LBird
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
stuartw2112 wrote:And yes, I am an individual – a scientifically well established fact. Assuming I don't have an identical twin, I am genetically unique.
You're making a common mistake by those influenced by bourgeois ideology, here, stuart, of mixing up a 'biological' category with a 'social' category. You're an 'individual' in the former, but not in the latter. The bourgeoisie always encourage this confusion, and it's widespread, even amongst Communists.
stuart2112 wrote:I am a free agent. Anthropologically, I am also an individual, even if one that takes on a variety of roles: brother, partner, worker, friend, enemy, etc. "You are all individuals!""I'm not!"You're closer to the truth, here. You're not an 'isolated individual', of bourgeois ideology, but, as you say, a 'brother, partner, worker, friend…'. And a 'victim', of an exploitative relationship with the vampires, as we all are.Funnily enough, Python really capture the irony of someone, in our society, claiming 'not to be an individual' as being the real individual in the crowd!I'm with the lonely scruffy get, at the back!
stuart2112 wrote:I've already told you that I am a communist…Yeah, this is the source of my confusion! To me, one can either be an 'individual' or a 'Communist'!They are entirely different ideologies, and you seem to be mixing them up.
stuart2112 wrote:As for the FT and Economist, you haven't grasped my point. But actually, even your point is wrong. Read enough issues and you'll find the concept of vampires discussed often enough – the term they usually use is "rentier".I'm sure that they do use the term 'rentier'! But that is very different from putting a banner at the top of every front page, saying 'The owners are thieves', which they would have to do, to make plain their Communist views.I'm inclined to think that neither they nor you are 'grasping the point'!There is no 'objective' position of viewing the 'economy'. One must declare one's 'observation point'. To not do so, is unscientific. And if consciously hidden, deceitful.I'm inclined to think you are being deceived by the bourgeoisie. Some of them, anyway, if not the foolish and unwary at the FT and TE!
stuart2112 wrote:LB: It's not bourgeois, it's pre-bourgeois, dating from at least 600BC, but probably long before that. I learnt it from Buddhists, but you can learn it from many places, including secular ones.You're moving away from your original concerns with this post, stuart.If you regard yourself as an 'individual' (from any era), then we also differ on this, too.I'm not an 'individual', but a 'worker'.If you use your ideological concept of the 'individual' to inform your views about 'economics', they'll be very different from mine, which are informed by Marx's views about the exploitative relationship between bosses and workers.Bosses push the ideology of 'individualism' to help them hide the exploitation. We have to criticise this social and class brainwashing.
stuart2112 wrote:My point about the FT and Economist is not that they sing from the same hymn sheet as Marx. It is that someone who wants to learn about economics, including what Marx had to say about it, could get most everything they need to know from these publications.But I've already shown that this isn't true, stuart.The most important thing to learn about 'economics' is the theft by vampires from victims.This is not mentioned in the FT or TE. Without that starting point, one can't understand economics.I'm defining 'economics' as the theft of wealth by a minority from the majority. I think that this is in line with Marx.If you wish to define 'economics' as something else, that's fine, but don't pretend that that is the same as the 'vampire/victim' relationship of exploitation.The FT and TE are not a source for 'economics'. They are a source for bourgeois mythology.I think that reading them is the source of your confusion about the capitalist economy. Put simply, they lie.If you're not a Communist, stuart, that's OK. The answers you get from the FT and TE will be determined by whichever ideology you use.It's just that you said you were confused, and I've been trying to help you understand why you are confused.If you don't accept my explanation, that's OK. But I think that if you just continue to read The Economist with your default ideology, you'll remain confused about 'economics'.
stuartw2112 wrote:LB: Yes, OK, that's where we disagree. I think that, actually, with training, it is possible to turn off the ideology in your head, and that, when you do, the result is peace and happiness. Sometimes, you turn it back on again, that's fine. But the ability to turn it off and not be ruled by it – that's freedom.Yes, It's the 'freedom' to 'donate' unconsciously to the 'vampires'!As you've said, we've resolved the problem of identifying our differences, which is what discussion should be about.I regard 'turning off ideology in one's head' as a bourgeois myth, and that 'turning off one's chosen ideology' merely let's your socially-implanted one return to normal running. One reverts to 'willing-donation-mode'.As you say, you are now in a very personal state of 'freedom', the 'individual' allowed to 'run free' between their own ears.But, in reality, according to Marx's science, you're still a donator of value to the vampires, no matter what your 'free consciousness' is telling you.Perhaps that is your answer to the FT and TE question. They both insist that you can have 'freedom', now, in this society of donators.'Economics' does not highlight 'donating'. Marxism does.
