[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

You haven't begun to deal with the first of these and explain how exactly the base "determines" the superstructure when the elements that constitute the superstructure. – ideas beliefs values etc – have always been there right from the very start , coexistent with the base and indeed are, to an extent, presupposed by the very relations of production themselves that constitute that base, in Marxian parlance, along with the forces of production themselves.

robbo, I think that the 'base' consists of both 'forces' and 'relations' of production.What's more, both also contain human elements, and therefore, 'ideas'. This is before we even get to the 'superstructure'.

 Yup . Absolutely.  Thats what the above quote of mine actually says.  But people like TWC would have us believe that the base somehow  "determines" the superstructure.  I would love to know how and in what sense that is true. As I said in post 90 I think that is a particular way of looking at things which is arguably peculiar to capitalism. In other societies things may well be radically different .  Levi Strauss, as I mentioned,  ventured the opinion that in "primitive" societies the rules of kinship and marriage have an "operational value equal to that of economic phenomena in our own society" . Personally I like the quote from Carolyn Merchant  which seems to sum up things rather well:An array of ideas exists available to a given age: some of these for unarticulated  or even unconscious reasons seem plausible to individuals or social groups; others do not.  Some ideas spread; others die out.  But the direction and accumulation of social changes begin to differentiate between  among the spectrum of possibilities so that some ideas assume a more central role in the array, while others move to the periphery.  Out of this differential appeal of ideas that seem most plausible under particular social conditions, cultural transformations develop (The Death of Nature: Women , Ecology and the Scientific Revolution,  Harper and Row 1980 p.xviii) 

[robbo203]

twc wrote:

You can bloody well wait.Do you really imagine that someone can just wade through Castoriadis’s crap in five minutes, and provide a coherent critique of it.  Since no-one else on the planet has bothered to dissect him, mostly because his fellows are all philosophers of sorts and probably agree with him, why should it only take five minutes.Like all science it takes work.  Not like philosophy which can waffle on without constraint.Well, you fell for Castoriadis hook, line and sinker, or you wouldn’t have given him such prominence.  Now you back-track from him. Your integrity has immediately sunk in my estimation. You wouldn’t have proferred his critique of Marx if you thought it wasn’t devastating.  Now you lack the guts to stick to your guns, yet won’t admit as much, but instead make the feeble excuse that “Castoriadis was not central to my argument”. What unbelievable Jesuitical casuistry.

 My, my – you are certainly one for the melodrama.  I didn't "back track" from Castoriadis but Im not a Castoriadis groupie either.  Here's what I actually said before you get into even more of a lather:I am reminded of something that Castoriadis wrote in a little pamphlet called  History as Creation.  Though I dont agree with a lot of things he wrote (I have several of his works) he does sometimes hit the nail on the head as is often the case in this pamphlet.  Check out  the link here – its worth a read https://libcom.org/files/history%20as%20creation%20searchable%20and%20re… Here's the  relevant comment  which is directed at precisely the kind of "objective rationalism" to which you seem so fondly attached. I simply used the quote because I thought it rather nicely captured your perspective – which is precisely what  he calls "objective rationalism".  I haven't back tracked from that position at all.  I think that is what your perspective is and I think he is correct in his criticism of it. . Where's the backtracking?But the point still stands-  you have evaded my main arguments.  The Castoriadis quote was just the foreplay so to speak and it rather annoyed that you chose to focus exclusively on that while ignoring everything elseSo when, TWC , are you going respond to those main arguments as promised  . You said  earlier "that’s why I reserved a consecutive spot for Part 2 — the details".  Well,  "the details" didnt appear in Part 2 – did they?=  and in the meantime you accuse others of ..what was it?…lacking the guts to stick to their guns.  Hhhmmm

[robbo203]

twc wrote:

Robbo, that’s why I reserved a consecutive spot for Part 2 — the details.  It’s a pity my numbered cross references will be split across pages, but that can’t be helped.You’ll just have to wait.You just trashed most of Marx.  It’s easy to destroy.  Building takes a little longer.Rest assured, unlike you, I will answer every last point you make. 

