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Your single pseudo-code destroys your logic:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/pannekoeks-theory-science?page=28#comment-8529Bluster as you may…No serious developer writes  “s****; f***** "GO TO's", but instead shuns them like the plague, even when writing pseudo-code.No socialist programmer could fail to take the bait (for, against or non-committal) of my object-oriented analogy of Marx’s ascent–descent method.Jacksonian regimentation was designed to weed out creativity at the software implementation level.  It’s you I pity.Human creativity resides in the algorithms and data structures.  Methodology is for channeling that creativity and, in large projects, taming it for the general goal.If you didn’t believe in the general goal, then you must have chafed under the general regimentation.

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First Contact with the SPGB

pgb wrote:

Unlike Clarke and Casey, both of whom I believe had contact with the SPGB before arriving in Australia, Jacob Johnson came out here as as young child from Sweden so unlikely he knew of the SPGB beforehand.

Actually, from going through Clarke’s autobiographical document, he first “came into contact” with the SPGB in Melbourne.  Here follows an extract I’ve just transcribed from the document, which I’ve only started to read in conjunction with his industrial and party history.  The date is probably 1919 or 1920.

W. J. Clarke wrote:

Back in Melbourne, I made for the shipping office, but there was little [work at sea] doing.  So I booked a room in the Yarra Family Hotel to bide my time.  There were a few seamen staying there …One of the chaps I met in the Hotel was Barney Kelly*, a little dapper Liverpudlian Irishman, and we remained mates right up to the day he died.Barney showed me the ropes around Melbourne.  The first place he took me to was the Yarra Bank where, at that time, the old IWW members used to gather and hold their meetings.  There were also radical speakers from The Victorian Socialist Party²; the Socialist Labour Party, the Victorian Labour Party, the Anarchist Chummy Fleming³, …There were quite a few independents and non-attached spruikers⁴.Among them were Jack Temple, a supporter of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and Bill Casey, a strong supporter of Temple.

Notes* Kelly caused a minor upset at the first Red Trade Union International.  See Materialism post #241, http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/long-awaited-materialism-thread?page=23#comment-12417.² The Victorian Socialist Party included among its ranks future wartime prime minister Curtin, as well as Anstey, Blackburn and Cameron, mentioned in Clarke’s history, post #6, above.³ For Chummy Fleming, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chummy_Fleming.%5D⁴ Spruiker, Australian slang for “outdoor speaker”.

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Refused WorkHere follows an excerpt from Clarke’s autobiographical manuscript describing connivance between the shipowners and the Communist union officials to ban his employment.  It substantiates the case that the Communist officials prevented jobs being given to anti-Communist members.This is a verbatim transcription, side comments and all, with minimal editing.

W. J. Clarke wrote:

After the 1935 strike (see History)After I refused to recognize the Communist officials, particularly when they tried to force me to collect money [subscription dues] from the scabs they had taken into the Union, at the expense of hundreds of our best men being left without jobs, I decided I could no longer carry on [as Secretary].I called a meeting, explained the position to the members, and told them that I would resign my position rather than accept such a treacherous proposition.The members pleaded with me to stay on but, by this time, the so-called Communist officials had put round the rumour that, as long as Clarke remained in office, the owners would not give our loyal members a job.I stood fast [to my resolve], and although I resigned, the owners were still refusing to accept anybody who had a spark of militance in him.(The full story is set out in the "History")Furthermore, I refused to take out the Dog Collar, which was a license to go to sea, introduced under the Transport Regulations that had been enforced on Waterside Workers and Seamen, alike.I did not go back to sea until World World 2.  I had kept up my [membership] contributions to the Union, but Elliot* tried to prevent me and told the owners that if they gave me a job I would only cause trouble.

Notes* Elliot, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_V._Elliott.

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Absolutely lucky!  Jackson is ancient history.  Being forced to submit to it must have been hell.  No human creativity in that.On the hardware front, try Siri.

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Surely, if you were once an object-oriented software developer, you comprehend, in your creative bones, the distinction between classes and objects — between abstraction and concrete implementation.

