[LBird]

YMS wrote:

To be clear: you have never proven, nor even attempted to prove, that where Marx wrote material, he meant human.

I've not only proven, but proven beyond doubt, Marx's views about social production and the democratic control of that production.The problem is, Marx's arguments can never be proven to those who disagree with Marx's views (based on his beliefs, assumptions, politics and epistemology).And as I've said time and again, the reason for this is that you don't share Marx's views, so you can't agree with (or even understand) his arguments.The only way for you (and other Religious Materialists) to understand is to examine your own ideological beliefs.But… your ideology tells you that it's not an ideology, and so you continue to argue that Marx not talking about 'humanity' (read Jordan, again), but 'matter', because that is the central concern of your ideology.For workers seeking a social revolution, only Marx's arguments about the creation of their reality by themselves makes any sense, because that means that they can change their reality.For Religious Materialists, who insist they 'know matter' outside of any socially creative activity by the producers, Marx must be made to say that 'matter' is his concern. Then, the RM-ers can separate society into two, the 'specialists' and the 'generalists', as the SPGB argues, and go on to deny democracy to the producers and simply place a 'knowing elite' in political authority.These concerns about political power play no part in the considerations of the RM-ers, because they argue that 'matter' is outside of politics. In effect, 'matter' in science plays the role of 'property' in politics. Once there is a concept that is of no concern for the masses, according to an elite, then that elite can concern themselves alone about the employment of that concept.Just keep your faith in matter, YMS, and ignore the democratic wishes of the producers, because that is the very purpose of that faith, and it's one that you've argued for, time and again. You openly say that you won't have democracy in truth production. You're an elitist, who wishes to keep workers' control out of production, who wishes to mangle Marx's revolutionary ideas, and who wishes to preserve individualism.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

YMS wrote:

Lbird wrote:

By 'material', Marx means 'human', as opposed to 'ideal' meaning 'divine'.So, by 'material production', Marx means 'social production'.

You're going to have to provide textual proof of those claims: you've made them before, but if, humpty style, Marx says what you want him to say, thios conversation is pointless.

I've provided evidence many times, YMS, but the Religious Materialists, like you, won't read it.

You've never provided evidence that where Marx wrote 'Material' he meant human.

I've constantly provided evidence from Marx's works, which are entirely about social production, not matter.To your ideology, this evidence is meaningless, because you're a Religious Materialist, who is interested in 'matter' and 'individuals', and who is not interested in Marx's concerns about democratic control of social production by the producers.You're going to have to accept that this is my answer to you, YMS, because I've tried many times before and failed due to your ideological assumptions. If you want to know more, read Jordan or Marx (or the old thread, where we discussed these issues, concerning Marx and 'material'). I'm not going over it all again with you.

[LBird]

mcolome1 wrote:

There is an ironic passage in the life of Marx and Engels. The thing is that, Engels was first the economists and the mathematician before Marx, and then Karl Marx  had to study Mathematics and Political EconomyWhen the 1844 Manuscripts were written (  also known as the Paris Notebook ) at that moment Philosophy was the main source of analysis, and that motivated Marx to go deeper into the field of Economic, and his friend Engels was the one that motivated him to do that.We have to understand that  many  concepts  written  by Marx and Engels were developed thru the march of the development of capitalism, as we can see on several of their preface, they also modified  and corrected  some of their ideas.

I couldn't agree more with what you've written here, mcolome1.Your historical account of their relationship is a good one, and your desire to understand the development, modification and correction of their ideas, is spot on.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

Marx was wrong in what he wrote many times – that's clear from his texts that appear to support the Religious Materialists. In effect, he contradicted himself.

So does that make him an materialist and 'Engelist'   

Taken in the sole context of those views, yes, it does.But taken in the wider context of what Marx also wrote, and more often, it doesn't.That's what you have to form a view about, Vin.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

By 'material', Marx means 'human', as opposed to 'ideal' meaning 'divine'.So, by 'material production', Marx means 'social production'.

You're going to have to provcide textual proof of those claims: you've made them before, but if, humpty style, Marx says what you want him to say, thios conversation is pointless.Further, can I ask: what wopuld it take to dirsprove Marx?  What would demonstrate that he was wrong on that subject?