stuart2112 wrote:LB: I can't see that we're disagreeing about all that much, and I can't seem to get you to see the point I'm making.Perhaps we don't disagree that much, stuart! I'm just happy to be having a conversation, for a change, on this site!But you're right, I don't seem to be able to 'see the point that you're making'.
stuart2112 wrote:In trying to make it, I'm making myself seem more hostile to socialism, communism, marxism, whatever, than I really am. Marx is and has long been a guiding light for me. Just not the only one. You ask me what my ideological starting point it. I see your point: if I was a scientist or a philosopher writing a paper or book, I would have to bring my ideological starting point, or my theory, to the light of consciousness, and be explicit about it, if I am to have any hope of being genuinely 'scientific'.This all seems to make sense to me, stuart, and is much the same as my views, I think, so far. But, you continue…
stuart2112 wrote:But I'm not either of those things, I'm just a bloke chatting on a discussion forum. And as a bloke going round my everyday life, my "ideological starting point" is to notice when my mind is caught in ideology, and then just let it go and return to life.So, your ‘method’ (and that’s what it is) is to pretend that you’ve ‘let go of ideology and returned to [implied ‘real’] life’.This, to me, is a mistaken method. If you are not conscious of which ideology you’re employing, society helpfully provides you with one! ‘Using an ideology’ is not a choice (by ‘individuals’), but part of the human condition. So, this bourgeois society has spent all your life providing you with a ‘back-up’ ideology for you to use, when you’re ‘unconscious’. This is inescapable in any society: human society socialises (‘brainwashes’?) its members into a default unconsciousness.This, I think stuart, is perhaps where we differ.I’m a Communist, and I’m conscious that I have to be ‘conscious’ 24/7 of the ‘program’ that I’m running in my head. I know that if I switch off my chosen ‘program’, that my default, factory-setting, program will kick-in, once again. My chosen program is ‘Communism’.So, that’s where we ‘disagree’, comrade!You revert to the ‘factory-setting’ of “blokey, everyday life, chatting amiably, not being too conscious of ‘ideologies’ ”. A human unconscious, an 'individual'.I remain a class conscious Communist in ‘everyday life’. Ideological to the core! A human conscious, a social product.
twc wrote:So now we are back to you guys dissing science and Marx, by innuendo, but carefully refusing to be specific. That is moral cowardice.You guys have a moral duty to explain clearly what scientific results you doubt and why.You guys have a moral duty to explain clearly where you disagree with Marx, and how serious your disagreement is for socialism.If you don’t you are only helping anti-socialism by spreading rumours about, and so subtly undermining, science, Marx and socialism.I've tried pointing out, with quotes, analogies and discussion, twc, why your version of 'science and Marx' is nonsense.But you won't discuss 'science and Marx', but just proffer the 'tablets of stone' of your religion, and demand that we critical thinkers bend the knee to your 'Truth'. stuart has already pointed out where this 'science' leads, in political terms. So have many other thinkers, since the early 20th century. And 'science', since Einstein, has become more like 'Marxism', than 'Marxism' has become a 'Science' (of the 19th century positivist sort). Science can't get away from humans. It doesn't produce a 'copy' of nature. It produces 'social understanding'. I don't know why I'm bothering, again, with you.What a wa……waste of our time, you are.
stuart2112 wrote:The danger is in attaching too strongly to Marx's words, even worse to his attitudes and behaviour in debate, and treating them as some kind of 'key to all mythologies'. The result is monstrous, as twc proves every time he gets to the keyboard. As I said before, imagine that kind of aggressiveness with a gun in its hands.You probably won't know, stuart, because my views have been expressed on other threads to this, that I'm very critical of Marx, in many ways. Not least, I think that he's a terrible writer, and needs to be constantly interpreted by workers, using their own critical faculties. So, I'm not a 'worshipper' of Marx, but I do think that many of his ideas are very stimulating, and very helpful in helping us to come to an understanding of our present economic condition.As for twc…Let's just say that he's not being very helpful, is he?I root the problem, though, not in him as an individual, but in semi-religious reverence for the 'Scientific Socialism' constructed from Engels' confused writings.As you say, if one has 'Science' (of the positivist kind) on one's side, then the use of 'guns' seems entirely justifiable. Who can argue with 'The Truth', which adherents of 'Science' seem to think that they produce, with their neutral, non-social, non-cultural, non-historic, non-moral, method.Some of us have our doubts about 'Science', and see it as a social product that produces social knowledge, and so must be under the control of humanity, using democratic methods. Just like the economy.At least I'm consistent.
