of 'science'.Our job is to explain that much of the world is not only unobservable to our individual senses, but only 'observable' in any way at all to a 'society' employing its own 'theories'.Physicalism is bourgeois brainwashing at its best, and I advise any comrades who aspire to understand these issues to compare my post outlining Critical Realism with DJP's model of Physicalism, and try to identify the differences for themselves.Top Tip: if anyone thinks that they are an 'individual', stick to Physicalism, and ignore my post.

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

Absolute fantacy. Unsupported rantings and very typical of LBird. 

God knows how many of those points are down to you, Vin.

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

This being the case, during this pause, it would be really helpful for us newbies if the main contributors post a list of what they think are the lessons they have drawn from this discussion so far.

1. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.2. All the members on this site who've shown genuine interest in the subject, including asking for reading recommendations, are SPGB ex-members.3. I've got better things to do, than constantly repeat myself.4. Due to my continued reading (and I seem to be the only one doing any at all), my initial positions have been reinforced, and the contrary ones weakened further.5. The responses of SPGB members have displayed a shocking lack of open-mindedness and imagination, and have demonstrated an innate conservatism, also including 'fear of the mob' elitism.6. Any feelings of comradeship I might have felt towards the SPGB, when I started posting last year, have been largely dissipated.7. There aren't many radicals, never mind revolutionaries, in the SPGB.8. I've come to the conclusion that the SPGB's much-vaunted positive attitude to 'democratic socialism' is largely a sham. Whenever 'democracy' is mentioned, in any context (workers' power, parliament, science), members seem stunned at the very possibility that anyone is naive enough to take the argument seriously, that 'workers' will actually run anything (never mind everything).Is that enough to be going on with?

[Author]

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