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This forum is for socialism.Are you claiming that the SPGB's socialist Object or Declaration of Principles, or the prosecution of its socialist case, stand in need of 1960s critical realism or of 1960s philosophy of science?  If so, make your case.Over the posts, you've changed your cherished position from idealism to syncretism;  from fiercly repudiating anything written by non-Communists [as if anyone could trust Communists] to lovingly quoting them [not just Pareto, but the trio of philosophers of science, Carr, and even Popper of all people, the arch anti-Marxist];  and now Marx, whom you once relied on for irrefutable quotes, is now contemptuously condemned for being irredeemably vague and contradictory.You are the Pareto chameleon.No-one can expect a scientific work as complex as Capital, which attempts to unmask something as complex as the capitalist social system, to be comprehended without some effort on his part.  Comprehension is simply not like that.If you really want to understand Capital, you coud do worse than follow on with David Harvey's lectures, which despite some wacky conclusions aired since he gave his course, don't impede his general approach.  Harvey even suspects, with you, that the materialist conception of history is reductive. You might enjoy him, and learn something easily about Capital.Over many posts, I've tried to explain gently, where appropriate, and to defend scientifically, as needed, Hegel, Engels and deterministic science, but mere mention of these topics, and you hit the roof. That smacks of ignorant bigotry.I fail to see any point in my participation here if you, and apparently others, can't understand a thing I'm writing.

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pgb wrote:

I think the quote on Marxism he took from Lucien Laurat's 1940 book is spot on for his purposes, and quite properly he uses it to argue a case to "re-examine all our assumptions and see if they are still sound." Who was it who once called for "the critical examination of all that exists, without fear of the results of that criticism nor of the powers that be"?

That is sheer nonsense when one is dealing with a political party whose condition of membership is acceptance of its Object and Declaration of Principles.It is disingenuous to believe that a world socialist party's “assumptions”* are anything other than its Object and Declaration of Principles.  If they aren’t, please explain what they could ever be.A world socialist party’s abstract Object and Declaration of Principles are non-negotiable conditions of party membership.  You join because you agree with them.  You leave when you disagree with them.By disagreeing with them from inside, you place yourself outside the conditions of membership.  To attack the very conditions of the party's existence is then to sabotage it from within.You may attack as much as you like from outside, and that’s totally fine.  It happens all the time.In other words, everything to do with a world socialist party is consequential upon its Object and Principles.  Otherwise they become meaningless, which they decidedly are not.  They are our means to socialism.To put it in scientific form, our Object and Principles are the abstract form of our party's existence, of which its concrete activity [mental as well as practical] is the implementation.Party activity can of course be criticized as being inconsistent with its Object and Principles. But that wasn't the article's point. As alanjjohnstone correctly observes, the article from within was writing an “obituary”. The party was officially writing its own “obituary”. Committing “suicide”.That's how crucial the Object and Principles are to its existence, just as they must be and ever have been.What was done in Australia in 1948, was done.  But the consequences were devastating.All other political parties are different from the parties of world socialism.  Most have no clear Object at all, and none have Principles worthy of human support. To the man-in-the-street it seems highly reasonable for them to go through continual soul searching, all other parties do it all of the time, except that none of them has a soul like our Object and Principles to find.But the socialist parties, thanks to the clarity and science handed down to them from Marx, have decided up front precisely what they want [our Object] and how we get there [our Principles].Notes* Our Object and Declaration of Principles are not mere “assumptions”.  They are scientific abstractions from the concrete phenomena of society, and so vulnerable to rejection if their deterministic consequences fail to describe concrete society.  That “proof of the pudding” criterion is the only scientific way anyone can annihilate them.Doubters are at liberty to make their own scientific abstractions from our shared social condition, develop their  own deterministic science, and check out its implications by the only practical means mankind knows of — “proof of the pudding ”.