 Im truly disappointed TWC. After the damp squip that was your Part 1, we have the equally damp squib that is your Part 2.  The Castoriadis quote was not really central to my argument  at all though I think the arguments you raise against him are weak and unconvincing , full of the usual non sequiturs and ad hominens,  The meat of my argument which did not centre on Castoriadis' views , unfortunately, you have once again evaded despite you promising you would answer "every last point" I made. The central planks of  my argument were two fold1) a critique of your reductionist and mechanical version of "materialism"2) a critique of your interpretation of "exploitation"You haven't begun to deal with the first of these and explain  how exactly the base "determines" the superstructure when the elements that constitute the superstructure.  – ideas beliefs values etc – have always been there right from the very  start , coexistent with the base and indeed are, to an extent,  presupposed by the very relations of production themselves that constitute  that  base, in Marxian parlance, along with the forces of production themselves.  How for example are private property rights asserted or imposed without this implying an ethic that sanctions and upholds private property? These are important questions that seem to fall below the radar of your mechanistic cum reductionist understanding of "materialism" You have made some attempt to deal with the question of exploitation but not very convincingly at all.   You have brashly asserted  Robbo Denies Exploitation is Objective missing the point of what I was actually saying  which is that exploitation necessarily implies a  moral dimension (which is why the case for socialism must necessarily involve a moral aspect insofar as it seeks to abolish  class exploitation) and so is not purely objective in that sense.  Note that Im not saying  that it is not objective at all. There is a difference You have defined "objective" thus:  People can disagree on their evaluation of any phenomenon, but still agree on its objectivity.  For if something is objective, it is accessible to others. Well, if exploitation is purely objective why is it that is does not appear "accessible" to the great bulk of the population who see nothing intrinsically exploitative in the wage labour-capital relation?  Why do most workers go along with the slogan "a fair days wage for a fairs day work",  the implication being that if they got a fair days wage they would not be exploited? Exploitation to them is not what exploitation is to us schooled in Marxian economics.  Exploitation to them simply means being harshly treated by your employer or being paid a lower than average wage.  Exploitation in our sense of the word is not  really  obvious or "accessible" at all and therefore by your own definition. is not purely objective at all. It isa a particular interpretation or selection of the facts that allows us to say workers exploited in the Marxian sense and how we interpret or select the facts necessarily brings in the question of VALUES  – something you baulk against as an old fashioned 19th  century positivist Oh, and by the way, Im still waiting to hear how you get round John Bates Clark's  claim (see post 90) without invoking the question of values.  If a capitalist works for 10 minutes and claims his 10 minute contribution is equivalent to a full days work by one of his employers how would you refute his claim? What are the purely "objective criteria" you would use to weight different labour contributions that would convincingly show the capitalist is still exploiting the worker if as you suggest, exploitation is a purely objective matter?

[robbo203]

twc wrote:

Robbo Denies Exploitation is Objective

robbo203 wrote:

The point that I am getting at is that [exploitation] is, at bottom, a value judgement, not simply a cold mathematical calculation that workers are exploited in terms of socially necessary labour time.

This is bourgeois idiocy.

 TWC can you not  for once resist the temptation to always resort to ad hominen argument?   Its getting to be a bore, frankly,  and only fuels the suspicion that you are unable to answer the point being made.  Read again what I said .  I said exploitation is at bottom a value judgement and not simply a cold mathematical calculation You are trying to teach people here how to suck eggs.  We know very well, thank you very much, that capitalists are forced by competition to seek profit.  How very illiuminating of you to point that out.  The point at issue however is not that but the significance or meaning of profit itself. I quoted Clarke not because I agree with his position – of course I hold that workers are exploited –  but becuase I wanted to see how you would respond to that argument he made without invoking the question of values.  As usual you havent.   What we get from you is the usual longwinded circumlocutionary peice of rambling irrelevance that deftly hides your inability to answer a simple point in a straightforward manner Try for once to break the mould and address the argument being presented  TWC. It would make a refreshing change,  believe you me

[robbo203]

