LBird
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jondwhite wrote:LBird wrote:Perhaps you see all 'professors' as 'gods'? Or is Stedman-Jones a particular favourite of yours?I'm not sure where you want this thread to go – I was keen to support and deepen the SPGB's insights from 1906.They seem to have withered and shallowed since, given the members' arguments on this site.
I'm not sure either, but I thought Stedman-Jones was agreeing with you.
Not from what I've read by him.
Matt wrote:Workers 'have to work' for their wage or salary…You are the one who is turning them into 'gods'.Yeah, that's right.I regard the producing class as the god-like creators of their reality.That just about sums up Marx, too.The fact that you apparently don't do this, just as, it must be said, the rest of the SPGB here don't, either, says an awful lot about the SPGB's current politics.Which, unlike 1906, perhaps, is why my Democratic Communist and Marxist views seem so out of kilter in these debates in 2016 with the SPGB.Your 'god', Matt, is an elite expert academic god, which creates a 'reality' which has nothing to do with the interests and purposes of the vast majority of humans, but which is claimed to be merely sitting 'out there' waiting to be 'discovered' by a special consciousness. How you can't all see the obvious conservativeness of such an attitude of 'uncovering the existing status quo', beats me. They've built our world, and lie about that.My 'god' is the revolutionary proletariat – and we have to change our world.
jondwhite wrote:LBird wrote:jondwhite wrote:What about Stedman-Jones?Is that the pen-name of 'god'?
I don't know. Either that or he's a prole professor at the Uni of London.
Why should one person be of such interest to you, rather than 'expert academics' as a social group who claim to have a 'politically-neutral access' to 'facts', an 'access' that the rest of us supposedly don't have?Perhaps you see all 'professors' as 'gods'? Or is Stedman-Jones a particular favourite of yours?I'm not sure where you want this thread to go – I was keen to support and deepen the SPGB's insights from 1906.They seem to have withered and shallowed since, given the members' arguments on this site.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Just to point out: most scientists these days are proletarians…just saying, like. The working class runs society from top to bottom, but not in its own interest. The technical experts these days, the intellectuals, are workers.So, why do you oppose the democratic control of truth production?Either, 'most scientists-proletarians', under socialism, will collectively decide the nature of their 'scientific products'……or, beside this 'most' of yours, you also argue for an 'elite' of 'non-proletarian scientists', who themselves alone will determine 'truth'.For you, 'truth' must be based upon an 'interest' that is not 'proletarian' – otherwise, you would agree that only the revolutionary proletariat can determine its own 'interests' within science, physics, maths, logic, etc.The denial of democracy within science is the promotion of a special elite, with a 'special access'… it's the Leninist 'special cadre consciousness', once again.
jondwhite wrote:Here's Jack Fitzgerald on "The Need for "Intellectuals" in Politics." For those unaware, Jack Fitzgerland was a notable founding member of the party.http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-need-for-intellectuals-1906.htmlNo mention of scientists though.Jack Fitzgerald wrote:For if the workers are, in addition to producing all the wealth, to instruct their masters in all the details of administration, then it at once follows that they may just as well do the whole business for their own benefit. Why trouble to elect "experts," either financial or economic, if these geniuses have to be shown what to do by those whose superiors they are supposed to be? Forty years ago Karl Marx completely exploded the "Captains of Industry" nonsense in his masterly way; and Engels and Lafargue, among others, have pointed out the facts around us, illustrating the intellectual bankruptcy of the ruling class.[my bold]Thanks for that link, jdw.Put simply, 'administration' includes the social activity of 'science', too.The ruling class are also 'intellectually bankrupt' when it comes to physics, logic and maths, too, which is why they're having so many problems within all the 'sciences' (not just the so-called 'soft social opinion' sort, but also the so-called 'hard objective fact' sort, too).We will be the 'masters' in all areas of social production, and the likes of Hawking will be the ones taking 'instruction' about how we will create our socio-natural world. Only we can determine our reality, 'for our own benefit', by democratic means.This idea that the bourgeois scientists have an access to a 'reality' that we don't have, because they have a politically-neutral elite method, and a special elite language of maths, is a 350-year-old bourgeois myth, and it's a powerful ruling class idea that the revolutionary proletariat must challenge.Any social revolution will be accompanied by a science revolution, too.
jondwhite wrote:LBird wrote:jondwhite wrote:Incidentally Ukip have gone all Lbird on ushttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/suzanne-evans-accused-of-facism-for-demanding-democratic-control-of-judges_uk_58203e67e4b0c2e24aafe6ab?ir=UK+Politics&utm_hp_ref=uk-politics&utm_hp_ref=ukComes to something when the 'famously democratic' SPGB is politically to the right of UKIP!The SPGB won't have 'judges' under democratic control – they have an Engelsist, materialist, ideology that tells them that only an elite can be a 'judge' of 'reality'.Otherwise, the SPGB would allow workers to democratically decide what constitutes 'reality', but the membership here keeps making it plain that such democratic control would never be allowed by any SPGB that they are a part of!One fine day, jdw, the nature of this problem will dawn with you.