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Why does it matter?Marx, Hegel and the local barber know that ideas have a different mode of existence from immediately concrete objects like a tree, a car or money; or mediatedly concrete objects like an atom or quark; or palpable abstract categories of thought like energy and capital, just as each of these has a different mode of existence, and correspondingly different modes of behaviour, or determinism.What is at stake is how we explain ideas in order to comprehend how they may be changed in order to bring about a sustainable human world socialism.In that context ideas could be made of polystyrene, as long as they work the same way as we explain them.ExplanationDeterministic explanation has always been the concern of materialists and idealists. Explanation is what they differ on.Marx developed a scientific explanation, which successfully demonstrates the subservience of social thought to social conditions. That makes him a materialist.Insofar as Marx is a monist (a materialist monist) he can only be thereby reducing consciousness to material conditions, or in slang "reducing ideas to matter", even though ideas have, for him, a mediated abstract mode of existence, while also, for him, what we take to be matter has a concrete mode of existence.Insofar as Marx distinguishes abstract thought from concrete immediacy, thought for him is not concrete matter.  For him, abstract principles are pure, whereas impure determinations derived from pure abstract principles are still abstract, but as he puts it, they are concretely abstract, something that first puzzles folks who seek to comprehend Marx's scientific method.For Marx, abstractions are abstracted from social experience, and ultimately from what is immediately concrete, or measurable stuff. To that extent they are not concrete matter.Can you now see why I am reluctant to discuss such issues.  You demand the royal road, where none exists.Marx gets more complex.  We are an ingenious species. We abstract ideas from the concrete, but we also concretize our ideas in language, art, literature, legislation, institutions, etc. We build a social superstructure.Bashkar's critical realism bypasses this approach, although I may be wrong because I've only glanced at his book.  Its focus strikes me as primarily abstract, but I'm prepared to read it in depth.Relevant to our discussion is Bashkar's foundation assumption — note, not abstraction for him — that practice gives us access to external structure.  This happens to be one of the major conclusions of Hegel's Logic, and conforms with Marx and Engels.Bashkar's foundation assumption blows out of the water your cautious philosophical niceties over our deep inability to access external determinism.Your rejection of this assumption is the primary reason you detest and mistrust scientists for "imposing", what you mistakenly believe to be, their elitist ideological views upon us all — as if science "imposes" its views on anything except upon the practitioners themselves, who must assimilate their theoretical craft in order to progress their science.You have far stronger grounds for detesting and distrusting the philosophers who insist on doing precisely just that — imposing their [for you, elitist] views upon us.  Of course, you won't detest them because you and they share a common philosophically voluntarist belief in the power of persuasion.I'm quite happy to discuss critical realism, but have scarcely the leisure to engage it at the moment. This time, however, if I draw up a structure for critical realism, as I did in the case of Schaff to help out our mutual discussion of him, please stick to it or draw up your own.  Otherwise we go round in circles.Returning to the material foundation of social thought, which philosophy blithely ignores with impugnity, I thought I made it clear that social imposition of thought is an unconscious protracted social process.  Proto-capitalism needed to go through an entire stage of wholescale pre-capitalist dispossession in order that we might now think in terms of capitalist possession, or lack thereof, as a natural mode of thought.Nevertheless, capitalist social thought inexorably followed upon capitalist ownership and control, and proved entirely subservient to it.  That's materialist explanation.

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Crooks ExposedYes, The Crooks Exposed is a truly remarkable document, and should be transcribed with spelling and grammatical correction.  Otherwise left untouched.If you are prepared to transcribe it, with minimal spelling and grammatical fixes, and "publish" it here, you would be doing a service to those giants of the early SPA, Johnson, Casey and Clarke, but also to all supporters of socialism and integrity everywhere.Clarke's three remaining personal copies of Crooks Exposed  were lent for study purposes to post-graduate students in social history. They were never returned, as promised.One recipient was a married ex-Protestant minister, admitted to the Catholic priesthood, and the first married priest in Australia.  Clarke sent him a copy by mail.  When the parcel failed to arrive on time for this dithering fellow, he hastily demanded another be sent.  This also was duly sent by mail.  Neither was returned.Clarke lent another copy to a Master's student, recommended to him by Jim Thorburn, who had neither interest in nor competence to carry out her work, but spent her valuable time with Clarke conducting an idiotic interview on, of all people, Marx's son-in-law, LaFargue.I believe there is no longer a copy of the document among Clarke's papers. Clarke told me it was written under tight time constraints, and apologized for its lack of literary refinement.  But this valuable document was never intended as an exercise in belle lettres.As in such joint productions, one person took control and that, I believe, was Clarke. The main content was due to the incredible Casey. Remember, Clarke chose to run away to sea as a 13-year old boy to support his widowed mother and her family, after his father drowned in the Koombana shipwreck off the West Australian coast, in the eye of a tropical cyclone.  He taught himself to read and write, shipboard, studying Darwin's Origin of Species, out of which developed his subsequent writing and editing skills, e.g. for the Australasian Seamen's Journal, some of which I'll later transcribe and "publish" here. This is by way of explaining Clarke's later embarrassment over the literary style of Crooks Exposed.I've only ever glanced at a copy of Crooks Exposed, but have never read it.Given its tortuous history, you may imagine my elation in discovering that you have a precious copy. This should  ultimately reside in the SPGB archives.