OK, TWC, I'll have a crack at responding to the theoretical challenges you have issued in posts 77 and 81. Work commitments in the past few days have prevented me from responding sooner  The gist of what you seem to be saying is that DJP, Robbo and L Bird have succumbed to the "might of bourgeois philosophy" and are presumably to be dismissed as  unreconstructed idealists.  I think you are talking bunkum, frankly and not for the first time. If anything the opposite is true.  It is you, old chap, who is the quintessetially bourgeois philosopher here and your brand of mechanical materialism  strikes me as just a cover for a kind of mystical idealism,I am reminded of something that Castoriadis wrote in a little pamphlet called  History as Creation.  Though I dont agree with a lot of things he wrote (I have several of his works) he does sometimes hit the nail on the head as is often the case in this pamphlet.  Check out  the link here – its worth a read https://libcom.org/files/history%20as%20creation%20searchable%20and%20reprintable.pdf.  Here's the  relevant comment  which is directed at precisely the kind of "objective rationalism" to which you seem so fondly attached.Marxism does not therefore transcend the philosophy of history . It is merely another philosophy of history. The rationality it seems to extract from the facts is a rationality which it actually imposes upon them . The 'historical neces­sity' of which it speaks (in the usual sense of this expression, namely that of a concatenation of facts leading history to­wards progress) in no way differs, philosophically speaking, from hegelian Reason. In both cases one is dealing with a truly theological type of human alienation. A communist Providence, which would so have pre-ordained history as to produce our freedom , is nevertheless a Providence. In both cases one elim inates the central concern of any reflex­ion: the rationality of the (natural or historical) world, by providing oneself in advance with a rationally constructed world. Clearly, nothing can be resolved in this way: a totally rational world would, by virtue of this very fact, beinfinitely more mysterious than the world in which we struggle. A history that would be rational from beginning to end – and through and through – would be more massively incomprehensible than the history we know. Its whole rationality would be founded on a total irrationality , for it would be in the nature of pure fact, and of fact so brutal, solid and all-embracing that we should suffocate under it"There's incidentally a colourful little passage in the "Introduction" which nicely situates your fetishisation of science uber alles – or should that be science at the expense of everything itself – in the context of bourgeois society itself and so helps to throw light on the very bourgeois influences that inform your own thinking:This was the science that the founders of "scientific socialism" had sucked into their  bones; the science of elegant universalism, of cosmological laws to which there were no exceptions, of systems that would encompass the whole of reality in their net.  The very structure of this kind of thinking reflected the confident ambitions  of a capitalism in full development.  In the air was the promise  that life itself would soon be amenable to the same mathematical manipulations  that had successfully predicted the motions of the stars, the combinations of the atoms and the propagation of light  (C. Castoriadis, Introduction to History as Creation , Solidarity Pamphlet, London 1978. p.4)As I said before I would banish the expression "scientific socialism"; it is thoroughly misleading and sets quite the wrong tone.  Please dont get me wrong.  This is not a denigration of science or the scientific method.  It is simply to recognise the limits of the scientific approach when it comes to changing society. You dont seem to recognise any such limits.  And you singularly failed to answer my earlier point  vizI think youve got it precisely the wrong way round.  Most people dont become  socialists through an academic contemplation of the nuances of labour theory of value and then become indignant  when they learn from the theory that they have been exploited by their capitalist employer all along.  On the contrary, it is their own experience of exploitation expressed in a myriad of ways that gives rise to a feeling, however inchoate, that they are being exploited.  That becomes the spur to acquiring greater understanding.  In short , indignation generally precedes knowlege rather than follows knowlege though of coure it can be reinforced by the latter.Anyway on to the business at hand. Ill deal with the two main points you make.  Firstly this one"For Marx, essence determines appearance — base determines superstructure; social being determines consciousness".Weve been here before, haven't weTWC?  I referred you to Peter Stillman's article "The Myth of Marx’s Economic Determinism" (http://marxmyths.org/peter-stillman/article.htm) .  You did not answer the central claim Stillman was making but just airily pooh-poohed what Stillman had to say.What is the "base" and what is the "superstructure" and how does the former "determine" the latter? I come back to this point again and again because frankly, for all your swaggering  bravado, you never seem to get beyond a dogmatic repetition of a rather crude and reductionist materialist catechism.The problem with the base – superstructure model was perhaps unintentionally revealed by an off-the-cuff comment by Engels in his speech as Marx's funeral vizJust as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.What Engels was seemingly invoking here was the notion of temporal priority.  Before you can think or engage in ideological activities you have to eat, drink, find shelter and so on.  This fits in with a kind of mechanistic "billiard ball" view of the universe in which cause and effect is made visibly apparent.  You hit one ball with your cue and it impacts upon another, causing the latter to drop into the pocket.  Two separate events in time. In the same way, a crude reductionist materialism purports to "explain" how a certain configuration in the economic basis of society – that is the particular combination of the "forces of production" (crudely, technology) and the "relations of production "- "gives rise to" a certain idelogical form.  G A Cohen calls this the "fallacy of equivocation".  The fact that ideological activities may be dependent on material activities does not mean they can therefore be explained by them. Its the same with the brain-mind interactions in "emergence theory" in the cognitive sciencesNow I dont think Engels actually meant to literally suggest a kind of temporal prority at work here but that is what an uncritical acceptance of the thrust of his reasoning can lead to and has led to in your case, in my opinion. You are thinking "as if" such a temporal priority applied.  Hence your claim "base determines superstructure"The plain fact is that there is no such thing as a "base" without a "superstructure".  That being so how do you demonstrate the determing influence of one upon the other?  At no point in time did mankind strive to eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, without also engaging in ideological activities.  In fact, if you look into the anthropology of early hunter-gatherer groups you will see this very clearly illustrated.  Everything is mixed up in such societies.  You cannot identify anything that individuals did that was "purely economic"  or "material" or for that mattrer purely religious or spiritual.  Activities such as hunting or gathering while meeting the group's need for food also had religious significance – that is, they were pregnant with religious meaning.In fact, the identification of a distinctly separate "economic domain "as Louis Dumont brilliantly showed in his "From Mandeville to Marx" really only came about with the rise of capitalism and the growth of individualism.  The supposedly autonomous nature of this domain was captured by Adam Smith's quasi-theological conceptualisation of the "invisible hand of the market".  It fitted in with the mechanistic thinking of the times and the growing influence of the "machine metaphor".  "Scientific socialism " was an offshoot of such thinking as I suggested above and is predicated on certain bourgeois ways of looking at the world which postulates precisely a separate economic domain which is thus able to  impact upon the superstructure of society.  So we have the paradoxical situation in which the base-superstructure model is itself an ideological product of a particular kind of society which it seeks to explain.  In other words, it is not transhistorical or universal but peculiar to capitalismInterestingly, some anthropologists – like the structuralist , Claude Levi-Strauss  –  have argued that in "primitive" societies the rules of kinship and marriage have an "operational value equal to that of economic phenomena in our own society"  (quoted in  Marxism and "Primitive" Societies: Two Studies by  Emmanuel Terray, Monthly Review Press, 1972,  p.139).  By that he meant kinship, rather than economic phenomena as such,  is the organising  principle of such societies – the prism through which they need to be viewed.  In other words, kinship replaces economic infrastructure as the basis of these societies.  Its food for thought,  I supposeOne final point to throw into the discussion under this heading is something that exSPGBer Keith Graham  mentions in his excellent book "Karl Marx Our contemporary".   Graham refers to certain objections raised by people like Acton and Plamenatz to the Marxian thesis that "phenomena  such as social, political and intellectual life cannot be understood on their own, and are conditioned by material life"  (p.50).  Acton, for instance, has argued that para-technological relationships such as property laws and customs have to be in place at the outset if any kind of production can commence since these define the rules under which production is to occur.  That being so, laws and morals "cannot properly be regarded as superstructures" but instead form  part of the relations of production.  Similarly, the point made by Plamentz is that it is "impossible to define relations of production except in terms of the of the claims people make on one another" and this entails the recognition of "laws", broadly speaking.  Graham's response to such objections is not unreasonable:We can distinguish between base and superstructure by reference to the de facto/de jure distinction. To have the power over some productive force , whether legitimately or not, is to stand in a basic relation of production to it; to have a right over it is to stand in a superstructural relationship to it.  The very fact that people sometimes have ineffective rights or illegitimate powers over such resources  demonstrates the conceptual distinctness of base and superstructure"  (p.52)What counts as a "relation of production", then, is what actually happens on the ground in terms of ownership and control of the productive forces – the de facto situation. The de jure legitimation of one's ownership and control of these productive forces is in a sense superogatory – a kind of rubber stamping of the status quo.  This counter argument is fair enough as far as it goes but a distinction surely needs to be made between a moral right and a legal right .  Durkheim said something of relevance here on the relationship between morality and the law –  that the latter will tend, in the long run, to reflect, rather than determine, the moral values of a given society.  This, curiously enough,  is somewhat  homologous to the putative relationship between base and superstructure (bearing in mind the caveat about the latter simply "reflecting" the former).  It is questionable whether someone who has "power over some productive force , whether legitimately or not" would not, at the same, time feel morally entitled to exercise this power.  Or, indeed, that those thus excluded  from this productive force would not have consented to such an arrangement and considered it to be quite normal and morally acceptableAnyway on to your next point TWC as this post is already getting much longer than I expected  viz"Question:  Is Capitalist Exploitation Actual?For your brand of Idealism, capitalist exploitation is mere working-class ideology.  [Capitalists shouldn’t hold it, but in practice more capitalists seem cognizant of the source of their revenue—exploitation—than members of the working class.]Since capitalist exploitation is mere working-class ideology, capitalist exploitation needn’t actually be taking place in society!Please then explain to us:how you ideologists can ever know that capitalist exploitation is actually taking place in society?"My first response to this would be to say that you are asking the wrong question. The right question would be to ask –  if exploitation is indeed objective or "actual" can it really be apprehended in terms that are devoid of ethical import?  I woud say emphatically no. The very concept of exploitation is intrinsically value laden.  This is why it so obviously silly to claim that the case for socialism is not also based on morality – nor their morality, the moraility of the capitalist class, but ours, a proletarian moirality.  It is not just a case of what is in "our own self interests" as individuals.  If you identifiy with the wellbeing of others (your fellow workers) then ipso facto,  and by defintion, you are taking up a moral position,  Morality is afterall an "other-oriented" perspective which regards others – in this case our fellow workers – as having value in themselves.  So calling on the workers to unite in  class struggle cannot but involve taking a moral position – logicallyThere is a further point I would make which is a little more elaborate and roundabout.  Back in the late 19th century  when  the marginalist revolution in economics got underway, one effect of this was to radically reconceptualise the whole question of distribution in a capitalist society.  Within the general framework of  marginalist theory, capital and labour were deemed  – subjectively, of course – to get back exactly what they put in – no more and no less  The theoretical possiblity of exploitation was thus precluded by an ex cathedra type statement which rationalised massive inequalities of outcome as something that is wholly explicable – and justifable –  in terms of the  commensurate contributions to production made by capitalists and workers respectively.  Ironically, while the Marxian labour value theory was severely criticised on grounds that it did not adequately deal with the problem of the heterogeneity  of labour inputs and how to assign different labour time values to different skills,  no such scruples were raised with regard to the distribution of income between labour and capital.  Michael Perelman quotes the once prominent American economist  – John Bates Clark – on the matter, that "the distribution of income [is] controlled by a natural law, and…this law, if it worked without friction, would give to every agent of production the amount of wealth which that agent creates….Free competition tends to give labor what labor creates, to capitalists what capital creates, and to entrepreneurs what the coordinating function creates. (Michael Perelman, The Perverse Economy: The Impact of Markets on People and the Environment, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 p. 152).  Now I put it to you, TWC – how would you counter Clarkes point?  If the capitalist countered your objection that he is exploiting his workers by pointing out that, in fact,  the value of his contributiuon to the production of wealth is at least equal to that  all of his workers combined, how would you respond?  You can recite the labour theory of value all you like but you cannot get round the fact that different labour contributions impart different values to the end product.  The capitalist has only to assert that 10 minutes of his time in a flying visit to his factory office to sign a cheque is equal in value to a full day's work by one of his workers to counter the charge that he is "exploiting his workers".The point that I am getting at is that this is, at bottom, a value judgement, not simply a cold mathematical calculation that workers are exploited in terms of socially necessary labour time.  If you deny that, you cede ground to the bourgeois economists and you will find yourself engaging in a debate that will inevitably be rigged in their favour. Beware and be very aware of the perils of insisting that the case for socialism is one essentially based on objective scientific  rationalism

