[LBird]

Thanks for your very clear political reply, robbo.All democratic socialists should take note of it.

[LBird]

The key political issue here is the question of 'independent'.'Independent of individuals' does not mean 'independent of society'.So, we're faced with arguing either that nothing is independent of society (and so this can be voted upon) or that something is independent of society (and so can't be voted upon).The problem is, as Marx says, nothing is independent of society, and so those who argue that something is independent have to then surreptitiously put their own elite in control of this something (which isn't really independent of society as a whole).This is precisely what Vin, robbo, and the rest of the Religious Materialists do. They claim to be dealing with something independent of society ('nature', 'matter', 'Truth', 'externality', 'reality', etc. etc.), which can't be voted upon, but then claim that they themselves, as an elite, outside of the democratic control of the social producers, can determine this 'something'.Marx points out this political process involved in 'materialism', in his Theses on Feuerbach.'Materialism' is a 19th century ideology, and any party which builds its politics upon that elite bourgeois ideology, will deny workers' democracy, and keep power for its own preferred elite. This is what Lenin did, and it's apparently what the SPGB supporters who argue for 'Specialist' power over 'Generalists' want to do, too.None of this Religious Materialism has anything to do with Socialism (ie. the democratic control of social production). RM is an ideology suited to elite individuals, which is why robbo (especially, but there are others) argues for 'Individualism', and not for 'Democratic Communism'.The simple test of the political ideology involved is to ask 'Who or what will control truth production in socialism?'.Any answer other than 'society by democratic methods' will lead to the same results as Leninism – elitism.

[LBird]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

…as a democratic communist…

So you agree that we can elect truth then, robbo?If not, 'who' or 'what' produces 'truth'?

You don't have to answer that question publicly here, robbo, but, for your own development, try to work out for yourself what you think that the answer is, and then try to work out why you think that.That is, come up with a socio-historic answer of what you believe, where that originated, why that originated, and who benefits from your continuing to believe that answer.Of course, you can always refuse to do this historical analysis of a social product, and just continue to claim that, as an individual, you just know eternal truth (probably on the basis that 'reality' is 'obvious' to your biological senses).alanjjohnstone mentioned a history book on the other thread, and you could do worse than reading that, to help situate your political beliefs about 'nature' and 'science' in a socio-historic context of human production.That is, in a social context that we can change.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

…as a democratic communist…

So you agree that we can elect truth then, robbo?If not, 'who' or 'what' produces 'truth'?

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. "(my emphasis) Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy 

I know that you're not very good at this theoretical stuff, Vin, so I'll make it easy for you.'Relations of production' are socio-historical products of human activity.This doesn't mean that 'rocks talk to us', as Religious Materialists like you allege, Vin.No worker with half-a-brain listens to this 19th century guff any more, Vin, so you're wasting your time pretending to them that you have a 'special consciousness' and access to something that they don't have. If you agreed that they had the same access, you'd clearly agree that they could vote on this access, but you don't, so you have to deny democracy to those you pretend to able to persuade to give you power within socialism.Have a nice night, chatting to the rocks.

[LBird]

Wright wrote:

History really happens “behind the backs” of actors: it evolves “unconsciously,” so to speak, as Hegel understood. Social and institutional conflicts work themselves out, slowly, through the actions of large numbers of people who generally have little idea of the true historical significance of their acts.

It's just the usual 'elitist materialism', alan.Religious Materialists always have to posit an 'elite' who are 'conscious' – as opposed to 'large numbers of people who generally have little idea'. That is, 'academics like Wright' as opposed to 'us dumb workers'.Marx pointed this out – if you start with a 'non-consciousness' which is 'active', then you have to then find a 'consciousness' which knows this, and so is itself 'active'.The simple answer is conscious democracy, which is socialism.Bourgeois ideologists disagree with democracy, and look to elite, conscious, individuals (just like them, eh?).

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Has this book turned up on your reading list, LBIRDhttps://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560257482/dissivoice-20A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks  BYClifford D. Conner

Yeah, I've often recommended Chapter 6 – Who were the winners in the scientific revolution? (pp. 349-421) for comrades to try to get to grips with the socio-historic roots of bourgeois science, but the Religious Materialists who follow Engels don't read much history, do they?Faith In Matter can't try to locate 'matter' in history and society, and so allow us to change it (because it is, as Marx argued, our product and so amenable to our changing of it), but Faith In Matter Knows Matter As It Eternally Is.I know that you haven't got a clue what I'm talking about, alan, as you've admitted many times, but take the well-meant advice of a Democratic Communist and Marxist – try to read further about Marx and his differences with Engels and the Religious Materialism that Lenin and other elitists, like the SPGB, espouse.You could do worse than starting with Conner's chapter – although I no longer expect anyone on this site to follow up, since most clearly haven't even read Marx or Engels.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

ALB wrote:

In any event, the disappearance of money was discussed by the Bolsheviks in the early days after their coup.