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Challenge #279Sorry, but you are arguing just that —  that the social superstructure is pure bias.  That superstructural content is not scientific or, should you now concede that it is, its scientific status is merely that of pure bias.So, don't shirk #279.  It relates entirely to your expressed concerns.Tangible and PhysicalNo such claims.Materialism need not make any claims about the universe, other than how to explain, or conceive, it.  Ultimately, it only makes claims about how we actually explain the universe, or conceive, it.Materialism is any explanation of thought out of being, and not of being out of thought, which is idealism. [Syncretism or dualism has it both ways.  Ultimately, consistent thinking is the deep issue which outlaws syncretism or dualism.]Materialist ThoughtMaterialism is a thought position, like any theory. It appropriates the concrete world mentally, the only way we can and do, as abstract categories of thought and abstract determinisms of relationships and development.Marx's materialism comprehends thinking, non-philosophically.  For Marx, social thought is something more complex than just social thinking.  It is the social superstructure of our social being [see below].  In this sense, it is unlike any materialism that preceded it.Thought as the Active Side [of Something]Marx never considered the active side of society to be exclusively confined to thinking.  I don't think anyone-else has either.  That is a misreading of the Theses.What  Marx was thinking of in the Theses was the Hegelian theory of the history of human thought.Hegel, by conceiving society as a whole, attempted to explain social transitions from social stage to social stage [from stasis through revolution to new stasis] as determined by the evolution of social thought, in the minds of men, developing — for society conceived as a whole — by itself, out of itself, and into its new self.Hegel explained social development deterministically as struggle (just as Marx of the Manifesto did) and temporary resolution of thought — the temporary resolution being Hegel's famous Aufheben.The activity of thought was Hegel's comprehension of the activity of society = our social history.  But it was our social history, conceived correctly for the first time as a self-developing, self-determined, organism, of which we are its agents or necessary organs.  Hegel conceived it for the first time as a science of society as a unit, a whole, an organism.That was what Marx saw as the active side of thought.For, in a master-stroke, Hegel had solved (from his idealist standpoint) what had defeated the old materialists.  He transgressed into their secular turf and beat them at their game.  Here was a crisis for the old materialism.Marx and Engels were the first to recognize this crisis in materialism, wrought by the Hegelian system.  They initially stood in awe of it.  For Hegel had developed a dynamic theory of human consciousness, as a theory of social evolution.  Young Marx, particularly, recognized precisely what Hegel had achieved but, having grown up on French materialism, he was also deeply troubled by it, and was spurred on to recover the undoubted gains of the old materialism in the face of Hegel's idealist organicism.Marx's Theses are the first ripe fruits of his own struggle to resolve the issues posed by Hegel to the old materialism — that men are the products of conditions —  by the dilemma of the new idealism — that conditions are changed by men.What causes changed men to change their conditions?  That is our own problem — the problem of socialism.Materialist Conception of HistoryMarx's ultimate statement — his scientific manifesto — is written in the Preface to A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy.  This should be read, and reread, until assimilated. It involves the two abstract theoretical categories of social base and social superstructure.  It proposes a scientific determinism of the form that base determines superstructure.  Social being determines consciousness.The rest of Marx is the working out of the implications of this base–superstructure determinism.At the deepest level of the social base, Marx locates ownership and control of the means of social reproduction.  Under capitalism, ownership and control are private, in the hands of the capitalist class.  In socialism, they are common, in the hands of all society.The only reason we strive for the latter [our Object] is because we comprehend the determinism of former [our Principles]. In short, everything is ultimately about the struggle over ownership and control of the means of life.  The history of the 20th century was largely about dispossessing pre-capitalist folks of ownership and control of pre-capitalist means of life, to make them necessarily dependent upon private capitalist ownership and control.That nasty process of human dispossession was the materialistically necessary foundation for capitalist production, and so for capitalist social thought.  Marx called this awful process "primitive accumulation", in which capitalism "comes into the world dripping in blood".Can anyone seriously explain this awful social transition as the product of active thought — i.e. idealistically.  Can anyone can seriously explain our earlier social transitions from hunter gathering to agriculturalism to civilsation, etc. as the product of active thought — i.e. idealistically.Marx offers a materialist account of the development of society, conceived as a whole, by itself, through itself into its new self — as a self-developing, self-determined, organism — of which we are its agents or necessary organs.Of course, nothing is entirely autonomous, even society as a whole.Our social development is ultimately subservient to nature herself.  But, the degree of irreducibility [non-reduction] to nature is pretty high for society, even though society is ultimately conditional upon nature, the very nature we are capitalistically bent on destroying, and which will exact its revenge upon our contempt of her.So, Marx's materialism is a deterministic science, based upon social being, and it is not a philiosophy, as you conceive it to be. For you, thought is philosophically a prori social.  My god man, of course it's social, since Marx is following Hegel in conceiving social thought — the thought of society as a whole — as an entity in its own right, and so it must be social as consequence, not a priori as you insist.Society is not merely dynamic thought stuff, in Hegel's sense [which is akin to the physicist, who often views concrete nature as an instantiation of non-concrete ideal laws of motion]. It is the social organism itself that is dynamic.We actively create society both in the concrete and in thought and, in so doing, it ultimately creates us. Changed men are the products of changed conditions. Marx's base–superstructure determinism of the social organism is, in that ancient sense of the term, materialist.Written in haste, without necessary correction. 

