[Young Master Smeet]

Obviously by "The practical creation of an objective world, the fashioning of inorganic nature" Marx is also saying we make a world of our objects (and as much again, our consciousness resides in our products and the objects we create), not that we create the objective universe, we didn't make the sun, but we made the objects (words, ideas, notions) that accompany it.

[Young Master Smeet]

uncle Charlie wrote:

The universality of man manifests itself in practice in that universality which makes the whole of nature his inorganic body, (1) as a direct means of life and (2) as the matter, the object, and the tool of his life activity.  ] Nature is man's inorganic body — that is to say, nature insofar as it is not the human body. Man lives from nature — i.e., nature is his body — and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it is he is not to die. To say that man's physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.

Sorry, jiggered up my tags, the quote is from the Economic and Philosophical manuscripts…

[Young Master Smeet]

Ah, now I see where you are coming from:

uncle Charlie wrote:

[The practical creation of an objective world, the fashioning of inorganic nature, is proof that man is a conscious species-being — i.e., a being which treats the species as its own essential being or itself as a species-being. It is true that animals also produce. They build nests and dwelling, like the bee, the beaver, the ant, etc. But they produce only their own immediate needs or those of their young; they produce only when immediate physical need compels them to do so, while man produces even when he is free from physical need and truly produces only in freedom from such need; they produce only themselves, while man reproduces the whole of nature; their products belong immediately to their physical bodies, while man freely confronts his own product. Animals produce only according to the standards and needs of the species to which they belong, while man is capable of producing according to the standards of every species and of applying to each object its inherent standard; hence, man also produces in accordance with the laws of beauty.

But

uncle CharlieThe universality of man manifests itself in practice in that universality which makes the whole of nature his inorganic body, (1) as a direct means of life and (2) as the matter, the object, and the tool of his life activity.  wrote:

Nature is man's inorganic body — that is to say, nature insofar as it is not the human body. Man lives from nature — i.e., nature is his body — and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it is he is not to die. To say that man's physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.

(My emphasis) .  For Unca Charlie there is an objective world (and, due to alienation, an objective social world) the point of building a conscious association, a synonym for socialism for him, is to end that alienation and make our relationship to nature direct, and joyful.  So, here we have what I've been saying all along, a world exists outside us, of which our ideas and consciousness are a part, we are, to paraphrase Werner Herzog, the universe seeing itself. 

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

The claim that there is 'an objective external world' (ie. outside of a consciousness) is opposed by Marx's claim that we humans create our own world, by our social theory and practice upon inorganic nature. That produces organic nature, or nature-for-us, our own creation.So, if by 'objective world' you mean 'organic nature', then you are wrong, according to Marx's ideas. The 'objective world' is the one we create, not one 'out there' 'outside of human consciousness'.

German Ideology wrote:

The way in which men produce their means of subsistence depends first of all on the nature of the actual means of subsistence they find in existence and have to reproduce.

18th Brumaire wrote:

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

(even if that is a human created world, it is one that exists for me as ifobjective and given, since I cannot alter it by merely chosing, but only be workign upon what I find, and changing it).

Critique of the Gotha Program wrote:

Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labor power. the above phrase is to be found in all children's primers and is correct insofar as it is implied that labor is performed with the appurtenant subjects and instruments. But a socialist program cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the conditions that lone give them meaning. And insofar as man from the beginning behaves toward nature, the primary source of all instruments and subjects of labor, as an owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labor becomes the source of use values, therefore also of wealth. The bourgeois have very good grounds for falsely ascribing supernatural creative power to labor; since precisely from the fact that labor depends on nature it follows that the man who possesses no other property than his labor power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labor. He can only work with their permission, hence live only with their permission.

For anyone who dabbles in thinking, the only way in which this makes sense is if there is a nature exterior to human labour upon which we work.

Lbird wrote:

The bourgeoisie allege that the 'objective world' is the one we find or discover 'as it is'. Well, to echo Mandy, 'they would say that, wouldn't they?'. The 'external world' we live in, is the very one they have created, by their class-based theory and practice, and so to accept this 'external reality' as the basis of our practice is obviously a conservative method. That's why they are keen on the inductive method, which starts from 'what is', rather than criticism of 'what is' and the determination to change 'what is'.The only 'objective world' for humans is our 'socially-objective world'.So , to accept their class-based claim that the 'objective world' is not created by them, but simply 'is', removes the possibility of democratic creation anew, and thus maintains 'minority rule'.