  Yes,  I wouldnt dispute that.  Didnt Stalin  in his 1906 work on Anarchism say something similar – about a socialist society being a moneyless society?However, the question is whether the period of "war communism" represented a genuine attempt, as some have claimed,  to institute a moneyless communist society. 

It's not the simple issue of 'the disappearance of money' that is at issue – the real issue is 'what replaces money after its disappearance'.The only answer which allows us to equate a 'moneyless society' with 'socialism' is democratic production.There can be a 'moneyless society' which is not 'socialism'.From this Marxist perspective, "war communism' was nothing whatsoever to do with 'socialism'. The associated producers never democratically controlled production in Russia, pre- or post-1917.

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

LBird wrote:

Yes, like Engels, I used to 'hope it will not come to that', but 'there is nothing left for us' Democratic Communists, who insist, like Marx, that only the producers can democratically create their world, 'than to speak out against it publicly'.

Then surely you are proposing that the "truth" is decided upon by an elite, i.e. the producers. what about the non-productive, people with disabilites, those who have retired from productive taks, etc. "democratic communists" exclude them fromt his process?

I'm not sure what ideology you're using to understand the concept 'producers', Tim, and why you think that 'production' is done by an 'elite', alone. If you do believe this, but you've kept it hidden all this time, then it will explain a lot about your difficulty in understanding Marx.For Marx, all humans are 'producers'.If you're serious about discussing this, I'll do so, but if you're just taking the piss, as usual, then I'll have to just ignore you, as usual.The ball's in your court.

[LBird]

As I expected, there's no reply to political questions by YMS.But then, I already knew, from years of asking, that there wouldn't be, from any of the Religious Materialists. They can't answer these political questions, because their ideology prevents them doing so.But, there must be SPGB members and supporters out there who can see that there is a genuine political issue at stake, here. And really, it's to those who I'm addressing my posts.That is, to critical thinkers, not Religious Materialists. Those who think that any power in Socialism will be under democratic control, and not under the control of an elite of 'Specialists', who supposedly have a 'Special Consciousness' that the rest of us don't, and supposedly have a 'politically neutral' method which is available to 'Special Individuals', who are 'politically disinterested', and pretend to be concerned with 'The Truth' of 'Out There'.It's all bourgeois ideology, and can be located socio-historically.The Religious Materialists, of course, don't talk about society or history – social production, and its changes over time.For the Religious Materialists, 'Matter Is Eternal'. 'Matter' is their god, and they have Faith.That's why democracy provides so great a problem for them – they claim to already 'Know Matter', and won't have workers having the power to tell them otherwise.Whereas, Democratic Communists insist that the 'existence', or not, of 'matter' is an issue for the democratic producers who produce 'matter'. They can change 'matter', if their needs, interests and purposes change. Science is social production, not 'revelatory discovery by an elite'. What humans create, they can change.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

But the SPGB 'openly claims' that only an elite can determine 'truth',

No, it odesn't  Lbird would be unable to provide any evidence that it does.

Well, let's try once again.For the SPGB, 'who' or 'what' determines 'truth'?My answer, as a Democratic Communist, is that only the democratic, revolutionary, class conscious proletariat can determine its 'truth'.Every time that I've asked, the SPGB, which employs 'materialism', answers 'matter'. You openly state that you won't allow a vote on 'matter'.

YMS wrote:

LBird wrote:

that only an elite of 'specialists' can control physics, maths, logic, all science, and, contrary to Marx's arguments for the self-emancipation of the proletariat by democratic political methods, that 'the workers are too ignorant' and must be 'emancipated from the top down' by 'disinterested scientists'.

No it doesn't, and Lbird can provide no evidence that it does.

Why does the SPGB then keep saying that an elite of 'Specialists' must determine their 'Speciality'?For Democratic Communists, who argue that only the producers can determine what they produce, any elected 'Specialists' must explain their 'Specialism' to everybody else, and so the 'Generalists', the vast majority, must themselves determine the 'Specialism'.So, we openly state that physics, maths, logic, all science must be under our democratic control. There is no elite who know things that the rest of us can't.

YMS wrote:

LBird wrote:

The SPGB posters here have openly opposed the democratic control of production of truth, and have insisted that only an elite of 'specialists' have access to 'Truth', by using a 'politically neutral' method, which cannot allow voting by the majority.

