LBird
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Bijou Drains wrote: “I think L Bird struggles with the concept of diversity and divergency. Socialism (to my mind) is about the liberation from uniformity and Homogeneity of capitalism. I personally don’t want a McDonaldisation of society.”
And I think that BD struggles with the concept of democratic production!
Socialism (to Marx’s and my mind) is about democratic production. If BD regards ‘democracy’ as ‘MacDonaldisation’, then that says more about his ideological outlook regarding the potential of the masses.
Democracy implies ‘diversity and divergency’ – it’s supposed to be only conservatives who detest ‘democracy’ as producing ‘uniformity’ and mediocrity.
The longer I read posts written by contributors to this site, the more I realise that ‘democracy’ is seen as a threat, not a solution, by many, if not all. The problem seems to be that ‘individualism’ is valued here much more highly than ‘democratic production’, which was Marx’s fundamental political and philosophical concern.
Which is fair enough – a concern with individualism – but the party should more open about this focus, and its differences with Marx’s fundamental concerns (note BD’s continued return to the question about the ‘self’ – ‘self esteem’, the determination of ‘matter’ by an individual’s own kick, for eg.)
It’d make political discussion much more worthwhile, easy, and indeed comradely.
robbo203 wrote: “Democracy requires the practical involvement of empirical individuals making choices. Otherwise, the term is meaningless”
Yes, ‘individuals‘, collectively, not an ‘individual’, alone.
robbo203 wrote: “The only way you can acquire the esteem and respect of your fellows…” [my bold]
Perhaps this would be better phrased as ‘can be given‘, because that emphasises that the ‘active subject’ is the community, not an individual.
That is, the decision on what counts as ‘esteemable’ and ‘repectable’ is a social decision, not one that an individual can determine for themself, and impose on the passive majority.
In effect, ‘esteem and respect’ are democratically elected, not chosen by an individual.
alanjjohnstone quoted:
“Humans aren’t just pawns on a chessboard of material conditions. We’ve been actively experimenting from the get-go.”
Spot on, alan. Marx’s viewpoint. Humanity as an actively conscious subject, changing its ‘material conditions’, not merely passively reflecting them.
‘Non-fungible’ supposedly means ‘unique’.
This is a claim that we know to be untrue, as anything that humans socially reproduce, they can replicate (even if initially it seems to be difficult or impossible – perhaps the breaking of the Enigma code by Bletchley Park is a recent example of this human ability).
So, we can start from the premise that some capitalists are trying to pretend they have something ‘unique’ (and therefore, they claim, ‘valuable’, which they can sell to the unwary). ‘Non-fungible’ is a bluff.
Perhaps this article gives a glimpse of where it will all end:
ALB wrote: “This Wikipedia entry about “non-fungible tokens” throws some useful light on the subject we are discussing here.”
Links to definition: “A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a blockchain, a form of digital ledger.”
This is a theoretical definition, of a social product within our present day capitalist society.
I think that Marx would argue that we can change both the definition and the product (the ‘token’) to suit our own interests, needs and purposes. That is, we can accept, amend or reject them, based upon our democratically-expressed views, just as we can any ‘metaverse’ that we produce.
It’s certainly possible to imagine and produce a ‘metaverse’ that is entirely helpful to humans. Or indeed otherwise, if we want damage or danger to ourselves to be part of our lives.
It should be our collective choice.
Bijou Drains wrote: “Just because a human produced their material reality…” [my bold]
Your claim is nothing to do with Marx, BD.
Marx’s views start from the assumption (which is political, philosophical and ideological) of ‘social production’, which involves ‘social individuals’. This is a fundamentally socio-historic framework, not one based upon isolated, biological individuals.
Your statement regarding ‘a human’ is based upon a mythical non-social, non-historical biological being – otherwise, you’d have to make clear the specific society and place in time in which your ‘a human’ did their ‘production’.
