[LBird]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Reviews of Piketty's (and Graeber's) book by Marxists that say "well, it's not Marx, is it?" are a bit depressing. If it was Marx, it wouldn't be worth reading, or writing, would it? Both Graeber's book on debt (which I've read) and Piketty's book (which I've started) are wonderful and informative and will be of profound help to anyone who wants to understand the modern world. 

It would be useful if someone (for us, necessarily a Communist, because there is no 'unbiased observation point' in science) who understood these issues could give an opening summary of the differing assumptions/axioms of Marx, Graeber and Piketty.I'm sure that this guidance would be helpful to all Communists who want to understand those three thinkers.Isn't there anybody in the SPGB, schooled in 'political economy', who could sum up their three 'pre-writing' idelogies? Their 'viewpoints' would tell us much about why the three focus on different 'facts' of the system, and allow us to assess the book's worth to us.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

"But 'capitalism' is a 'fact', to many… that 'capitalism' is a 'fellow that will not be overturned'"Not sure if i understand correctly.No-one denies that there exists a thing called capitalism…that is, indeed, a fact…but what we declare is that additional facts about capitalist system  provides the reasons why we wish to overthrow it…and those facts cannot be disputed…Part of our task is to present these facts…they aren't opinions or claims …but simple facts, …We factually describe features of capitalism (which cannot be changed without changing the fact it is no longer capitalism but something different) that are not for the benefit of people or the planet. You may well argue that what we wish to replace it with is not a fact but perhaps a presupposition. That is another debate. I think we should recognise that there is a difference from facts and as they say "lies, damned lies and statistics". I think we would agree a statistic is not a fact. ….i never joined the party because of its philosophical basis.  It's pretty much subsidiary importance to me and despite all the overly complicated exchanges on it no-one has made any advance on Marx's comment that the issue is not analysing the world but changing the world and none of the related threads gave me any particular insight into doing that. Not just your efforts Lbird, but all your protagonists, as well.Sorry comrades. 

I think that the simplest way of putting it is that a 'fact' is always enmeshed within a wider network of other 'facts', all based upon theories.If one accepts a 'fact' (ie. at face value), and doesn't confront the so-called fact's surrounding network (which can only be done by critical thinking, because the links between 'facts' are often not apparent), then one is unwittingly dragged into seeing the world from the point of view of existing 'facts'. Do I need to stress the essentially conservative method this approach leads to, of just 'dealing with the facts'? It always means what can be seen by the individual, ('it's obvious') rather than what can be explained by social theory (by criticism of 'the obvious').Whatever, I think the problem lies with those Communists who aren't explaining these crucial issues properly (including me in that number), than with you or others who can't grasp it, yet, ajj.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

LBird wrote:

'Fact, or data' will not solve this clash. We pick our ideology, and reap 'fact or data' to suit.

Hmm…i think to that,  Robert Burns replied "Facts are chiels that winna ding”  (facts are fellows that will not be overturned,  cannot be disputed) but he was just a womanising drunken poet so what would he know.  

But 'capitalism' is a 'fact', to many…It's not Burns' womanising, drinking or poetry that's the problem, ajj, but that he lived before Einstein and didn't read 20th century philosophy of science.I find it more and more difficult to understand how memebers of the SPGB think 'facts' are sacred. It's not a good sign for the philosophical basis of the party.Is it really acceptable to argue that 'capitalism' is a 'fellow that will not be overturned'?

[LBird]

twc wrote:

Fact, or data, begs explanation…

It's more accurate to say that 'explanation reaps facts'.

twc wrote:

…it is not its own ineffable explanation.

Quite.No one, not even Piketty, is an 'empirical scientist'. That is a myth of 'bourgeois science'.Piketty, like every scientist, starts from assumptions. From these (often unspoken or even unconscious) assumptions and axioms are generated hypotheses (or tentative explanations). If these assumption-based hypotheses seem to reap 'empirical facts', then they are deemed to be an 'explanation'.We Communists start from different assumptions, so our explanations will not only be different from those of Piketty and other pro-capitalist thinkers, but both sets of 'explanations' will be intolerable to each other.We laugh at Piketty's childish attempts; Piketty mocks our infantile explanations.'Fact, or data' will not solve this clash. We pick our ideology, and reap 'fact or data' to suit. That is the nature of science. Knowledge of the economy is a social construction. Different classes will 'explain' the 'facts' differently. There is no 'objective truth' to the 'facts or data'. As you say, they are 'ineffable' without human creativity.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

This is not going to happen of course even if theoretically it could. But even if it did there would still be capitalism and the exploitation of wage-labour as this is the source of capital incomes. And it's this that we are against not the way its proceeds are distributed, isn't it?

Yeah, our issue as Communists is ‘production’, but for most workers the issue is ‘distribution’.The overwhelming majority of workers on this planet are not opposed to ‘capitalism’ (as a system of production and exploitation), but are opposed to the current distribution of wealth.

ALB wrote:

In other words, we are against the fact of there being income from capital rather than how this income is distributed.

