LBird
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As Robin’s article argues, Marx’s theory of value was neither subjective alone nor objective alone, but ‘subjective-objective’. An alternative term for this linking of the subject and object is ‘productive’.
We produce our value, it’s a ‘value-for-us’. This ‘value’ is thus neither ‘individual estimation’ nor ‘matter’ (this latter Marx specifically says in Capital), but our socio-historical product, and thus we can change it.
It’d make some sense to call it Marx’s ‘Productive Labour theory of value’.
ALB wrote: “Wow ! Can we used that in the Socialist Standard as a definitive refutation of the nonsense/slander that Marx was some sort of post-modernist?”
I’m all for the refutation of the nonsense/slander that Marx was some sort of post-modernist!
Marx definitely wasn’t a post-modernist, he was a social productionist.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “One thing though is certain, workers were not fully educated or aware of what they wanted or were seeking. A sign was how Noske, the butcher, actually got himself voted as chairman of the workers council in Hamburg/Kiel (?) demonstrating how little political consciousness existed among the ordinary participants. …
Who knows how history may have turned out if by some miracle the Spartacists had prevailed and Luxemburg survived.”
I agree completely with you here, alan. In contrast to Rosa’s claim we saw earlier, workers were not fighting for ‘democratic socialism’, their own control of all social production.
But, we know exactly how the Spartacists and Luxemburg would have prevailed – in a minority being in control, because, as you say, “workers were not fully educated or aware of what they wanted or were seeking.”
Even today, ‘materialists’ do not seek ‘fully educated, aware workers’, who will be able to outvote the ‘materialists’. There is no route to ‘democratic socialism’ through an elite minority, but only through a ‘fully educated aware’ majority. Bourgeois ‘science’ denies this political belief, or the need for a ‘democratic method’ within our science.
ALB wrote: “…Bolshevism, a doctrine that originated in any economically and politically backward country and took critics of capitalism back to a pre-Marxian stage and worse“.
This is incorrect, ALB. Bolshevism, the notion of an elite (party) dictating to workers, the political belief that a select minority know what ‘socialism’ is, prior to democratically consulting workers, pre-dates 1917, and pre-dates Lenin.
The core of Lenin’s ideology was ‘materialism’, which he learned from Plekhanov, Kautsky and Engels. ‘Materialism’ at its core is an anti-democratic ideology (as Marx said), and it laid the basis for Lenin’s ‘elite party’ ideology, ie. Bolshevism.
And you’re right about it taking us ‘back to a pre-Marxian stage and worse’ – it took us back to 18th century bourgeois ideas, which not only pre-dated Marx, but which Marx specifically fought against, when he put humans at the centre of their creative activity. Marx argued that humanity, not god, produced their world. The ‘materialists’ of course deny this. In fact, it could be said that ‘materialism’ is simply ‘Bolshevism in Physics’.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “I don’t know how many times in the last few posts on this thread I have emphasized the “social” nature of our case, purposefully explaining it meant all of society … at all levels of decision-making. What I did not do is lay down any preconceived rules on the matter, leaving it instead to members of society to work out for themselves.
That is your answer to your question, “who will create ‘individuals’ and how, according to whose social plan, whose social aims, whose purposes?” The SPGB since it was formed has had that position.”
So, according to your answer, alan, when it is asked of the SPGB ‘who shall elect either ‘matter’ or an alternative?’ or ‘who controls science?’ or ‘how shall we create our universe?’, the SPGB answers ‘all of society’.
That is, not ‘individuals’, not ‘science’, not ‘physicists’, not an elite of ‘Specialists’, but ‘all of society’.
