[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

There will be 'social producers', because 'social producers' exist in every society. In terms of process, today's social producers (workers, proletariat) will transform themselves into socialism's social producers. It's easier just to use the term 'workers', but Vin has a bee in his bonnet about this, and now you and others seem to have jumped on the bandwagon, because I've stopped replying and explaining to Vin.

So, just to be clear, in your future Catholic society, will the old, the sick, the infirm and children not have a vote? 

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Why not just openly say what your ideology is, YMS, rather than pretend that you don't know (and that I don't know) and that it will simply 'emerge' during, presumably, 'objective' debate.Since when have the gods Debate, Consistency, Coherence and Validation determined 'rationality', etc.?

Since communication has been a social process, and debate has been about how to produce meaning.As I have said many times, I am a Marxist and a democratic socialist, I seek to hide nothing,I believe in common ownership of the means of production, the free association of producers, and creating a society where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all: where every human being is treated as an end in themself, and human society's goal is to develop human potential.Now, as a ctholic, you believe in one god, father the almighty, maker of heaven and earth, orf all that is seen and unseen.   You believe in the Lord Jesus Chirst, god from god, light from light, true god from true god, begotten not made, of one being with the father.  you believe in the holy spirit, the lord the giver of life…So you keep telling us, ad nauseam, why do you keep banging on about being a catholic?

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Whose 'rational, whose 'reasonable', whose 'argument' and whose 'evidence', YMS?

Debate's, and consistency's.  Can the argument coherently endure, and explain what it is trying to explain: can it's moves be validated, and is the validation itself inconsistent.  Again, you attribute positions to me I don't hold.  You don't seek to try and find out.  Mere denonotative locutions cannot announce an ideology, it is an emergent property of debate.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

I knew that you've give up, YMS.You won't have workers' democracy, and you're even reluctant to discuss it, and want to talk about yourself and individualism. Why not openly reveal your ideology, rather than pretend to be wanting to 'objectively' read Marx.

Nothing objective about it, but rational, reaonable, based on argumnt and evidence : if you can change the meaning of a text, arbitrarily, there is no scope for dialectic.  There are no invalid moves in your language game.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

They'll mean what the ideology trying to understand Marx's words, says that they mean.Since I'm a Democratic Communist, concerned to build up the confidence and abilities of the class concious proletariat for their aim of building socialism, Marx's words are about 'social production', workers, and democracy.

And cut.  There is no possibility for debate in Humpty Dumpty world, eitehr words have historical, logical meanings that can be examined by their usage and assemblage in a text, or they don't.What this means is there is no point discussing Marx, and exploring his meanings with you, all we can do is judge your ideas as tand alone, based on your words (though your words, too are meaningless, if I accept what you say above).Clearly, this is how you debate, you decide what someone's position is, and then proceed to argue against that.  When asked to define terms, you fail, dismally, and resort to repeating them slowly and loudly.You might want to consider how succesful such a discoursive approach may be.  Because, although you say you are a democratic communist, I've decided in my ideology that you are an Orthodox Catholic, so how dare you support the transubstantiation of the eucharist, who are you to question the decisions of the magisterium, how can you reconcile the indivisibility of catholicism with your rejection of Vatican II?

[Young Master Smeet]

Well, he's clearly saying animal being preceded conscious being.  And clearly stating that social applies only to multiple humans working together, so a being on their own can produce, is that not so?  Or do none of Marx' words mean what they say?

[Young Master Smeet]

See, thing is, Marx could define social:

Quote:

By social we understand the co-operation of several individuals, no matter under what conditions, in what manner and to what end.

So a woman alone on an island picking fruit is not social, she is merely satisfying her own needs.Oh, and just for old times sake, here's what Marx eally said about social production:

Quote:

Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all. Consciousness is at first, of course, merely consciousness concerning the immediate sensuous environment and consciousness of the limited connection with other persons and things outside the individual who is growing self-conscious. At the same time it is consciousness of nature, which first appears to men as a completely alien, all-powerful and unassailable force, with which men’s relations are purely animal and by which they are overawed like beasts; it is thus a purely animal consciousness of nature (natural religion) just because nature is as yet hardly modified historically. (We see here immediately: this natural religion or this particular relation of men to nature is determined by the form of society and vice versa. Here, as everywhere, the identity of nature and man appears in such a way that the restricted relation of men to nature determines their restricted relation to one another, and their restricted relation to one another determines men’s restricted relation to nature.) On the other hand, man’s consciousness of the necessity of associating with the individuals around him is the beginning of the consciousness that he is living in society at all. This beginning is as animal as social life itself at this stage. It is mere herd-consciousness, and at this point man is only distinguished from sheep by the fact that with him consciousness takes the place of instinct or that his instinct is a conscious one. This sheep-like or tribal consciousness receives its further development and extension through increased productivity, the increase of needs, and, what is fundamental to both of these, the increase of population. With these there develops the division of labour, which was originally nothing but the division of labour in the sexual act, then that division of labour which develops spontaneously or “naturally” by virtue of natural predisposition (e.g. physical strength), needs, accidents, etc. etc. Division of labour only becomes truly such from the moment when a division of material and mental labour appears. (The first form of ideologists, priests, is concurrent.) From this moment onwards consciousness can really flatter itself that it is something other than consciousness of existing practice, that it really represents something without representing something real; from now on consciousness is in a position to emancipate itself from the world and to proceed to the formation of “pure” theory, theology, philosophy, ethics, etc.

