LBird
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LBird
Participant‘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:
LBird
ParticipantALB 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.
LBird
ParticipantBijou 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.
LBird
ParticipantWez 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.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by
LBird.
LBird
ParticipantDJP 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.
LBird
ParticipantWez 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].
LBird
ParticipantWez 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.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by
LBird.
LBird
Participantalanjjohnstone 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.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by
LBird.
LBird
ParticipantPerhaps 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’…-
This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by
LBird.
LBird
ParticipantYeah, 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.
LBird
ParticipantThese 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.
LBird
ParticipantAs an example of this ‘unifying’ aspect to Marx’s philosophical approach being followed by Dimmock, see p. 159, footnote 3:
“The study of conquest, battles and state and legal constitutions forms a separate discipline to social and economic history in most British academies. Bringing the two disciplines together has been one of the most interesting and hopefully fruitful aspects of my research since then.”
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This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by
LBird.
LBird
ParticipantZJW wrote “Regarding the Bird-recommended book by Spencer Dimmock from 2014, ‘The Origin of Capitalism in England, 1400–1600’, its detailed table of contents, on Google Books, can be seen here: shorturl.at/gqvCZ . This book (likewise downloadable from libgen) ought to be reviewed in the SS.
(Dimmock might be surprised at Bird’s characterisation of the Political Marxism current in Bird-comment #208026. Near the beginning of the chapter ‘Orthodox Marxism versus Political Marxism’, Dimmock writes:
‘As we shall see, the accusation of voluntarism – among other things – against Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood (the Wood referred to in the above quote) stems from a total misreading of Brenner’s thesis and its application by Wood and other political Marxists such as George Comninel, Benno Teschke and Charles Post. Far from abandoning historical materialism, Brenner’s social-property
relations perspective has sought to bring it to life by rejecting the tendency to teleology and techno-determinism in earlier orthodox accounts.’”I think Dimmock’s book is very good introduction to the debates surrounding the ‘origins of capitalism’ between ‘orthodox Marxism’ (ie. the Engels-influenced “battle between ‘materialism’ and ‘idealism'”) and ‘political Marxism’ (ie. the Marx-influenced “unity of ‘materialism’ and ‘idealism’).
I don’t think Dimmock would be at all surprised at my ‘characterisation’. If anyone’s interested in my claim, have a read of Dimmock’s book, and get back to me here, with any questions.
LBird
ParticipantBijou Drains, alanjjohnstone, thanks for your kind words.
My advice is to read up about Chinese physics and politics, and try to see how they don’t separate ‘Nature’ and ‘Society’ (just as Marx didn’t), and to see how Engels was badly influenced by ‘Western Science’ (ie., what I’d call ‘bourgeois science’).
All ‘Science’ is socio-historical and so changes, and is powerful.
The question is: ‘Who is to control its power and how it changes?’.
The SPGB and TrueScotsman would agree (I think) about who should have power: an elite, who have an ability and motivation which not shared by the mass of humans.
Why the SPGB diverges from its democratic political beliefs when it comes to ‘science’ is a mystery that I’ve never been able to really solve.
I suspect it’s because you regard Marx and Engels (as do all Leninists) as in effect a ‘single being’, and regard the critical investigation of this belief as illegitimate.
Perhaps TrueScotsman can now say whether they align with the SPGB on this issue of ‘science’, or have I misjudged TrueScotsman’s politics? I would imagine that TrueScotsman regards the Party as the ‘Scientist’ within ‘Scientific Socialism’?
LBird
ParticipantThis has been a very interesting and enlightening debate, marred only by the inevitable personal insults by the SPGB against TrueScotsman. Plus ca change…
I should declare openly, though, to TrueScotsman, that my Democratic Communist politics are closer to those of the SPGB than to those of TrueScotsman.
There are two outstanding parallels between this thread and my many debates with the SPGB about ‘science’, which mirrors the “Leninist Elite versus Mass Class” basis of this one.
The first parallel, as I’ve already pointed out, is the SPGB’s mode of political debate – it doesn’t argue politics, but attacks individuals, and so loses the political debate, in the sense that its own ideological beliefs remain sacrosanct, but it doesn’t spread its own political message to workers who debate with them. It’s a method that will end in cult-like isolation.
The second, is that my arguments in defence of democratic science (the ideological belief that only mass control of physics, maths, logic, etc. is acceptable for a democratic socialist movement and its eventual product, socialism) are exactly the ones used by the SPGB to defend their politics.
That is why I agree with the SPGB as against TrueScotsman’s politics. I believe that only mass communist consciousness amongst workers across the planet can build socialism. TrueScotsman disagrees with this, and argues for a party to lead the still non-socialist workers into socialism – which is fair enough, and a political and ideological one, which I disagree with, but I can understand and debate with.
The problem is, the SPGB are contradictory, and on the issue of ‘science’, agree with TrueScotsman’s political and ideological position: that an elite is needed to lead the benighted mass.
My position, and I think it was Marx’s too, is that only the proletariat can liberate itself, in all areas of social production, which naturally (and I chose that term consciously) includes the power of human ‘science’.
‘Nature’ and ‘Society’ are human products, and within a democratic socialist society can only be changed democratically.
I think TrueScotsman would disagree that either should be democratically produced (but at least holds a consistent political position), whereas the SPGB thinks ‘Nature’ is simply sitting ‘out there’, waiting to be ‘discovered’ by an elite of physicists (and other ‘scientists’), and so ditches its correct democratic politics regarding ‘Society’ when dealing with ‘Nature’. It’s a confused political stance that must lead nowhere. At least TrueScotsman’s consistent beliefs have had, and continue to have (unfortunately from my perspective) political relevance today.
Anyway, I couldn’t resist posting, so my apologies to those who detest the notion of ‘Politicised Science’, and prefer a self-selecting elite to hold power in science.-
This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by
LBird.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by
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