I'm open minded on electing experts or at least my mind isn't made up. However, correct me if I am wrong, but there is unlikely to be high court judges in socialism let alone elected ones.
I really have to spell everything out, here, don't I? It's as if no-one in the party actually knows anything about power and politics.'Judges' applies to all human activities, jdw, including 'legal issues', 'scientific knowledge' and 'truth'.I'm making a political point about 'who judges truth' in socialism – an elite, or the majority? Who has power?Obviously, the mooted 'fine day' hasn't yet dawned for you.
From Lew's link to Draper:
Kautsky wrote:The vehicle of science is not the proletariat, but the bourgeois intelligentsia [emphasis by Kautsky]…Many in the SPGB still agree with Kautsky, on this point.
Lew wrote:Hal Draper argued that Lenin was making explicit what was already implicit in the politics of the Second International generally and Kautsky in particular:https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1990/myth/myth.htmOur disagreements with Kautsky and the Second International usually center on their reformism and state capitalist conception of socialism. But our insistence that the emancipation of the working class really must be the work of the working class itself (DOP 5) has not been fully recognised. It is an important repudiation of Kautsky and the Second International and one of our most important contributions to socialist politics. I'm not aware of any history of the SPGB which covers this ground.[my bold]These issues were also 'already implicit' in Engels' misreading of Marx's notions of 'materialism'. That's the source of Kautsky et al's cover for their politics.As you say about 'proletarian self-emancipation' (which was Marx's entire point), this also applies to philosophy and science, as much as to politics.One's politics determines one's philosophy, and one's philosophy determines one's science.If one isn't a democrat entirely in all social production, this non-democratic stance will be carried over into one's philosophy and science.Engels' 'materialism' provided a figleaf for all those who, from the very start, never thought it possible that this element of Marx's thought (proletarian self-emancipation) should actually involve all social production (thus, including science, knowledge and truth).Hence, today (and since Engels' destroyed Marx's insight), the 'Kautskyian/Leninist' elitist approach to 'the masses' has remained to be proclaimed as 'Marxism', by those who have no intention whatsover to actually let workers democratically decide about their own self-emancipation.Until these roots of the Second International's politics and 'figleaf philosophy' are uncovered, 'Marxism' cannot go forward.
ALB wrote:Don't worry, JD, he doesn't realise that there won't be any SPGB in socialism.[my bold]You've got it wrong, as usual, ALB.There isn't now any socialism in SPGB.You might as well change the name to PGB.Since you're one the main adherents of Engelsist Materialism, which is an anti-democratic ideology, which you argue is the correct ideology for the social production of knowledge, you should be at the forefront in arguing for the PGB.Mind you, since you're so Anti-Democratic, you could call it the ADPGB.
jondwhite wrote:Incidentally Ukip have gone all Lbird on ushttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/suzanne-evans-accused-of-facism-for-demanding-democratic-control-of-judges_uk_58203e67e4b0c2e24aafe6ab?ir=UK+Politics&utm_hp_ref=uk-politics&utm_hp_ref=ukComes to something when the 'famously democratic' SPGB is politically to the right of UKIP!The SPGB won't have 'judges' under democratic control – they have an Engelsist, materialist, ideology that tells them that only an elite can be a 'judge' of 'reality'.Otherwise, the SPGB would allow workers to democratically decide what constitutes 'reality', but the membership here keeps making it plain that such democratic control would never be allowed by any SPGB that they are a part of!One fine day, jdw, the nature of this problem will dawn with you.