[Young Master Smeet]

Quote:

A fine conclusion! If useful labor is possible only in society and through society, the proceeds of labor belong to society — and only so much therefrom accrues to the individual worker as is not required to maintain the "condition" of labor, society.In fact, this proposition has at all times been made use of by the champions of the state of society prevailing at any given time. First comes the claims of the government and everything that sticks to it, since it is the social organ for the maintenance of the social order; then comes the claims of the various kinds of private property, for the various kinds of private property are the foundations of society, etc. One sees that such hollow phrases are the foundations of society, etc. One sees that such hollow phrases can be twisted and turned as desired.

I think it was Engels who said that, or was it Kautsky?  So, to be clear, you think that only through society, as expressed throuh it's organs of violence, can production occur?

[Young Master Smeet]

Lbird, can non-social producers create a product?

[Young Master Smeet]

Vin wrote:

I have asked a simple question 'Will the proletariat exist in democratic communism'. It is easily answered. 'yes'  or 'no' without reference to

A slightly better question is: if the revolutionary proletariat exrcise democratic decision making, what otehr classes are there in society?Further, to return to the question of violence, not all human beings are capable of violence (or effective violence) so, if the democratyic majority is to have its way, it rests on the fraction of society that can be violent, not on the whole community.  Is this, then, not dividing society into two parts, the violent and the violented?

[Young Master Smeet]

The default is a single authority at any given time for any given topic, the membership of which might overlap, just as say, under the old English council system it was one council but with many sub-committees having the real say, or like the Paris Commune which worked in much the same way.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

I've recently said that I find the SPGB's attitude to 'power' to be strange for a political party – but perhaps the reason is emerging more clearly, now.

We're just slavishly following Marx:

Quote:

 The character of the election does not depend on this name, but on the economic foundation, the economic situation of the voters, and as soon as the functions have ceased to be political ones, there exists 1) no government function, 2) the distribution of the general functions has become a business matter, that gives no one domination, 3) election has nothing of its present political character.

Electing the milkboard would be non-political, since there would be no class contest, and the question of 'who rules?' would be settled.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

This is your 'substantive point', YMS. It's a political argument for the liberal theory of the diffusion of 'powers', similar to legislature, executive, judiciary, etc.

Nothing of the sort, it is based on freedom of association, not separation of power  The model is more cybernetic, thn liberal, with autonomous associations for specific functions forming vertical and horizontal connections, in particular circumstances.

LBird wrote:

On the contrary, my 'substantive point' is that there will be a single world authority, which will have any necessary final say regarding any 'many, varied and overlapping [lower level] authorities'.

I agree, there would have to be a single world authority, but the idea that it would have a direct line of command/control to Droitwich Rugby Club is absurd.Moreover, there is no necessary reason why that singular entity should always have the final say, it would be rational to have a world emergencies committee which might temporarilly supercede teh wrold authority, or there might be competing world authorities working in parrallel, for example a forld forestry commission, and a world agriculture administration, and no regular way to impose on either of them (except maybe through some sort of general, and rare, global plebiscite).Many authorities would have a competence competence, and many wouldn't, and would be subject to the competence of a higher body, the main point would be information and discussion first.

[Young Master Smeet]

The substantive point is, there won't be one way of making decisions, but thousands, where useful, algorithmic decision making can be applied, sometimes, raw voting, sometimes weighted scoring by technical experts, each organisation, community and region will be different: single non-transferable voting, single transferable voting, condorcet pairwise voting, condorcet pairwise voting with AV track back, block vote, limited vote, d'Hondt, droop.  I won't be voting on the colour of the bus stops in Dorset, nor about the street names in Aberdeen.  I might have a vote for the world forestry commission, etc.In Socialist as a Practical Alternative, we cite the Food and Agriculture Organisation as a potential precursor to a world agricultural plan, but I doubt the decision of what to do with that field just off Thames Road should be used for would be taken at their head office, though their advisors might visit the local authority, and advise them in the light of expertise and co-ordinating with the world food plan…. etc.  There would be many, varied and overlapping authorities involved in many decisions, not a single vote, and some decisions even might be made by consensus.

[Young Master Smeet]

gnome wrote:

Lawrie's case was different insofar as he threatened violence against fellow-members and when he refused to resign was expelled by Central London branch.

That isn't what the charge was, though, was it, the threat of violence came after you charged moved the charge against him.

gnome wrote:

But the crucial distinction is in the 'bigness' and the nature of the audience. Party members (and there's now been two) announcing to the whole world on the SPGB's Facebook group page their intention to vote for the Labour party cannot be anything but immensely damaging to the Party and, IMO, constitutes 'action detrimental'.

Nope, not actin detrimental, breech of rule 6, yes, but not action detrimental.

[Author]

Posts