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So please explain:If the social superstructure is pure bias, how that pure bias comes about.Why anyone should support the pure socialist bias.

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Nothing to do with ideas becoming a material force.Everything to do with material conditions, in the form of our necessary social existence, determining our social superstructure — (under capitalism, our socially necessary laws; our functional conception of the very process of our existence depending on private ownership and control of the means of social reproduction [something, by the way, that I see the remarkable political economist Andrew Kliman, to whom we are all in debt for his reclamation of Marx from the Sraffians, seems to discount] and the conceptions of money, capital, property and right that necessarily result from this, and hold mental sway over us so long as we consider them as necessarily so).So, do you think that our Objective has no deterministic force? Do you repudiate it?  Just what are you really implying?  This is the nub of the issue.I haven't Marx's intro to Capital Vol 1, where I am writing on an iPhone, but I recall the bit about no social system ever being replaced until it has exhausted its potential.  Capitalism hasn't yet — China, India, the Arab world, Africa, South America have yet to come on board before we all collectively sink the ship.Courage man, and patience!Social determinism holds us back for the time being.  We may not see social determinism turn in our favour in our brief lifetime.  But then again it may.  When it does turn, the old social system will have exhausted its possibilities, and will be powerless to withstand it.For the moment capitalism has plenty of room to move, and people recognize this, and so, on their own rational terms, find little reason to heed our message.That's why it's essential for socialists to stick to our Principles and Object.

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Ugly "Truths"Well then, it was also an "obituary" for Marx and the SPGB.  It certainly harmed the SPA.There could be no uglier truth than that we are biased, and our bias is wrong — whatever a "wrong" bias can ever be in the context that all is bias.But as far as ugly truths go — and they go awfully far —  there is no uglier truth than that we are wrong.Not deterministic?  Look at our Object and Declaration of Principles.  Please don't tell me our Object isn't deterministic.  If our Object isn't deterministic, socialism has no hope whatsoever on the foundation of our Object. In which case, socialism has no hope.Blow me down.  Human agency.  Do you think the determinism of human society doesn't involve human agency.  Human agency is the substance of social determinism.Instead of determinism, it's consciousness that's lacking.  Only consciousness.  Some of us hold with Marx that social being determines consciousness.That's Marx's mighty determined determinism, if you ask me.  Only consciousness!  Only determinism!Otherwise, we might as well subscribe to Royden's ugly "truth" that this insubstantial pageant is all mere ugly bias.Oh mankind, what have we come to!

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This post is relevant to both threads.Royden ArticleReference: http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/objects/pdf/d0483.pdf

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I have pointed out on a discussion list, the SPA wrote its own obituary in 1948.

Please cite a reference to your post.

pgb wrote:

It is an unusual piece because of a very forthright, honest and up-front tone, which I haven't found in other issues of Socialist Comment.