But that’s not the answer that I’ve been given over the last few years of asking that political question. ‘Materialists’ (who do not agree with your position) have argued that ‘matter’ simply ‘exists’, just ‘as it is’, and that we can’t deselect this concept, and replace it with other concepts, by means of a democratic vote, by ‘all of society’ deciding for itself. The ‘materialists’ insist an elite ‘knows matter’, and they can’t be argued with. ‘Materialism’ is nothing to do with ‘democratic socialism’.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “I was constantly reminded that it was not workers control we sought but the abolition of classes and the development of social democracy and common ownership as the means to liberate ourselves as individuals.”
Perhaps this statement illustrates the differences in our understandings about both ‘socialism’ and ‘Marx’s ideas’.
You seem to equate political ‘control’ with ‘individuals’. I equate political ‘control’ with ‘democracy’.
Thus, when I ask you ‘who is to produce our universe?’, this is probably a meaningless question, as individuals just do as individuals do, according to their own lights, whereas for me, following in the footsteps of Marx, I regard this question as a social question, and thus a political question. So, the question follows – who will create ‘individuals’ and how, according to whose social plan, whose social aims, whose purposes?
alanjjohnstone wrote: “You can continue to place your concerns and reservations about the “Engelsian” SPGB as a reason for remaining outside of it, but i’ll be blunt – it is in no way contributing to any workers’ democracy nor the emancipation of labour from wage-slavery. The few SPGB members might not be doing much, but it is a helluva lot more than yourself.”
This is a fundamental disagreement we have here, alan. I’d argue that the building of a movement which has as its aim ‘democratic socialism’ must from the start ask questions about, and provide answers to them, about ‘democratic social production’. That is, ‘socialism’ isn’t about ‘free/liberated individuals’, but about ‘social production’. Marx argues that ‘social production’ is a task eternally imposed upon humanity, and I agree with him.
So, to me, whatever it is at present that ‘the few SPGB members might be doing’, it isn’t ‘a helluva lot more than’ myself (which is little enough), but is failing to ask questions about socio-historical production, the ideas that it has produced in the past, where we (including the SPD and Second International, Luxemburg and Liebknecht) went wrong.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “We’re heading towards extinction if we can not garner more support and gather more members. Where shall we be then as workers? Any better off?”
I certainly don’t think that starting from telling workers that they will not democratically control all social production (including our universe, nature-for-us, science, physics, maths, logic, universities, etc.) is the way forward. In fact, I think that this political and ideological approach is the very source of our weakness. It’s a disastrous political strategy to tell the exploited that their exploiters already have a special, ahistoric, apolitical, elite social activity called ‘Science’ which should be left in the hands of an elite, who are our betters.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. 😉
alanjjohnstone wrote: “Once again our democratic principles safeguards the democracy LBird values so much”
The turn this discussion (about the SPD and its lack of workers’ democracy, and the roots of that lack) has taken, shows how sensitive this issue is. Regarding the SPGB, I’ve never criticised its internal party democracy, and indeed I’ve often favourably contrasted that to the Trotskyist parties, like the SWP, of which I was a member. So, this issue isn’t about institutional democracy within the SPGB.
The problem is, whenever I’ve asked the political and philosophical question (which also bears upon our analysis of the problems of the SPD and the Second International) about ‘democratic production of our world’, the answer by the members and supporters of the SPGB has consistently been that the social production of ‘physical reality’ is an issue for an elite of ‘Specialists’ (that’s the term that has been used by posters here, not by me). This elite of ‘Specialists’ are claimed to have an elite method of ‘Science’, which is not amenable to ‘democratic controls’ by the mass of humanity (who are labelled ‘Generalists’ by the SPGB).
Thus, whenever there is a clash between ‘democracy’ and ‘science’, the SPGB takes the side of ‘science’.
The ideological seeds of this political stance were sown well before the SPGB was formed in 1904, and those seeds were present when the SPD and the Second International were formed. This ideological belief (indeed, it’s a faith) in a ‘something that precedes its social production‘, and that an elite minority only can know this ‘something that precedes its social production‘, means that the mass of humanity is forever excluded from the control of the production of this ‘something‘. If it already ‘exists‘, then it can’t be changed by producers, who must simply deal with it, ‘as it is’.