[robbo203]

As a non member, I have to say I do like the text of the election leaflet.  Simple straightforward and direct.  It will be interesting to see what sort of response it elicits.  I dont think the graphics is too much of an issue even if it could be improved upon, I guess.  The main thing is what the leftlet says

[robbo203]

I think you are being a bit melodramatic and over the top, twc.   "Hysteria" is precisely not the word that is applicable here and I am certainly not proposing to "play the voluntarist demagogue" egging on the masses to the point of such hysteria (if you knew me well enough i think you would find the prospect faintly amusing, as do I).  Ive made my position pretty clear , I think.  Im for a union of head and heart.  One without the other is pretty useless from the standpoint  of working towards attaining a socialist society. I seriously question your claim: "Marx’s science survives precisely because it is objective and is not indignation.  Indignation emerges naturally enough from it as a consequence.I think youve got it precisely the wrong way round.  Most people dont become  socialists through an academic contemplation of the nuances of labour theory of value and then become indignant  when they learn from the theory that they have been exploited by their capitalist employer all along.  On the contrary, it is their own experience of exploitation expressed in a myriad of ways that gives rise to a feeling, however inchoate, that they are being exploited.  That becomes the spur to acquiring greater understanding.  In short , indignation generally precedes knowlege rather than follows knowlege though of coure it can be reinforced by the latter. I dont agree either with your observations about "Marx's science".  You earlier made the comment that "Marx gave his life to get beyond relying upon emotion". True, some of his writings – particularly Capital – comes across in part, as you say, as dry as dust.  But the suggestion that he somehow dispensed with indignation and expressions of  emotion is absurd.  Marx displayed a profusion of moral judgements interspersed  throughout – even in Das Kapital.  Capitalism is condemned in no uncertain terms.   Stephen Lukes identifies some of these judgements  and argues that they only make sense against Marx's own moral ideal of the good life:Hence all the passages in Capital about ‘naked self-interest and callous cash payment’, ‘oppression’, ‘degradation of personal dignity’, ‘accumulation of misery’, ‘physical and mental degradation’, ‘shameless, direct and brutal exploitation’, the ‘modern slavery of capital’, ‘subjugation’, the ‘horrors’… and ‘torture’ and ‘brutality’ of overwork, the ‘murderous’ search for economy in the production process, capital ‘laying waste and squandering’ of labour power and ‘altogether too prodigal with its human material’ and exacting ‘ceaseless human sacrifices.’ (Lukes S Marxism and Morality, 1985 Oxford Clarendon Press p1). And I know this is opening up another can of worms but I dont agree with your fetishisation of "objectivism".  I fully concur with L Bird in his criticism of your position and your insistence on asserting some kind of  fact -value distinction which, ironically,  Marx himself opposed, regarding it as yet another form of "estrangement".  Your position does seem to be to akin to a kind of 19th century positivism (cue for comrade Bird to enter the fray, guns blazing). The problem with "scientific socialism" – I would personally banish that expression forthwith from the lexicon of revolutionary socialism if I had my way  –  with its pretensions to "objectivity" is precisely the problem of "reflexivity" in the social sciences. – particularly, in the social sciences though not exclusively in them as L Bird has pointed out.  I am referring to the literal  impossibility of stepping outside of one's own subjectivity, or consciousness, when making observations about society and the interrelationships that make up society.  We are part of the very things we are supposed to be observing. That includes our moral values, our emotions, our irrationalities and everything else that goes to make us as flesh-and-blood mortals rather than intelligent robots

[robbo203]

twc wrote:

Robbo.  While I await LBird to substantiate his accusations that #48 and #51 are 19th century materialist…Just reread what you wrote, stripping away the verbiage — the working class’s view is pro-capitalist because it supports capitalism. As explanation that is priceless!

Didn't quite see how you figured that out.  What I actually said wasThe moral outlook of the working class today  is indeed virtually indistinguishable from that of the capitalist class and for the good reason that the former fundamentally at present supports a social system that operates in the interests of the latter.That is saying something rather different from what you say I said, when you think about it a little more carefully….

twc wrote:

You fully agree with Engels’s view, which is ultimately a direct implication of the materialist conception of history, though you dressed it up in Hegelian jargon.

 You've lost me there. What Hegelian jargon?The view expressed by Engels that I agree with is the one I quoted earlier (there are other views expressed by Engels that i dont necessarily agree with but thats another matter) . NamelyAnd as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality has always been class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or, ever since the oppressed class became powerful enough, it has represented its indignation against this domination, and the future interests of the oppressed

twc wrote:

As to moral indignation.  There are more morally indignant know-alls out there than you can poke a stick at, and none of them is socialist.  Marx gave his life to get beyond relying upon emotion.  Socialism is not going to be achieved through hysteria, but chaos can.