No party member has argued this, and Lbird will be unable to provide any evidence to this effect.

You all argue that 'science' has a politically neutral method, because otherwise you'd have to argue, as Marxists do, that 'science is a powerful social activity' and so is fundamentally political. Within a democratic society like Socialism, all 'power' would be under democratic control.It's very easy for the SPGB to agree that all production within Socialism will be democratic, but for some reason it doesn't.The best I seem to be able to get out of the SPGB is that they'll deign to allow workers to control 'widget production' in 'factories'.But once 'knowledge' and 'academia' are mentioned… well, it's just bluster by the SPGB. And poorly educated bluster, at that.That's what comes from remaining within the 19th century, and espousing 'Religious Materialism', an ideology suited to 'elite production', and as such was also espoused by Lenin.Why the SPGB does this, I don't know. But when I try to engage the SPGB in a discussion, I'm either personally abused or banned.All I can continue to do, whilst allowed, is to offer reading recommendations and links, to those who might be minded to follow up on these issues, because they are concerned that the SPGB is unable to answer my questions.The real problem is your Faith In Matter.My Faith is in the Democratic Producers, as was Marx's.If you think Marx and I were wrong, that's fine by me. Then we can progress the debate, and discover just who or what is your alternative to the Democratic Producers controlling the social production of 'truth'.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

Strategy and Tactics of the Class StruggleA Private Circulation Letter from Marx and Engels, (First drafted by Engels)We cannot, therefore, go along with people who openly claim that the workers are too ignorant to emancipate themselves but must first be emancipated from the top down, by the philanthropic big and petty bourgeois. Should the new party organ take a position that corresponds with the ideas of those gentlemen, become bourgeois and not proletarian, …

[my bold]But the SPGB 'openly claims' that only an elite can determine 'truth', that only an elite of 'specialists' can control physics, maths, logic, all science, and, contrary to Marx's arguments for the self-emancipation of the proletariat by democratic political methods, that 'the workers are too ignorant' and must be 'emancipated from the top down' by 'disinterested scientists'.The SPGB posters here have openly opposed the democratic control of production of truth, and have insisted that only an elite of 'specialists' have access to 'Truth', by using a 'politically neutral' method, which cannot allow voting by the majority.

Quote:

…then there is nothing left for us, sorry as we should be to do so, than to speak out against it publicly and dissolve the solidarity within which we have hitherto represented the German party abroad. But we hope it will not come to that.

[my bold] Yes, like Engels, I used to 'hope it will not come to that', but 'there is nothing left for us' Democratic Communists, who insist, like Marx, that only the producers can democratically create their world, 'than to speak out against it publicly'.The SPGB has stopped even trying to justify their anti-democratic 'materialism', and seeks instead to attack me personally, and avoid engaging with a political debate about the democratic control of science.If that's the method the SPGB wants to adopt, then fine, but I'll keep posting recommendations for reading, for those readers who wish to dig deeper into these political issues. It's up to readers to follow up on them or not. I know that the 'faithful' of Religious Materialism won't do so, and that they'll retain their faith in 'matter', rather than adopt a faith in the democratic proletariat. But to those who still retain some critical senses, the options are there.Miller is only one of many.

[LBird]

mcolome1 wrote:

We have already discussed that conception which is  the vanguard party.

I'm glad that you're admitting it, mcolome1.

[LBird]

moderator1 wrote:

Even to the extent, I take it that they become the unity of opposites?

I'm not an Engelsist 'Religious Materialist', like you, mod1, so I don't recognise the 'dialectical' nonsense about 'unity of opposites'.That sort of talk is only there to baffle workers, so that the elitists who use that guff can hide their anti-democratic 'philosophy' (an 'ideology' by any other name, to keep this reply relevant to the thread).Of course, Lenin was right at home with 'unity of opposites' – wasn't that the actual 'unity' between the supposed 'opposites' of party and class?Youse Religious Materialists might be still falling for this 19th century elitist bluffing, but most workers aren't any more. It's 2017, not 1917.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

Quote:

In 1973 Geertz stated ‘I have a social philosophy, you have political opinions, he has an ideology’.

Of course, the Democratic Communist answer to that academic statement is:'We have a social philosophy, we have political opinions, we have an ideology'.And we can change around 'philosophies', 'opinions' and 'ideologies', and assign to each whatever status we democratically decide.We can change 'philosophy' to 'opinion', and 'ideology' to 'philosophy'. And then change them again, to suit our purposes, needs and interests.All philosophy, opinion and ideology are socio-historic products. In a Democratic Communist society, we can change them.

[Author]

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