Whatever position one takes on this political and philosophical issue, it’s clearly not the position of Marx. Thus, one must account for the emergence of this anti-democratic tendency within the movement of ‘Marxism’ which emerged in the mid-19th century. Marx himself disassociated himself from this movement.
The SPD and the Second International had their roots in this anti-democratic ideology, and so it’s not a surprise to find that they never argued for the democratic control of all social production by workers, and never built a movement which had this as its aim. The thinkers of those organisations never aimed to place themselves under the control of social producers who would democratically control the production of their universe. Kautsky was open about this.
If ‘The Universe’ already ‘Exists’, and can’t be changed, then Marx was wrong, the Second International was right, and workers will never develop the ability to self-determine their ‘Universe-for-them’, their ‘Nature-for-us’. However, Marx thought otherwise. He regarded a ‘nature’ not socially produced by us humans, as a ‘nothing for us’. Marx argued in favour of ‘change’, not ‘interpretation’.
Of course, these political issues, about democratic controls over social production of any ‘nature’ that we know, are still a live issue in the 21st century.
It’s much wider than a simple discussion about ‘SPGB internal democracy’, which I’ve always praised for what it is.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “A 1907 analysis of the SPD by the SPGB
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-lessons-of-german-elections-1907.html”
It’s a very good article, alan, which argues in favour of many of the things that I’ve said about workers’ class consciousness and self-emancipation.
Socialist Standard March 1907 wrote: “…where the workers once attain full class-consciousness they can no longer be misled…value election campaigns and political representation only in so far as they are a means for rousing the workers to full class consciousness…socialising the means of production…Insisting upon the truth that the working-class must emancipate itself …What the workers (and that means the whole of Society) will do after the proletariat have seized control…organising the workers in the political and economic field on the lines of the class struggle alone, would offer a united front of revolutionary hostility to the possessing class… ”.
But, there is one glaring omission: other than within a quote from Vorwaerts, the article itself doesn’t mention ‘democracy’, never mind “workers’ democracy”.
As I’ve said before, I think that this failure to emphasise that the workers themselves will collectively determine their own world was a feature of all Second International parties, and seems to also include the SPGB. That is, it’s not membership of that International that’s at the root of the problem, but something deeper, that all the post-Marx “Socialist” organisations seemed to share.
Put simply, it’s the ideological belief that ‘matter itself’ (and most emphatically not humanity, not the social producers) produces our reality. This is a belief that stems from Engels, not Marx, and means that when talking about workers’ reality, there is no need to discuss the democratic control required when creating whatever ‘reality’ we know.
It’s a shame that the article omits this central political question, because, compared to today’s articles from all parties, it’s much more advanced. Perhaps it just shows the deterioration after 1883 has continued to weaken Marx’s original ideas. The faith in Engels’ ‘Scientific Socialism’ must be opposed by ‘Workers’ Democracy’.
The problem is, I’ve come to realise that it’s the word ‘Scientific’ that seems to attract most post-Marx ‘socialists’, and not ‘Democracy’. If asked what should determine our Universe, our Physics, our Reality, these ‘socialists’ influenced by Engels will always answer ‘Science’, not ‘Democracy’.
And Engels got his notions of ‘science’ from Robert Owens (a well-documented autocrat, who wanted to help workers, not be under their control), and overlaid Marx’s core ideas of ‘democracy’, ‘social production’ and ‘critique’, with an elite ‘science’ which studied eternal matter to produce a final ‘Truth’.
ALB wrote: “Here‘s one on/by Luxemburg …”
Quote by Luxemburg, from ALB’s link: “…a tremendous under-estimation of the enlightening and elevating intellectual influences which 40 years of Socialist propaganda have produced in the ranks of the German working class.” [my bold]
With due regard to the circumstances of this claim, and its rhetorical context, but given the later events of 1914, I think that we can only conclude that it was Rosa herself who was guilty of over-estimation of the effects of this (supposed?) ‘Socialist propaganda’.