I've provided evidence many times, YMS, but the Religious Materialists, like you, won't read it.Marx was wrong in what he wrote many times – that's clear from his texts that appear to support the Religious Materialists. In effect, he contradicted himself.Workers who look to Democratic Communism have to decide for themselves what parts of Marx's works are in the interests and for the purposes of the revolutionary proletariat in the 21st century, taking into account the developments in physics since Einstein.Marx's works can provide the basis for a revolutionary science.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

The German Ideology wrote:

Once upon a time a valiant fellow had the idea that men were drowned in water only because they were possessed with the idea of gravity. If they were to knock this notion out of their heads, say by stating it to be a superstition, a religious concept, they would be sublimely proof against any danger from water. His whole life long he fought against the illusion of gravity, of whose harmful results all statistics brought him new and manifold evidence. This valiant fellow was the type of the new revolutionary philosophers in Germany.

Sorry if this is nothing to do with it but this is from Marx which I thought was relevant.

Yes, Marx was as critical of the idealists as he was of the materialists, jdw.

[LBird]

And I had such high hopes of you, Dave.Isn't it funny that every 'materialist', without fail, when confronted with having to discuss their ideology, resort to making up stories about what Marx said.Ah well, have a nice holiday.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

You have lost me again L Bird ! Are you saying that Karl would never have said that there are already pre-existent ‘matterial conditions’ that already exist independent of our will and under which we have to live.Or in other words?; an 'objective' world outside of human production.

Dave, here's a bit more from Jordan.

Jordan, p. 27, wrote:

Nature an und fur sich, the external world of Engels and Lenin that exists without and independently of us and yet is completely knowable, was for Marx a ‘nullity’, a ‘nothing…devoid of sense’ or mere ‘externality’.[42] Its existence is not problematic, but the question as to the mode of its existence has no meaning. To reject this assertion and to maintain that we are able to discover what the universe itself is like, is to assume that man can attain an omniscient being’s view of the world.In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The German Ideology Marx rejected as entirely wrong the theory of knowledge of the British empiricists, the French materialists, and Feuerbach, who conceived men as products of circumstances and upbringing, the human mind as a passive recipient of sensation, and perception as a mere effect wrought in the senses by outside causes. The causal theory of perception fails to explain the simplest act of cognition and applied to the whole range of human experience does not account for social change and the evolution of man. Marx was convinced that the idealists, and this meant Hegel and the Hegelians, were right in emphasizing the contribution and the role of the subject in the process of knowledge, and he put this conviction on record in the first and third of his Theses on Feuerbach.

Dave B wrote:

Can you give us some examples of the two categories of ‘material’ and ‘matter’?

For Marx, 'material' means 'human' or 'social' (as opposed to 'ideal' meaning 'divine')Thus, 'matter' is a 'social product'. Marx always links subject and object, and argues that object is produced by subject. This linking of subject/object was part and parcel of German Idealism, from Kant, through Fichte, up to Hegel, and Marx clearly took from this tradition. 

Dave B wrote:

Preferably ones that help us understand the way in which they are mutually exclusive according to your criteria.

I'm not sure where you've got this idea of 'mutual exclusivity' from, Dave – certainly not me, or Marx.

Dave B wrote:

Ie  is Neptune, cosmic background radiation and gravity non material matter then?This is very difficult for me; I feel as though I am trapped in a Henrik Ibsen play or Kafka novel.

You seem to be mixing up the levels of politics, philosophy and physics, Dave. This incomprehension is socially produced, because we are all told by the bourgeoisie that their science has a method of producing 'objective knowledge', a method only usable by an elite of experts, who 'disinterestedly discover' an 'Eternal Truth'. This ideology claims that physics is the basis of science, and that philosophy and politics follow on. As I showed in my earlier quote from Jordan, Marx reverses this bourgeois ideology and argues that social production is the basis of philosophy and science. That is, class based production, which is political, has its 'reflection' in philosophy and physics.So, to discuss physics (and Neptune, cbr, gravity and matter), we have to clarify our views about politics and philosophy. Once that is done, perhaps physics will make more sense. Of course, this is the complete opposite to what the bourgeoisie claim, and if one is minded to follow bourgeois politics and philosophy, one will reject Marx, and pretend to start from physics and 'Objective Truth'.