The only thing forthright, honest and up-front in tone about the article is its statement that the socialist case of the SPA, of the SPGB and of Marx has been put for a century, and the world has rejected it, and that we now should reconsider the socialist case of the SPA, of the SPGB, and of Marx because it’s just our bias, opinion, ideology — and is probably wrong.The only explanation I can imagine for the EC letting it through was difficulty of communication between scattered EC members, some of whose advice to reject was overridden or possibly not sought, and the desire for the Party to publish post haste a historical appraisal of world socialism for the centenary celebration of the “The Communist Manifesto”.Why thoroughly likable Jack Topp agreed to publish the article is beyond me.  Perhaps it was his general magnanimity.  [Jack was a perpetual, and so familiar, sight at Melbourne Trades Hall.  He was the only layman that future prime minister Hawke, when long-term industrial advocate and head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), relied on for industrial and legal opinion, and he nurtured future ACTU advocate and Federal treasurer Ralph Willis.]For or AgainstIt certainly is a demoralizing article for the world socialist case;  and the author, by disavowing its Object and Declaration of Principles, the sole conditions of Party membership, is thereby placing himself outside and against the Party he’s ostensibly writing inside and for.Your finding merit in the Royden article plays into my hand, and provides the missing substantiation that the ex-SPGB pair moved from inside to outside, and from for to against, the SPA, Marx and the SPGB.ObituaryIf Royden was being forthright, honest and up-front in tone in writing an obituary on the SPA, then he was also being forthright, honest and up-front in tone in writing an obituary for Marx, and for the SPGB.  If one is dead, so are they all, and that includes the SPGB.This makes my central, but contrary, point in this thread.  If everything is opinion, or bias, or ideology, then we are all as much opinionated, biased and ideological as the next.If so, we have an insubstantial basis for dumping an existing world social system [presumably merely the result of someone-else’s former bias, opinion, ideology] for a non-existing world social system [presumably merely the fantasy of our own bias, opinion, ideology].That, of course, is nonsense.Socialism is materialist and deterministic, or not at all.  The only obituary we strive for is capitalism’s.

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Royden ArticleReference: http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/objects/pdf/d0483.pdf

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I have pointed out on a discussion list, the SPA wrote its own obituary in 1948.

Please cite a reference to your post.

pgb wrote:

It is an unusual piece because of a very forthright, honest and up-front tone, which I haven't found in other issues of Socialist Comment.

The only thing forthright, honest and up-front in tone about the article is its statement that the socialist case of the SPA, of the SPGB and of Marx has been put for a century, and the world has rejected it, and that we now should reconsider the socialist case of the SPA, of the SPGB, and of Marx because it’s just our bias, opinion, ideology — and is probably wrong.The only explanation I can imagine for the EC letting it through was difficulty of communication between scattered EC members, some of whose advice to reject was overridden or possibly not sought, and the desire for the Party to publish post haste a historical appraisal of world socialism for the centenary celebration of the “The Communist Manifesto”.Why thoroughly likable Jack Topp agreed to publish the article is beyond me.  Perhaps it was his general magnanimity.  [Jack was a perpetual, and so familiar, sight at Melbourne Trades Hall.  He was the only layman that future prime minister Hawke, when long-term industrial advocate and head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), relied on for industrial and legal opinion, and he nurtured future ACTU advocate and Federal treasurer Ralph Willis.]For or AgainstIt certainly is a demoralizing article for the world socialist case;  and the author, by disavowing its Object and Declaration of Principles, the sole conditions of Party membership, is thereby placing himself outside and against the Party he’s ostensibly writing inside and for.Your finding merit in the Royden article plays into my hand, and provides the missing substantiation that the ex-SPGB pair moved from inside to outside, and from for to against, the SPA, Marx and the SPGB.ObituaryIf Royden was being forthright, honest and up-front in tone in writing an obituary on the SPA, then he was also being forthright, honest and up-front in tone in writing an obituary for Marx, and for the SPGB.  If one is dead, so are they all, and that includes the SPGB.This makes my central, but contrary, point in the Materialism thread.  If everything is opinion, or bias, or ideology, then we are all as much opinionated, biased and ideological as the next.If so, we have an insubstantial basis for dumping an existing world social system [presumably merely the result of someone-else’s former bias, opinion, ideology] for a non-existing world social system [presumably merely the fantasy of our own bias, opinion, ideology].That, of course, is nonsense.Socialism is materialist and deterministic, or not at all.  The only obituary we strive for is capitalism’s.

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