This is a bit silly isnt it? Who said anything about  hysteria?  Whats hysteria got to do with moral indignation? Engels curiously uses the self same word – "indignation". Indignation of the oppresed class against the domination of the ruling class.  Certainly, a lot of people get morally indignent about all sorts of things that have little or nothing to do with socialism but that doesnt mean socialists cannot also be morally indignant .  They are just morally indignant about something different to what a non socialist may get morally indignant aboutOh and talking about "priceless" – how priceless is this  "Marx gave his life to get beyond relying upon emotion".  Anyone who has read his Marx will readily appreciate just how much of what he wrote was positively seething with emotion,  just how often he  vented his spleen against this or that outrage commited by capitalism.  And good on him for that , I say! I would far sooner have that then some lifeless bloodless dry -as-dust academnic treatise

twc wrote:

Socialism doesn’t rely on indignation.  Indignation, like all emotion is impermanent.  It must be feigned to be kept alive, and then it becomes a mere self-serving pose.  Our opponents are expert poseurs at this.  We despise their subterfuge.

 If you had said socialism doesnt rely entirely on indignation I might have understood and agreed.  But no, it seems you want to strip socialism of all indignation , all emotion.  This is the socialism of robots, not flesh and bloodhuman beings.  Actually if anything becomes a self serving pose it is the claim that we can somehow dispense with emotion. Indignation does not have to be feigned to be kept alive,  Thats an outrageous thing to say.  It is capitalism that keeps our indigination alive by perpetuating whjat gave rise to that indignation in the first place It is gut feeling ( of course combined with clear thinking) that motivates individuals to become socialist.  Why criticise capitalism for being an exploitiative society. otherwise?  The very concept of exploitation is value laden.  Sure it has a precise technical meaning but we are mean to be revolutionary socialists nor academics in this context.  Philosophers have have only interpreted the world in various ways , the point is to change it.  Now, who was it who said that?

[robbo203]

twc wrote:

Nobody, in their highest flight of imagination, could equate the everyday common-or-garden variety of personal or in-group indignation with socialist morality.Just examine by the “cold hard logic”, proposed in this thread, the familiar instances of such working-class “morality” as it manifests itself today.  Large sections of the working class indignantly hold xenophobic, individualistic and loutish conceptions that are the very opposite of socialist morality.It is not Engels’s theory that is at fault, but our blind application of it to current contingent conditions.General working-class “morality” is almost indistinguishable from capitalist-class “morality” because it arises on the same foundation — the necessity of capitalist society to daily reproduce itself, and with it to daily reproduce capitalist social relations.In the 1890s that is precisely what Engels said.  The working class thinks just like the capitalist class.Sickening state of affairs then, and the sickening reality of the present.Our socialist morality transcends most of what anyone could claim to be specifically working-class indignation today.  That’s the fertile breeding ground of Reformism.Working-class morality, in Engels’s sense, is still socially rudimentary, just as we are currently a socially minuscule force.It's always been thus for us since 1904.  That’s always been the spur!

 Yes, thats a fair point.  The moral outlook of the working class today  is indeed virtually indistinguishable from that of the capitalist class and for the good reason that the former fundamentally at present supports a social system that operates in the interests of the latter.  But we are talking about a working class that has become, in Marxian terms, a class " for itself" not simply a class "in itself", a class that is fully conscious of its identity and determined to overthow the system that exploits it.  Point being that you cannot talk about "exploitation" without this denoting a sense of moral outrage. Yes, exploitation is against our interests but it is also morally unacceptable The socialist case is one that seeks to persuade workers to become a class for itself.  Necessarily it seeks to sharpen  or re-focus the moral indignation that individual workers feel in the light of a socialist understanding of capitalism.  Moral indigination is not some dispensable aspect of the struggle for socialism. It is part of what makes us human beings and not robots,  Nothing can be achieved without it.

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Vin Maratty wrote:

Robin,   The case for capitalism is based on 'morality' and most capitalist parties want to 'save the planet'. 

 Vin. The case for capitalism  is supported by capitalist morality. The case for socialism is supported by socialist – or proleterian – morality.  I'm  inclined to go along with Engels on the subjectWe therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate and for ever immutable ethical law on the pretext that the moral world has its permanent principles which stand above history and the differences between nations. We maintain on the contrary that all moral theories have been hitherto the product, in the last analysis, of the economic conditions of society obtaining at the time. And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality has always been class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or, ever since the oppressed class became powerful enough, it has represented its indignation against this domination, and the future interests of the oppressedWe have not yet passed beyond class morality. A really human morality which stands above class antagonisms and above any recollection of them becomes possible only at a stage of society which has not only overcome class antagonisms but has even forgotten them in practical life(Anti-Dühring). With respect, you are misreading what I say when I talk of morality and its indispensability.  Im not talking about some abstract transhistorical timeless notion of morality. Im talking precisely about the "class morality of the oppressed class".  If you are concerned with the wellbeing and interests of members of the working class apart from yourself then necessarily you are taking a moral perspective on the matter.  That is what morality is about, after all. It is intrisically "other-oriented".  It means regarding others as having value in themselves and not simply serving as a means to your own selfish ends  i.e instrumentalism. Granted, you are being selective in your moral concern just as the nationalist is selective in his/her moral identification with fellow citizens of his/her nation state over those of other nation states.  But it is still fundamentally a moral concern that you are expressing.  There can be no class unity or anything like a sense of class consciousness without an underlying class morality that binds workers to one another. In short socialism would be inconceivable or unattainable  without such a morality

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Vin Maratty wrote:

I have to say that I am somewhat bemused that the SPGB has avoideded answering such an important question. We have heard mainly from non members but what is the SPGB's position?What is the WSM's case based upon? Morality? The class struggle? Save the planet? 