jondwhite wrote:I thought I would start a new discussion about one member, one vote and 'atomisation' which has begun in the discussion about Report of the Proceedings of ADM.One of the more well known examples is the Labour party's moves to one member, one vote over the decades. The criticism of this is that it causes 'atomisation' something I take with a pinch of salt when Trots make this criticism. e.g. http://www.workersliberty.org/node/27249Is 'atomisation' something that necessarily precludes one member, one vote being the most democratic way of decisions? Is the Labour party one member, one vote compromised by the agenda being set by the leadership? Or is 'atomisation' something that can be mitigated?The real issue, jdw, is the wider context of just what 'democracy' means.Is it simply an individual act of 'voting'?Or is 'democracy' a collective process of discussion, which is concluded by a 'vote'?The former leaves the 'voters' at the mercy of where real power lies in the process, which is with those who shape the ideas of the isolated individual 'voter', and thus leaves the 'act' of 'voting' as an afterthought.The latter ensures that the whole process is under the control of all who participate in it, so that there is no separation of 'voters' and 'those who control the process'.In these two contexts, OMOV is an entirely different proposition.So, OMOV is 'atomising' in one political context, but not in another.Regarding the Labour Party, it all depends on the faction's power as to whether it will support OMOV or not.Whilst the unions appeared to have political power, and the Blairites didn't, the former were opposed to OMOV (and wanted to keep the block vote), whereas the latter wanted to 'Thatcherise' the party into isolated individuals (whereupon the Blairites would determine things).Does any faction (including the Corbynistas) really want OMOV, in the latter 'democratic process' sense? I'd say not, because that would be a revolutionary step.
twc wrote:LBird, I wonder if you even knows what’s going on.Oh, I 'knows' alright, twc.Your sub-Leninist mystification of 'materialism' is, ironically, clear for all to see.Not even your fellow-Party members can follow your 'explanations', much less can other workers.This is the problem with 'materialism': it pretends to be about 'matter', but it also insists that only 'elite experts' can tell just what 'matter' actually is – otherwise, 'materialists' would let workers have a vote on what matter 'is', but that's the last thing they will allow.That's the thing about Marx, twc, he was a democrat.We've covered this issue so many times that it's become clear to all, even the membership, that the SPGB won't have workers voting on their production.
alanjjohnstone wrote:We have to keep our arguments as simple as possible for the numpties like me to comprehendThe overly-complicated stuff can be kept for the universities…oops…i hope LBird doesn't spot that.It's not that the arguments aren't (or can't be made) simple as possible, alan, but the fact that you won't accept them.It's not your 'numptism' that's the problem, but your ideology, which you refuse to address.It's like explaining the difference between Marx's 'idealism-materialism' and Engels' 'materialism' can be summed up as the contrasting methods of:'theory and practice' (idealism-materialism), and'practice and theory' (materialism).That's not 'overly-complicated stuff', but is 'as simple as possible'.As I've said, the problem is the issue of which ideology one follows.However, the central sticking-point is that 'materialism' pretends to not be an 'ideology', but is apparently just a simple process of 'individuals' using their 'biological touch' to tell them, as individuals, what 'material' is. Clearly, given this ideology, its adherents (like you) can just relax, sit back, leave the 'theory' to 'the universities', and just get on with 'doing stuff' (practice), which isn't dependent upon one's preceding 'theory' (because 'theory' supposedly follows 'practice', for 'materialism').What's even clearer (well, to those who are prepared to think a little) is that it's glaringly obvious that any ideology that starts from 'individual biological senses' is the one that is entirely suited to the 'market', in which isolated individuals make 'value' decisions, based upon their own estimation of the 'worth' of a commodity (and they don't need to worry about 'theory', like Marx's notions of 'exploitation' and socially-produced 'value', which help explain 'practice' in our society).'Materialism' is a central pillar of bourgeois ideology, but for those like you, alan, who are determined not to examine their own ideology, this all remains 'university stuff'. One's 'theory' remains completely unexamined, and is given to one unaware, by someone else who is aware of the need for prior 'theory' (for a 'special few' anyway, hence the links between 'materialism' and Leninism, and materialism's fundamentally anti-democratic stance).[quote-ajj]I usually go into a glazed eye trance when it is being explained and stare out the window.[/quote]Back to 'glazed eye trance' mode, eh, alan? Like the rest of the SPGB, by all accounts.Put simply, 'matter' is 'property': the reflection of social production in physics, a 'substance' that cannot be voted upon, because it is not a socio-historical product, but an 'Eternal Truth': 'Private Property' in 'nature'.
robbo203 wrote:Yes the development of scientific theories tends to be a minority concern …In any event , that has got nothing to do with changing society which very clear must be the concern of the majority not a small minority[my bold]These are contradictory political positions, robbo.To 'change society' (which must mean our socio-natural being, what Marx calls our 'organic nature') requires social theory and practice, which, for building a democratic society like socialism, can only be the 'theory' of the majority and the 'practice' of the majority.'Scientific theories' have everything to do with 'changing society'.Your continued failure to address this contradiction in your politics will lead you to take an essentially Leninist position – that an 'expert elite' can come up with the scientific social theories required to build our world.