As I argued to alan earlier, the ‘Socialism’ of the SPD (and all Second International thinkers) had very little to do with Marx’s notion of ‘the self-emancipation of the proletariat’. It would be very hard to believe, that if the European proletariat had been ‘enlightened and elevated’ for 40 years, that it would have marched off to war and mass suicide under the banner of nationalism.
In fact, all the evidence since supports the view that there was no mass proletarian self-conversion to democratic socialism anywhere, neither in Germany nor in the other combatant nations.
Even after four years of terrible killing at the front and starvation at home, still the German proletariat hadn’t learned to rely upon itself, but handed political power to the counterrevolutionary SPD.
No matter how much we admire Rosa Luxemburg and her bravery which caused her death at the hands of the proto-fascists, we have to learn the lessons of the late 19th century – regarding not just politics (and Marx’s ideas) but also those of physics, logic, mathematics and ‘science’, which in many ways are all still in a state of unresolved crisis.
Any attempt to save this planet and all its life forms is going to require a thorough-going revolution in all areas of humanity’s activities, its social production. And if it’s not democratic socialism, the ‘Solution’ will be an ‘elite’ one. Perhaps Engels’ ‘Finality’ will bear fruit, but not in the sense he anticipated, but one of which we’ve already had a terrible taste.
ALB wrote: “The “radicals” in the SPD attributed its drift towards reformism as being due not so much to the bureaucratisation of the Party (after all Luxemburg and Pannekoek were at one time paid Party officials themselves) …”
Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they! 🙂
Did Luxemburg or Pannekoek, when they were ‘paid Party officials’, ie bureaucrats, argue that they must obey their electorate? As I said before, I’m more familiar with Pannekoek’s ideas, and he wasn’t consistent. Given his social upbringing, and lack of political clarity, it’s difficult to believe that ‘reformism’ in the party wasn’t connected to his attempts to ‘reform’ workers into seeing the world from his perspective, as opposed to encouraging them to create their own.
Until a workers’ party starts out from the premise that workers should democratically control it, institutionally and intellectually, then I can’t see how it can be ‘socialist’. This applies, of course, to that party’s view of ‘nature’ and ‘science’, too. There can’t be a ‘special elite’ who claim to have a ‘special method’, which gives them, and them alone, insights into a ‘reality’ that the vast majority cannot share. It’s only when when workers argue for our own control of ‘reality-for-us’ (or, ‘nature-for-us’), a social product, that we’ll begin the task of undermining the world/universe we live in, one built by the bourgeoisie, by its ideas, aims, and purposes, not ours.
Thanks for the links, I’ll read them later.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “But LBird, equally you must explain why the likes of Luxemburg and Pannekoek who had critiqued elitism and stuck with the SPD until the middle of the war before joining with Kautsky and arch-revisionist Bernstein to form the Independent Socialists.
What was it that Luxemburg and Pannekoek recognize which meant they declined to break with the SPD?”
I’m afraid even Tories ‘critique elitism’ when it suits. The question is: ‘did they argue for the democratic control of all production by workers?’, and hence attempt to build party ideas, methods and structures that developed that aim.
As for the ‘Independent Socialists’, the same questions apply, as to the SPD. The splits and re-alignments between various ‘leaders’ and factions were nothing to do with the issue of workers’ democratic control of production.
I’m most familiar with Pannekoek’s views, and he seems to have been very similar to Engels – some of his writing is Marxist (he argued that the laws of physics were a human product, and so, presumably, amenable to democratic control), but some falls back into echoing Engels’ 18th century ‘materialism’ (ie. ‘matter’, not humans, produces ‘reality’, and so is not amenable to democratic control). Neither Engels nor Pannekoek squared this particular political circle. Marx, of course, did – to him, humans, as the active subject, the conscious creator, socially produce their objects, and thus can change them.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “I suggested that it was a class party, something you challenged. But I emphasized that it incorporated a class view on all aspects of everyday life from music to drama, to literature and journalism, to sports and social activities where play-writers became presidents in Bavaria’s Workers Republic.