 Why cannot it be all 3 , Vin? Why this monodimensional  obsession for one single explanation that accounts for everything? Morality does not preclude the class struggle anymore than class struggle precludes morality…

[robbo203]

It sounds an interesting programme.  Its a pity, though, that a talk could not have been fitted in dealing directly with the kind of ridiculous claims made by people like  Stephen Pinker, author of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002) and The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined  (2011). According to Pinker,  violent deaths have declined dramatically from about 15% in pre-state societies and that "today we may be living in the most peaceable era in the existence of our species" ("Violence Vanquished " , The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2011). The hidden agenda behind such thinking would seem to be to impress upon us the need for an authoritarian Hobbesian state to suppress our latent tendency to inflict violence on each other at the slightest pretext.  Very pertinent as fare as the socialist case is concerned in that it direct challenges that casePerhaps some reference to Pinker et al could be made in one of the talks or the workshop? 

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Vin Maratty wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Finally  I dont claim the case for socialism is based solely on a concern for others (i.e. fellow workers), it is also based on our perceived self interests as individuals. In other words there are 2 complementary grounds on which the case for socialism is based- namely, moral grounds and prudential grounds.  To suggest that it just one of these but not the other on which socialism is based is absurd ,in my view

 As I have said, morality has been around for centuries. It may seem absurd to you but it is my opinion that the material conditions of capitalism and the class struggle  forms the basic  argument for the socialist case. 'Morality'  – since the beginning of mankind. Material conditions for socialism  – 100? 200 years?

No one is disputing that the "material conditions for socialism" have only been around for a short while and that morality has been around since the dawn of humanity.  But how does this affect the proposition under discussion which is Is the case for socialism, one of morality, cold logic or long term survival of our species?It seems to me that you are confusing two different things, Vin.  The conditions for socialism may be recent  but that does not mean that the case of socialism cannot be partly a moral one.  In fact I would argue it cannot but be partly a moral one  because if you were not concerned with the wellbeing of individuals other than yourself  – the basis of all morality  – you would be driven, not towards socialism, but some  kind of extreme amoral individualism in which only your interests mattered in your view – the so called "ethical egoist" position a la Ayn Rand and co  (which I think is fundamentally contradictory and absurd).   If you seriously were to reject a moral perspective then logically that would commit you to a kind of extreme free market capitalism captured by Adam Smith's "invisible hand of the market" in which each narrowly pursued their own private interests without reference to the interests of others.  Even Smith did not believe in this knd of society as a practical proposition (as well as being an economist he had a background in moral philosophy).  What he was intent upon doing was sketching out in abstract  idealised terms the economic mechanism summarised by the expression "the invisible hand of the market".  He was not seriously proposing  the abdication of moral thinking in human affairs Moral thinking has always been around, as you say  but that does not mean it has no relevance to the establishment of socialism just becuase the "material conditions for socialism" are of recent origin.  The conditions for socialism are not the same thing as the motives for socialism. If they were then why are 99% plus of the working class not yet socialists – even the great majority of those who encounter the case for socialism?  Partly I would suggest it is because they have had instilled in them the values of capitalism.  They consider the system to be morally acceptable by and large.  It is through the growing counterweight of socialist values that the grip of capitalist ideology will be loosened on the minds of fellow workers and that is a very strong reason for emphasising the moral aspect of the case for socialism. If moral thinking has always been around then that actually is quite a telling argument for NOT  abandoning moral thinking in establishing socialism.  The point is that what is moral at one point  may not be at another.  The FORM of morality , the specifics of a moral code may change from time to time but not the fact that people think in moral terms.  What changes is not the fact of moral thinking but the object of their moral concern For us as revolutionary socialists the object of our moral concern is first and foremost our fellow members of the working class. This is what the material conditions of socialism have resulted in; it has enabled us, or spurred us on,  to redefine the object of our moral concern as our fellow workers   If we were not concerned with the wellbeing of our fellow workers as well as our own then we would never have become revolutionary socialists in the first place!