Put simply, no, it doesn't, your conclusion doesn't follow.  To say that the world is as it is just as much allows us to change it.  An objective world means that we can expose ruling class lies and illusions.  Even if they have created it, they are creating the objective weapons they are putting in our hands, and they will find us objectively in control.  The point of Marxism is not how the world is, but acting to change it.  After all, the first step to curing a disease is finding where it is and how it works.The Bourgsoieie did not create yellow.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Which bit of 'theory and practice' do you keep missing, YMS. It seems that you keep reading Marx's phrase 'theory and practice' as 'theory' (alone).I think I know why you do this: you are using Engelsian materialism, which argues that there are only two philosophical trends, ie. idealism and materialism. So, you categorise any talk of 'theory' as 'idealism' and forget that Marx unified 'idealism and materialism', ie. 'idealism-materialism', 'theory and practice'.

Yes, Marx was a monist, the world is made of one substance (so that excludes dualism that ideas are something other than matter and we have to explain how they interact with it), so the methods of examining the physical world apply equally to those of examining the mental world. 

LBird wrote:

So, NO-ONE is saying that 'ideas' alone (idealism) is the route to go down.Marx argued that we need ideas to inform our practice, as we create our world: I've already given a quote from Capital to support this view.

And no-one has disputed that, we're discussing the ontological status of ideas, and their substance, along with the the existence of an external objective world. The point I was making was that your claim that the existence of an objective external world automatically leads to bourgeois ideology and minority rule is patently false, and can support the idea that we can liberate science (indeed, I woud  suggest it is an essential ingredient for the liberation and socialising on science).

[Young Master Smeet]

From Earlier this week:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weYt8WT30CgChannel Four News, excellent analysis on the role of the ex-Baathists and the continuity between Saddam's rule and the methodology of IS.  It's not just religious obscurantism.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

YMS wrote:

What about a materialism that allows for collective open investigation of the world…

YMS, are you actually unable to read?Idealism-MATERIALISM, Idealism-MATERIALISM, Idealism-MATERIALISM…Why do you materialists keep asking the same questions?

Well, given that idealism states that the world is made of ideas, and materialism that it is made of matter, either you are advocating dualism, or some sort of third substance that is an amalgam of ideas and matter: what to call it I know not what.  The substantive point is, there is a world outside our minds that we cannot change nor know merely by thinking about it.  If our minds are intimately connected to that exterior world, then we are subject to causation as well, and open to investigation.

[Young Master Smeet]

Quote:

The reserve funds of the banks, in countries with developed capitalist production, always express on the average the quantity of money existing in the form of a hoard, and a portion of this hoard in turn consists of paper, mere drafts upon gold, which have no value in themselves. The greater portion of banker's capital is, therefore, purely fictitious and consists of claims (bills of exchange), government securities (which represent spent capital), and stocks (drafts on future revenue). And it should not be forgotten that the money-value of the capital represented by this paper in the safes of the banker is itself fictitious, in so far as the paper consists of drafts on guaranteed revenue (e.g., government securities), or titles of ownership to real capital (e.g., stocks), and that this value is regulated differently from that of the real capital, which the paper represents at least in part; or, when it represents mere claims on revenue and no capital, the claim on the same revenue is expressed in continually changing fictitious money-capital. In addition to this, it must be noted that this fictitious banker's capital represents largely, not his own capital, but that of the public, which makes deposits with him, either interest-bearing or not.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch29.htmHe seems to be suggesting that the paper value of such capital depends on the prevailing rate of interest (which is itself a dependent but arbitrary aspect of the overall rate of profit).May require more careful reading.