[LBird]

We've done this on several threads already, Dave.By 'material', Marx means 'human', as opposed to 'ideal' meaning 'divine'.So, by 'material production', Marx means 'social production'.Marx is not talking about 'matter' (or an 'objective' world outside of human production) – that was Engels' misunderstanding.As Jordan says, and I've given a quote, Marx starts from 'social production', not 'matter-in-motion'. So, any discussion of 'nature' starts from 'humanity', which is the creator of its own 'socio-natural' world.Religious Materialists do not agree with Marx, and seek their 'god' in 'matter' as a non-human creator of our world. And the faith of the Religious Materialists in 'matter' is pretty unshakeable, as you'd expect.Those who look to Marx for inspiration usually look to humanity to provide their 'faith'. Of course, if one is not a socialist nor a democrat, and has little faith in humanity, then one will be an elitist, who will deny democracy in science, and who will pretend to be merely 'discovering' a 'real world' which 'exists' outside of humanity's production of 'it'.Marx warns of this dangerous connection between 'materialists' and elitist politics, in his Theses on Feuerbach, which I've quoted many times. If we look at the Leninists, we can see that Marx was correct to see this link.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

If society created our world then I suppose then what needs to be asked is what created society.

Yes, and Marx's answer is 'society created society' (and continues to create society).We are self-creators.Only the religious look for a creator outside of humanity.Hence, the Religious Materialists have faith that 'Matter' created society, and thus disagree with Marx.If you read Jordan's text, it makes clear Marx's position on your question. eg:

Jordan wrote:

Nature is considered by Marx only in so far as man, the primary object of his interest, is part of nature and man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to and reflected by nature which, in turn, is transformed by man’s practical activity into an objective world.Marx’s approach to the problem of the relation between nature and man reversed the order of inquiry accepted in the materialist tradition. Instead of the inquiry of nature paving the way for the inquiry into the nature of man, it was the inquiry into the nature of man that was to guide the inquiry into the problems of nature. While the revolution in natural science of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries destroyed the idea of man and social order established in the Middle Ages, now it was the revolution in the ‘science of man’ that was to lead to a complete philosophical reassessment of our knowledge of nature.

[my bold]

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

…ooh, and the point of oxymorons is they make sense, you're trying for a contradiction in terms

No, you're wrong, again, YMS.Oxymoron means a contradiction in terms.From the Greek oxos (sharp) and moron (blunt).So, oxymoron is an oxymoron.On your 'elite majority', it's just nonsense.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

…an elite majority…

This is an oxymoron, YMS.I suspect your individualist ideology is at root.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

and argue for 'matter' which is outside of our social production.

You mean like Mrax did, calling it inorganic nature?

This is a fundamental philosophical point, YMS.Marx did not call 'inorganic nature' matter.He called 'inorganic nature' inorganic nature.It was Engels who called 'inorganic nature' matter.Once again, I've said this time and again, but Religious Materialists have a faith in 'matter' which compels them to ignore Marx's epistemological views, and just like Lenin, pick up on Engels' misunderstanding.The political reason for 'matter' is an elite purpose to keep 'social production' out of the hands of the majority, expressed by their democratic control.This suited Lenin, because he argued for an elite minority with a special consciousness who 'knew matter', and for a majority who couldn't 'know matter' (otherwise, he'd've allowed a vote on its 'existence'). 'Matter' implied elitism. Marx argued this in his Theses on Feuerbach, where he stressed that 'materialism' leads to a minority of 'educators', separate from society. The SPGB has gone down this road, too, with its separation of 'specialists' from 'generalists', with the power to decide held by the 'specialists'.You too, YMS, are confusing 'matter' and 'inorganic nature'. For Marx, 'matter' was a social product, a part of 'organic nature'. If you read Jordan, some of this might become clearer.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

I think LBird has made himself clear. He believes that in the beginning there was a society  and  society  created the world. That right LBird? 

[my italic/bold]Let's see if I can have a reasonable conversation with Vin today, eh?Marx argues that 'society created our world'.I've already pointed out to YMS earlier on this thread that 'materialists' always substitute 'the' for 'our'. This makes complete sense to 'materialists', because they separate the subject and object, and argue for 'matter' which is outside of our social production.Further, I've explained that 'matter' is a substitute for 'god', and is regarded as an 'ultimate' or a 'finality', which are religious concepts.So, Vin, if you are a Religious Materialist you'll want to 'know matter' outside of human production (ie. 'the world'), but if you're a Marxist you'll start from the creation of 'matter' (ie. god) by humans in our world.As I've said many times, I'm not a Religious Materialist who has faith in 'matter', but a Democratic Communist who looks to Marx's ideas about the 'social production' of 'our world'.If you read Jordan's text, some of this might become clearer. But if you start from a disagreement with Marx, then it won't become clearer. My advice is to clarify your own views of Marx.

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

…at the risk of coming across as all Jeremy Paxman…

There's no risk there, whatsoever!I think Paxman can read, for example.

[Author]

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