The Party had become the class, dissolving the separation between politics and people. Culture and politics merged (as they again did during the Russian Revolution).”
This is simply untrue. A ‘class view’ would suggest an organisation (party or council) which was built upon the notion of democratic control by its worker membership, and all its ideas and activities were premised upon that political belief. No workers were taught by the SPD that they, and they alone (to the exclusion of the party managers, etc., that you listed earlier) should democratically control ‘all aspects of everyday life’ (ie. theirs). For example, were workers taught to critique and change the laws of football, and encouraged to elect any officials (and remove any who failed to obey the workers instructions) within the game? This political method applies to all the examples you give.
The SPD, like all bourgeois parties, may have a majority of workers for members, but those workers don’t democratically control the party leaders, party machine or party ideas. You’ve said as much yourself already.
The SPD and Independent Socialists were not workers’ parties. They might have contained politicians who were sympathetic to workers, but that’s a long way from those politicians doing as they are told by workers, politically and intellectually, according to democratic controls.
ALB wrote: ” I think the early Party members regarded the SPD pre-WW1 … as: while not a socialist party at least a “party with socialists in it.” ”
I suppose we’d have to ask – ‘just who in the pre-Great War SPD believed in workers democratically controlling all social production?’
Kautsky certainly didn’t; neither did Bernstein. If we can’t name someone, at least, then it would appear that ‘the early Party members’ were wrong then, and that the present Party members, too, are still wrong now, to regard the SPD as anything whatsoever to do with ‘revolutionary socialism’, as we in the 21st century would understand it.
Perhaps you know more about Liebknecht than I do, ALB, and can provide some quotes from him, which would allow us to name one. I must say, though, that from what I know of ‘Marxist Socialists’ after Marx’s death, I’ll be very surprised to hear of any SPD ‘socialists’.
I think that the disaster of 1914 could have been foreseen, by any socialists who had a proper basis in Marx’s ideas, of the necessity for the self-emancipation of the proletariat. The SPD never had any intention in allowing the German workers to ‘self-emancipate’. alan’s list, above, says it all.
ALB wrote… “The problem of the pre-WW1 SPD is … why what was always essentially a pro-democracy reformist party claimed for a period to be a revolutionary socialist one”
Yes, this is why it’s right to criticise not just Kautsky as an individual, but the whole movement: people, party, ideology, aims, methods, etc.
Neither Kautsky, nor the SPD, was revolutionary socialist, which raises the question of why any revolutionary socialists today would regard either Kauksky or any other of the, as alan lists “professional politicians, party-machine bureaucrats, political managers, ideological pillars”, should be regarded as in the revolutionary socialist tradition.
It was never, as alan also claims though, a ‘class party’. A ‘working class party’ is one which is democratically controlled by workers, and can be changed by them, rather than controlled and changed by “professional politicians, party-machine bureaucrats, political managers, ideological pillars”.
Marcos wrote “…during that time Kautsky was a revolutionary socialist…”.
That is a myth, Marcos. Kautsky was never any sort of ‘revolutionary socialist’. He was an elitist, who had no time for workers’ democracy, democratic control of social production, which are both how we, I think, would define as ‘revolutionary socialist’.
Bijou Drains wrote: “L Bird mate, it was a joke 😆”
Yeah, I know. And I know that you’ve got a sense of humour, which I share.
But, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from posting on the internet, there’s always a reader or a moderator who hasn’t! 😆
So, I’ll keep my responses to the strictly academic side of the debate/humour continuum, and tender my apologies up front right now to those who find any levity in this post to be insulting.