Bijou Drains wrote: “…there is nothing to imply that those humans can change it.”
But the whole point of Marx’s views is that he did believe that the ‘producer’ could change their ‘product’. If you don’t agree with Marx on this issue, that’s a valid point to make, but then we should discuss your differences with Marx. I, for one, agree with Marx on this issue, as it’s the whole basis of his democratic politics.
Bijou Drains wrote: “Human beings with schizophrenia have their own reality which is often very different from the reality of most other people, this does not mean that they can change their reality.”
Once again, you are starting from a isolated, socially damaged, individual, and not from a mode of production that produced them.
On the contrary, if a society produces schizophrenia in some of its social individuals, that society can change that production, and both prevent that production in the first place, and do something to help those damaged people who have been produced in the past.For Marx, the active subject who produces, is a social entity, not an isolated, biological individual. Which is why the socio-historical product ‘matter’ can’t be determined, as Dr. Johnson claimed, by simply ‘kicking it’. Johnson was a bourgeois ideologist, and wanted to encourage a non-thinking, individual biological senses’ reaction to an existing world, which can’t be changed. ‘Matter’ is the equivalent in bourgeois physics to ‘Property’ in bourgeois economics. Neither concept is meant to be under our democratic productive control.
Wez wrote: “As usual he deliberately misunderstands me. As even he must know Marx regarded socialist consciousness as the FIRST time in history where we are aware of material reality…“.
I’m not ‘misunderstanding’ you, Wez. I can read and understand exactly what you’re writing.
My objection is that your claim about Marx is not true.
For Marx, humans produce their ‘material reality’, which implies we can change it.
Humans always have done this, and always will. What’s revolutionary in Marx is that he claims that the building of socialist consciousness and its practical implementation will be the first time in history where humanity democratically controls its own production and products.
Whilst our production is not democratic, an elite minority create a ‘material reality’ which serves their interests, needs and purposes.
DJP is another ‘materialist’ who can’t have a debate, and soon turns to insults. It’s the ‘materialist method’, as displayed by Lenin, in his Materialism and Empiriocriticism.
Wez wrote: “Just as the laws of nature are not affected by the beliefs and needs of humanity so are the laws of capitalist economics – they are independent of the desires of governments and other groups. That’s why it’s called ‘the materialist conception of history’.”
Since Marx never used the phrase ‘materialist conception of history’, your ideology is nothing to do with him.
If all these things are ‘not affected by’ and ‘independent of the desires of’ humanity… who changes them?
As Marx argued, the only logical response to your ideology is to ask, ‘if not humanity as a whole, democratically’, and since humans are not passively awaiting ‘stuff’ to do things for us, which elite will make changes?
Your ideology, Wez, is that of Lenin. This is not an insult, but is proved to anyone by reading Lenin’s works.
Lenin and Wez have no time for the belief that humanity can democratically change its own world. They are both waiting for non-human ‘laws’ to work their magic. [well, according to Marx, they’re not really, and will substitute a conscious minority (an elite of party or experts) to effect their changes – I think Marx has been proved correct].
Wez wrote: “It doesn’t surprise me that LBird rejects Marx’s LTV along with his theory of historical evolution…”
You’ll have to point out just where I supposedly did those things, Wez.
But on the contrary, I can point out dozens (hundreds?) of examples where ‘materialists’, rather than debate what has been said, make up stories about Marxists who adopt Marx’s democratic social productionism.
Anyway, to rebut your made up story – Marx’s LTV (being a theory (‘T’)) requires human consciousness, and does not emerge from matter and enter passive humans through their biological senses; and his ‘theory of…’, err…, I think this is pretty obvious, too.
Marx believed that ‘conscious activity’ (ie. ‘labour’) socially produced our world, and thus we can change it.
Materialists, like you Wez, deny this, as when you claim “…the laws of nature are not affected by the beliefs and needs of humanity…“.