Again, workers are not against there being ‘income from capital’, but are against the proportion going to the capitalists. And Piketty’s data seems to prove that, by some method, whether by the human agency of reformism or the ‘objective’ movement of ‘economic conditions’, that the proportion being distributed to workers can grow, and the proportion being distributed to capital can fall, without the need for socialism, that is, changing the system of production.

ALB wrote:

Graeber wrote:

Piketty, in contrast, begins his book by denouncing "the lazy rhetoric of anti-capitalism". He has nothing against capitalism itself – or even, for that matter, inequality. He just wishes to provide a check on capitalism's tendency to create a useless class of parasitical rentiers. As a result, he argues that the left should focus on electing governments dedicated to creating international mechanisms to tax and regulate concentrated wealth. Some of his suggestions – an 80% income tax! – may seem radical, but we are still talking about a man who, having demonstrated capitalism is a gigantic vacuum cleaner sucking wealth into the hands of a tiny elite, insists that we do not simply unplug the machine, but try to build a slightly smaller vacuum cleaner sucking in the opposite direction.

Similarly, most workers have nothing against ‘inequality’; they’re quite happy with the ‘vacuum cleaner’ model of wealth suction, and just want a portion diverted to them. They fear that, without the ‘vacuum cleaner’, they’ll have to go back to ‘brush and shovel’.I don’t think that there is necessarily anything within the ‘vacuum cleaner’ method that will make workers reject its method of operation. In fact, the 20th century proves that they’ll do anything to maintain its working.To me, the ‘questioning’ of the system has to come from outside the working of the system; that is, it’s an issue of ‘human agency’ rather than ‘economic conditions’. Workers must want more than a greater ‘distribution’ for themselves; they must want to question the ‘vacuum cleaner’. If they don’t, all the ‘vacuum cleaning’ in the world won’t make them critical. Whilst the only alternative they can picture is ‘brush and shovel’, then Piketty and the reformists will hold sway.Since I think that the only way forward is for workers who are already Communists to persuade other workers that Communism is possible, and since that is a task of education and propaganda, I think that we are failing to explain our ideas to workers. To me, the history of the socialist movement is the failure to explain to workers in terms that they themselves can understand. I’m still yet to hear a good explanation of Capital, for example, as opposed to simply regurgitating Marx’s mysterious words. Only with understanding can come the confidence to act for oneself. Acting for others (employment within capitalism) will not in itself produce enlightenment about one’s actions. There has to be a ‘critical break’ by each worker, as an individual. We’re not helping to develop this ‘critical break’, which can only come about with thought, and not through day-to-day life, of mere experience of ‘economic conditions’.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

… Piketty can logically argue that it can happen again?Can reforms once again reduce the 'top 10% wealth share' to '60%'?If not, why not?

That begs the question. Was it reforms that affected the distribution of wealth, or something else i.e economic conditions?

Well, if it wasn't 'reforms' (by active human actions, however defined, even 'warfare' and 'welfare'), then was it the 'economic conditions' that reduced the share of the ruling class from 90% to 50%?If so, why shouldn't the 'economic conditions' be able to either move the share back up to 90% or even down further to, say, 40%, at some point in the future?Is the secret of 'reformism' to just await the economic flood tide, and then claim agency? Canute in reverse?

[LBird]

Ozymandias wrote:

What a shame that his book has been a best seller yet his conclusions are pathetic reformism.

But surely, if this has happened once…

Piketty wrote:

Namely, wealth inequality was extremely high and rising in European countries during the 19th century and up until World War 1 (with a top 10% wealth share around 90% of total wealth in 1910), then declined until the 1960s-1970s (down to about 50 -60% for the top 10% wealth share);…

… Piketty can logically argue that it can happen again?Can reforms once again reduce the 'top 10% wealth share' to '60%'?If not, why not?

[LBird]

james19 wrote:

Am I the only one who doesn't dislike Tony Blair?

You've forgotten to quote his popularly-bestowed full title, james.That is, The War Criminal Tony Blair.Perhaps that will give you a clue as to why you're in a minority of one.

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people”“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”

Yeah, I agree with you and Marx on this quote, Vin.Unfortunately, I also think that it applies just as well to so-called 'Scientific Socialism'.It's an 'opium', giving 'illusory happiness' to its adherents.'Real happiness' is the democratic control of production, science, truth and ethics. Not some blather about 'materialism' telling us what these should consist of.

[LBird]

steve colborn wrote:

It is not a case of "simply accepting" but more, not trying to put ones own "interpretation" of what someone else has already stated.

I'm afraid this is impossible, steve, and the first to do it was Engels. He 'put his own interpretation of what Marx had already stated'.To me, it's quite clear from the Theses on Feuerbach (1840s) that Engels was 'interpreting' wrongly in Ludwig Feuerbach (1880s). But Engels' interpretation (the one you're following) was already 'Marxism' (with all the authority that imprimatur entailed) before Marx's philosophic manuscripts were able to be read by us workers from the 1930s.

sc wrote:

I see little point in continuing a discussion, when one of the participants refuses to accept what was written by the person oft quoted in the thread, Marx.