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stuartw2112 wrote:

Hi RobinThanks for your reply. I have read it more carefully and given it more consideration than this short reply will make it seem – sorry about that, but pressure of other (reformist!) work calls, and I'll have to leave it here for now. Perhaps we can pick the discussion up again in a month or so. All I'll say as a concluding remark is that it makes absolutely no sense to me to rule in campaigns trying to save the local hospital but rule out action on the political field that would have that result. Also that we should stop appealing to the lessons of history, since what those are clearly depends on the teacher, or perhaps on the predilections of the student. My reading of (especially recent) history is that the sleep of reformism brings forth monsters. I've yet to read a single historian who has reached anything like your or the SPGB's conclusions. TTFN

 Hi Stuart OK we'll talk again later.  Just on your point above though well, yes, sure it makes perfect sense to  "rule in campaigns trying to save the local hospital but rule out action on the political field that would have that result.".  The point is to create a secure and defensible space within the political doman itself in which the revolutionary objective can be safeguarded as a goal rather than compromised and undermined by the pursuit of  the reformist objective of trying to mend capitalism rather than end capitalism.  This is precisely what has happened as the historical evidence clearly demonstrates: Social Democracy abandoned the revolutionary objective when it embraced reformism.  You cannot mix the two things in practice. Its like trying to mix oil and water in a bucket (the bucket being a metaphor for the political domain itself)  The reformist objective will inevitably win out or come out on top and the revolutionary objective will be abandoned because the short term will always tend to trump the long run view of things.  To ensure that revolutionary socialism it is not abandoned requires ring fencing it by  renouncing reformism as a political practice.  In my opinion the SPGB has hit upon more or less the right formula as far as the reform/revolution dillema is concerned; where it falls down is in its response to acitivities that fall outside the strictly political domain 

stuartw2112 wrote:

 PS One final final point. I've just been discussing this with a historian, and she says that you're reading history backwards from a determined (and imagined) end point. From the point of view of Paradise, history shows that reformism is a complete failure – true. But from the point of view of people who have no faith in the End Times, it must be hard or next to impossible to show that reformism has been anything other than an incredible success story – a story of a long, slow and arduous march, with many setbacks, but basically one of progress. Anyway, really am going now, pick this up next time

 I think this is a serious case of misattribution .  It is not reformism as such that has been an incredible success story if by "success story" you mean the material advancement in living standards etc. over the long term.  Reformisn in my view was pretty peripheral to this progress which owes much more to things like technological development and trade union pressure.  Politicians love to flatter themselves and massage their own egos by implying that, thanks to the particular assortment of policies they have implemented, growth has been assured and the country has come out of recession bla bla bla. In reality it has precious little to do with the policies implemented by politicians; it has much more to do with, for instance, the cyclical boom bust  tendencies within capitalism  i.e the capitalist trade cycle which happens independently of the will of politicans.   Improvement or progress would have happened even if you had put a monkey in charge of running capitalism.  The converse of this is when a recession looms.  Do politicians accept the blame for that? Oh no, then its all the fault of "circumstances beyond their control" like the subprime mortgage crisis in the US! Point is that both the ups and the downs are very largely due to "circumstances beyond the control of politicians" and that consquently what you call the success of reformism is not what it seems at all.  Sorry, but you have been conned by the political salesperson's patter – your historian – into thinking otherwise.

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Vin Maratty wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

 Broadly speaking, what is called a "moral perspective" implies a concern for the welfare and wellbeing of others.  Morality has to do with our attitude towards others; it is "other-oriented". It means treating others not as a means to your own private ends – instrumentalism –   but as having value in themselves 

 Therin lies the problem I would have defined 'morality' as a selfish concern for one's own ethical position, a left over from religion. Self-righteousness etc.Concern and welfare of othere exist in the animal kingdom; not just in humans.The subject of the thread askes if the case for socialism is based upon morality  not if there is a moral element within it.Are you suggesting that the case for socialism is based upon concern for others? If so, then a "you will be waiting a very long" 

Hi Vin,No, I dont think morality is a selfish concern for anything at all. In fact it precludes by definition the very idea of selfishness; it is, as I  said, something that is inherently other-oriented rather than self oriented.  I don t  know where you get your definition of morality  from but that is not how I would define it, nor  how moral philosophers in general would define it with the exception perhaps  of that rare breed called "ethical egoists" and followers of that wacky sect of objectivism cum Ayn Rand Morality is closely related to the notion of altruism although it is not the same as altruism.  As you point out, concern for the welfare of others exists also in the animal kingdom.  That is altruistic concern but not moral concern.  Morality is more than just altruisn but entails altruism.  There is some evidence to suggest that empathy or the capacity for empathy which is the basis of a moral outlook may be hardwired into us in the form of "mirror neurons" which were discovered by Rizzi in the 1990s. Also, I dont accept your argument that  morality is some kind of  leftover of religion. Morality is essentially “autonomous” with respect to religion; it does not depend upon the latter though some religious people would argue otherwise .  They would  claim that morality  is either “heteronomous”  – where moral rules presuppose, or arise directly from, a given set of religious beliefs and values – or, alternatively, “theonomous” – where both morality and religion are said to derive from a common source of knowledge and inspiration in the form of God.  I think any kind human society presupposes a moral code and society is, as Durkheim said, fundamentally a moral order .  Because we are social animals we are moral animals and vice versa. Socialists, above all, should appreciate this.Finally  I dont claim the case for socialism is based solely on a concern for others (i.e. fellow workers), it is also based on our perceived self interests as individuals. In other words there are 2 complementary grounds on which the case for socialism is based- namely, moral grounds and prudential grounds.  To suggest that it just one of these but not the other on which socialism is based is absurd ,in my view

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