I’ve quoted often from Marx and other Marxists, to show that any ‘laws of nature’ that we know, we have produced, and have changed. The ‘laws of nature’ are socio-historical.
If you’re going to respond to my posts, please respond to what I write, and please don’t make up stories, to help hide your own defenceless, outdated 18th century ideology.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “Isn’t value as described by Marx an abstraction…socially determined as LBird says but unable to quantify?” [my bold]
Bijou Drains wrote: “Although I don’t always agree with our feathered friend (glad to see that you are still out there and pecking corn, LB), much of the capitalist system is based on various belief systems, rather that physical entities.” [my bold]
These statements are the closest that you’ve come to Marx’s ideology of ‘idealism-materialism’, lads!
There is no ‘matter’ or ‘physical entities’ ‘to quantify’, but only ‘socially determined’ ‘belief’.
These require an active consciousness which can change its own products, a productive subject which creates its own objects, and can thus change them, employing social theory and practice, which for socialists must be democratic.
There is no ‘reality-in-itself’, no ‘material’, no ‘matter’, which makes any human have a ‘belief’.
The ‘metaverse’ is our ‘reality-for-us’, just like the ‘universe’, and we can change them.
Whilst socialists wait patiently for ‘matter’ to do its work on the masses, the capitalists will continue to create ‘reality-for-them’, because they actively create their world, which as alan’s Dragons make clear, will always benefit them (whether we call it ‘universe’ or ‘metaverse’).
‘Materialists’ patiently wait for a saviour, an active separate minority, as Marx said in his Theses on Feuerbach. The ‘materialists’ will continue to wait.
Perhaps this will help orientate you, alan.
For materialists, there is only the ‘universe’, which is ‘material’, ‘physical’ or ‘real’, and which ‘exists’ independently of humanity. The ‘universe’ is ‘real-in-itself’.
Thus for materialists, the contrast is the ‘metaverse’, which is ‘ideal’, ‘notional’ or ‘unreal’, and which ‘exists’ only in the minds of humanity.On the contrary, though, for Marxists, both the ‘universe’ and the ‘metaverse’ are social products of humanity, which both require an active humanity to socially produce, and so both require both ‘material’ and ‘ideal’ to create. Thus, Marx’s method of ‘social theory and practice’, an actively conscious humanity which can change its own products. We have a ‘universe-for-us’, a ‘reality-for-us’, a ‘physical-for-us’, a ‘real-for-us’.
While we workers adopt a passive policy of waiting for ‘reality itself’ to tell us what to do, the active policy of the bourgeoisie, producing a ‘universe-for-them’ and a ‘metaverse-for-them’, will then tell us workers what to do.Put simply, for humanity, the universe and the metaverse are similarly ‘real-for-us’. Trying to separate ‘material’ from ‘ideal’ is a bourgeois ideology, to prevent active, conscious political activity, to prevent a democratic proletariat from determining its own ‘universe-for-us’.
Of course, workers can continue to be baffled with the ‘metaverse’, and place their trust in ‘matter’…Yeah, alan, replace ‘paper’ with ‘value’, and it’s spot on!
The key to understanding the issue is ‘social production’.
The ‘Dragons’ are all correct: at the end of the production process, they’ll all be richer, because that’s what the process is meant to do. The problem is that so many people believe that it will simply fail, because ‘reality’ will intervene.However, if one believes, as did Marx, that ‘reality’ is a socio-historical product, and we can change it, the answer is to collectively change it by democratic methods. Merely waiting for ‘reality itself’ to do our job will simply lead to richer ‘Dragons’.
As continues to happen. Joke over.
These things are socially produced, alan.
If one is a Marxist, although one can’t touch them, or indeed value, they can be explained, so that one is not ‘at a loss’ to understand them.
However, if one is a materialist, then anything whatsoever to do with consciousness will always remain a mystery.
And as social production requires both theory and practice, it too remains a mystery to materialists.