twc, you've had your chance, several times, to discuss these issues, but haven't done so. I've tried to engage with you, but without success. You won't discuss, and prefer the method of 'haranguing'.I'm not sure what you think that you're achieving, because it's not only me who hasn't a clue what you're talking about.One thing is sure: you're not doing anything to help spread understanding amongst workers about these difficult issues, of Marx, science or socio-economics.
stuart2112 wrote:When it comes to Marx's economic science, what is there in it that wasn't already known, or isn't now a part of economic discourse? Very little – and what little there is is of dubious value.You haven't replied to my answers to your questions, stuart, to say whether they were helpful or not.I disagree with your assertion that the 'vampire/victim' analogy is "now a part of economic discourse".Where do the FT or The Economist tell their readers that the owners of those papers are 'thieves, liars, etc.'?And you haven't said what your ideological starting point is. Do you regard yourself as a 'blood donor' to the vampires? If so, do you really think that this is at the heart of current 'economic discourse'?Or are you 'an individual', and make that your ideological building block for understanding 'economics'? That, in my opinion, is the real starting point for modern 'economics'. The FT and TE have that at the heart of their economic ideology.And if we have the 'individual', we have to have 'money'.I'm a Communist, and reject both of those ideological starting points.Of course, if one wants to deal with 'the real world', that's fair enough, but of necessity that is a conservative method. Criticism of the world as it exists now is the starting point for Communists. 'Dealing with the real world' is an ideological choice, not just simple empirical 'collecting of facts', as they are.
stuart2112 wrote:LB: let's try another tack.Sure! Sorry if my first reply was too technical!
stuart2112 wrote:Say there's a chap, he's reasonably well educated and intelligent, has his head screwed on, considers himself a left-leaning socialist in a vague way, and, because he has a job, feels very much like the life is being sucked out of him by vampires, and that he's being shafted by thieves. Despite his good general education, he is not well read in economics and has never read Marx, but wants to understand what has gone on in the crisis.Here you’ve identified this chap’s biggest problem. Despite his allegedly ‘good general education’, he’s not a class conscious Communist. He needs to meet and discuss ‘the world’ with Communists, who’ll initially try to explain the complexities of Marx et al in simpler language. He'll then have an excellent 'general education'!
stuart2112 wrote:What of vital importance could he get from grappling with "the law of value" and departments 1 and 2 and all that gubbins, that he couldn't have got from reading, say, The Economist (I've switched publications to one I'm more familiar with in case it gets hot in here!)?One can come to understand Communist ideas without having to ‘grapple’ “with "the law of value" and departments 1 and 2 and all that gubbins”. Personally, I think that an explanation of ‘value’ is very useful, but I’d only recommend that to someone who is already a Communist.The problem with ‘reading, say, The Economist’ is that I don’t think that that publication mentions ‘vampires and victims’, either.So, my recommendation to your ‘chap’ is to become a Communist! After that, well-armed with a decent theory, they can move onto trying to understand economics. If they don’t want to go through the process of reading, discussing and arguing about Communism, they should just continue to have ‘the life sucked out of them’. It’s the only other option.The only options are: being an unconscious victim, or being a conscious victim. The victim bit is not an individual choice, but a socially-given structural position. I very much doubt that The Economist mentions this scientific fact, either.
DJP and twc: I've tried before to discuss with you about 'science', but since we don't seem to be able to find any common ground, I won't enter into that again with you now.You'll have to stick with your beliefs, and I'll stick with mine.
stuart2112 wrote:I agree with most of what you say, and will try to explain where I think we differ by asking a question.Right! Shoot away!
stuart2112 wrote:What is there, in Marxist 'science', what does it tell me, that I couldn't have got from a common sensical, critical reading of the Financial Times, and perhaps a few other publications or blogs for some context and debate?Does the FT tell you that the queen is a thief?I know that I’m over-simplifying, but ‘over-egging the pudding’ usually helps to bring into sharp relief the opposing sides in a debate. As long as you read ‘queen’ as referring to all ‘authorities’ in our society (including scientists and politicians), you will get my gist.If I were to be a bit more subtle, I would ask where does the FT stress the division of humanity into the small group who take wealth by force (and its threat), and the massive group who produce that wealth, but have no control over it?
stuart wrote:I can assure you that I have tried to answer this question myself, by reading extensively in Marx, and in the other things I mention, and I drew a blank.I think that you’re just plain wrong here, stuart. Marx openly stresses this division, between ‘vampires’ and ‘victims’.So, the basis of ‘economics’ is to explain this division: where did the vampires come from, how do they continue to drain blood from the victims, why don’t the victims realise that they are the source of vampire nutrition, and why don’t the victims realise that they don’t require the existence of vampires, to exist themselves?Are you a ‘donor’ to vampires, stuart? Is that your basic ‘economic category’? If not, why not?