[Young Master Smeet]

Here's Richard Murphy (who has Corbyn's ear):http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/01/05/jo-stiglitz-needs-to-lean-what-banks-do-and-dont-do/

Quote:

The relationship between deposits and investment is much more remote and complex in that case. Effectively deposit taking is a service utterly distinct from lending although historically undertaken by the same institutions. What the deposit taking does provide is capital to underpin risk at very low cost. That is because money deposited in banks ceases to be the property of the depositor: it becomes the property of the bank. What the depositor is left with is a loan to a bank that may, or may not be repaid (hence the bank deposit protection schemes that would not, otherwise, be needed). So the cash deposited then becomes the bank’s risk capital in the event that they make poor lending decisions (as was seen in the case of Northern Rock). But that capital is a buffer to the bank, and not a source of funds for lending.

So, er, the deposits do cover teh loans, and are intermediated.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Materialism is essentially a bourgeois notion, suited to elites and minorities, and which can ignore change and democracy.

That doesn't follow, an objective world is just as hostile to an elite as to a revolutionary class.  An objective world is also amenable to collective examination and verification, whereas an idealist world is in fact highly amenable to any elite that can seize control of the means of communication, as the revolution against the aristocracy showed.

LBird wrote:

Marx's philosophy was an amalgam of the creativity of idealism and the reality of human production, as any reading of his Theses on Feuerbach will show.

Idealism isn't especially creative (no more nor less than materialism), especially not in the Hegelian variety, which emphasised the becoming of the mind of God.  All idealism says is that the world is made of ideas, and there is no (meaningful) external world which we can apprehend.

LBird wrote:

But the clinching argument is at heart a simple one: which is better suited to the purposes of the class conscious proletariat?A 'materialism' that stresses respect for the unelected elite, that argues that the 'material' determines our social thoughts, or an 'idealism-materialism' which provides a philosophical basis for democratic production.What is our class' purpose? 'Eternal Truth', 'Objective Knowledge'? Or 'A Better World', 'Democratic Communism'?

What about a materialism that allows for collective open investigation of the world, and the practical development and refinement of means of examining and measuring the world?  A materialism where proletarian scientists collaborate and freely distribute literature (twc was slightly incorrect, even your local library can get you access to rarified scientific papers, just not necessarily quickly).

[Young Master Smeet]

http://boingboing.net/2016/01/04/thomas-piketty-on-thomas-piket.html

Quote:

Also, in my book I do not pay sufficient attention to the development of other alternative forms of property arrangements and participatory governance. One central reason why progressive capital taxation is important is because it can also bring increased transparency about company assets and accounts. In turn, increased financial transparency can help to develop new forms of governance; for instance, it can facilitate more worker involvement in company boards. In other words, “social-democratic” institutions such as progressive taxation (see Miriam Ronzoni in this symposium) can foster institutions that question in a more radical manner the very functioning of private property (note that progressive capital taxation transforms large private property as a temporary attribute rather than a permanent one – already a significant change). However these other institutions – whose aim should be to redefine and regulate property rights and power relations – must also be analyzed as such – a step that I do not fully follow in this book.

Not read the full debate, maybe a braver soul wants to dive in.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

When Marx uses the term 'material', he means 'social production'. […]Whereas, I interpret 'conditions' to be 'human social theory and practice' (following Marx), ie. everything to do with ideas, theory, society, history, especially production. […]Put simply, Marx means that current social production is constrained by previous social production. Nothing about 'matter', or the rocks determining our human activities.

Exactly, us, the talking, moving, thinking rocks, doing things.  We are made of matter, so are our processes and our thoughts, they are real, exist and subject to natural laws. We cannot just think food into our stomachs, any more than we can transcend the speed of light.  At an atomic level, there is little practical difference between you and a diamond in a pond.  So, shine on you crazy diamond.

[Young Master Smeet]

Quote:

The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature….Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.

Of course, how can someone with a Liberal Agrarianist ideology comprehend such things?Also, I'd note that LBird's "bourgeois science" does condemn an awful lot of proletarians engaged in science to non-existence.  Also, i'd note that the likes of Kline must by the same reasoning be using Bourgeois philosophy to make their claims about the philosophy of science…

[Young Master Smeet]

I note LBird is still declining to deal with the problem of humans making history but not in conditions of their own choosing, maybe his Anarcho Feudalism can't deal with such an idea.

[Young Master Smeet]

Don't think the Election Dept is preventing anything. Could you fill us on what is happeneing?  What do you mean 'preventing me from using it'?  Do you mean they won't give you the password?

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