[my bold]Funnily enough, I agree![but we have different interpretations of who that is, too ]

[LBird]

steve colborn wrote:

What part of Marx stating he was a materialist, did you either not accept and or, not agree with? Horses mouth eh?Steve.

We've spent months trying to discuss what Marx means by 'materialism' (and I've suggested 'realism'), but we've now regressed (appropriately enough on a religion thread) to simply accepting the master's word, as written in The Text.As I've said before, this is yet more evidence for the theory that 'Scientific Socialism' is a religion.If you're happy to follow The Word, Steve, I'm not. I do critical thought, not mindless following of texts.Is the horse's mouth Vin's Neddy?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Marx wasn't a materialist

Karl Marx wrote:

I am a materialist

Obviously it was Marx that was wrong.

You were right when you said that the last few months have been a waste of time for you.All that discussion about meaning…

[LBird]

Yeah, for the religious, 'scriptural authority' from the past is always preferably to 'discussion' now.

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

I doubt if the SPGB is likely to change its mind regarding those with personal spiritual belief Robbo, consider the fact that the party line on the ethical aspect of socialism is rejected in favour of a purely scientific nature.

This 'party line' is yet another aspect of idealism, akin to religion.If 'ethics' don't come from humans, and are thus amenable to a democratic vote, from where do they orginate? Nature? 'Neutral' scientific method?'Scientific Socialists' and religious believers are cut from the same cloth.The 'god' being 'purely scientific nature'. Both are nonsense. Marx argues for 'humanised nature', and our ethics will spring from our new society, by our decisions and our choices, not from the 'rocks' of a 'material world' outside of humans, whether they have brains or not.'Idealism' is the belief that will, purpose and creativity come from outside of humanity. 'Idealism' is not the use of ideas, as the 'materialists' insist.It is idealism to be a materialist. Marx wasn't a materialist, or an idealist. He believed that humans are the source of ideas to change the world. We need to clarify our ideas, especially in contrast to the religious. 'Historical Materialism' is synonymous with 'Idealism-Materialism'. Our ideas must work in this world. Waiting for matter to determine our future is passive, not creative.Ignoring this, with regard to the religious, in favour of 'building the movement', will lead to tears. Ours, as well as those of the religious.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

On the question of "evidence-based thinking", I am sympathetic to the point L Bird is making – that ‘theory’ determines ‘evidence’, that there is an element of selection of the evidence to fit the theory which in turn is inevitably conditioned by our values. There is no such thing as a "value-free science" … But setting that caveat aside for the moment (since it is not really what this thread is about)…

I don't think that your acceptance of the notion of 'thinking-based evidence' can be set aside so easily, robbo.The metaphysics that we adopt prior to enquiry, that then determine what counts as 'acceptable evidence' is at the heart of this debate. The simple fact is, religious people hold different views about the creative source on this planet.They say 'god', we say 'humanity'. This latter fits with Marx, who argues that humans, by their creative, purposive activity, humanise nature. In other words, god, a puppet of humans who is created by alienated humans, can play no creative part in this process.By its very nature, a belief in god detracts from the power of the proletariat as the creative force in building our 'humanised nature'. The religious think that there is a social power outside of the proletariat. This belief can only weaken our belief in ourselves, and fits with ruling class ideas about there being a power outside of the exploited class.If a religious person argues that their 'god' plays no part in this world, then that is akin to a form of madness – very similar to believing pixies live in one's garage, but can't be seen and do nothing whatsoever to interact with humans. Would we accept into our movement 'pixie belief'?Really, the idea of 'god' needs to be challenged and fought against, rather than allowing this social illness to remain and being allowed to develop.This is a battle of 'ideas', and needs to be fought at that level. Mere asserion of 'materialism' is a dead, 19th century idea, which will lose us the battle with the 'god botherers'.

robbo203 wrote:

On the question of the Party sympathiser in Dave's branch who happens to be a practising catholic and believes "the Party is doing Gods work", well, at the end of the day, does it really matter if she believes this? Seriously. So long as she agrees with the basic principles of the Party, that really is all that should mattter.

I wouldn't be happy with a 'pixie afficionado' helping me to build a 'non-pixie' world. It should be made plain that the party is neither working for pixies or god, and anyone believing this is likely to be disappointed with the fruit of their party labours. A fervently anti-pixie society.

robbo203 wrote:

The business of the Party should not be about promoting an atheistic worldview but about establishing socialism and the sooner the better.

To me, building socialism is synonymous with an 'atheistic worldview'. Socialism is humanity in the driving seat, not the pixies (or any other imaginary beings).I'm not a party member, so perhaps my views rightly should carry no weight in this internal debate, but neither could I imagine being involved with the religious in the future, so it would put me off getting involved with a party that allowed a pixie-lover to have the same power and input as me, about decisions affecting the proletariat.

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