stuart2112 wrote:I agree with almost everything you say, LB, except I don't think it's fair to keep blaming poor old Engels. What you would say would seem to imply that the best thing a Marxist 'science' could do would be to forget about Engels and go back to Marx, and just focus on what Marx said. But everyone says that, and we don't seem to get very far.I’m not simply ‘blaming poor old Engels'! Much of what he wrote about ‘science’ (and is taken as the basis of Marx’s views) can now clearly be seen as nonsense, and far too influenced by 19th century ‘science’. But he also wrote plenty which contradicts himself, and agrees with Marx’s more ‘social’ views about knowledge. Furthermore, Marx himself wrote passages which can be fitted in with ‘positivist’ science, but these are at odds with the bulk of his work. Part of the problem is that Marx’s earlier works were published (1930s) after Engels’ views of science had already formed the basis of ‘Marxism’ (1890s).I think Marx’s views of science fit far better with those of late 20th century philosophers of science like Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lakatos. I especially like the latter, and have tried to get a discussion going about this, but we always get bogged down in the religious reverence for ‘Scientific Socialism’, which is based upon Engels, not Marx.
stuart2112 wrote:Go 'deeper', into the 'science' of it, whether the 'science' of Marxism or Keynesianism or whatever, and all you get is more and more confused.It’s simple, really. Pick an ideological science (and all science is ideological, including physics) and use it to build an understanding of economics/production.I’m inclined to think that you believe that there is a neutral ‘scientific method’ which produces the truth, and wish it could be transferred to economics. Your ‘confusion’ arises from that belief, rather than from the ideology. You seem to think that an objective, common sense, approach will help. It doesn’t exist, all science is social, and that is the lesson of the 20th century. We have to choose, and build our ‘truth’ about the ‘economy’. It won’t tell us what it is, if only we passively observe its workings. That is the myth of the 19th century ‘objective science’, and it doesn’t work for physics, never mind economics. We have to choose a ‘position’, in nature and in society, and be aware of it.
stuart2112 wrote:The best we can get would seem to be a Piketty style investigation – but then that is, as far as I'm aware, entirely empircal and common sensical, and anway only confirms with data what everyone knew anyway.Empiricism and common sense are useless for building understanding; and ‘data’ only exists within a theoretical framework. You picks your ideology, you gathers your data!IMO, Marx’s views of capitalism provide us with the best way of understanding the capitalist system. In a nutshell, that means I start from the notion that any owner of socially productive property is a thief, a liar, and doesn’t have a clue about what they are really doing, and know nothing about the history of capitalism. That includes the queen, all religious leaders, The War Criminal Tony Blair, and The British, amongst others.Empiricism and common sense will just gather ‘data’ which supports the unspoken and unacknowledged ‘theory/ideology’ that has been given to the thinker by society. That is, those methods will just produce results that support capitalism.I’m sure you know that Keynes was an elitist who wanted to preserve capitalism, not destroy it and replace it with a different system of production. I think it’s best to be open about our ideologies, and if someone isn’t a Communist who thinks that society should democratically control its production, they should be open about their ‘ideological science’.
stuart2112 wrote:I think you're right about how science works (I think it's more or less what I was saying: there's no 'essence' to grab hold of, it's theory and maths and testing all the way down) though whether that's what Marx was doing, or what he achieved in creating, I'm not sure.I think that the 'essence' is a human creation: that is, an understanding based upon 'theory and practice', so that our 'understanding' of a rock is not a copy of a rock.Perhaps Protagoras' claim that 'man is the measure of all things' is relevent, here.Science doesn't produce 'The Truth' about nature, but produces human understanding of nature. And as humans can be wrong, so 'scientific truth' (ie. something proved in practice ) can be wrong. Thus, 'truth' is social and thus has a history.If the theory is bollocks, but just happens to work, it can be erroneously believed to be The Truth. We can't ever say that we know the 'absolute truth', and as Pannekoek said, humans are not engaged in 'discovery science', which, once produced, is true forever (because it's a copy of nature), but that science is a human, social, cultural and historical activity, that produces 'socially objective' knowledge. It's the best we can get.
stuart2112 wrote:If Marxism is a science, it sure is a strange one – not even it's strongest proponents and adherents can even agree what the terms mean or what would constitute confirmation or refutation!This is a real problem – the nature of Marxist science is argued over constantly. I think it's because what most Marxists call 'Marxism' is actually 'Engelsism'.
