[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

So, if 'everybody can know', why can't they vote to change what they know?If it's because there is a difference between 'the world' and what 'they know of the world', who 'knows the world' that they collectively don't?

I'm not sure the question is sensible: if everybody can know the world, why won't Louise sleep with me?  They aren't two propositions that are causally linked.If I understand correctly what you're saying, because someone can be wrong, i.e. because truth exists, you're saying that only a minority can tell people they are wrong.  But that doesn't follow. No-one might the world' that they collectively don't.

LBird wrote:

Marx pointed this out in his Theses on Feuerbach. For 'materialism', there has to be an elite who 'know the world', who can tell the majority that they are wrong in their own determination of what 'everybody can know'.

You still haven't proven this, it could just as easily be a majority that points out the minority is wrong.  Claiming Max's authority (for what I consider a misreading of the theses) doe not constitute proof.I'd suggest your aunt sally answer, "because there is a difference between 'the world' and what 'they know of the world', is not the answer, rather, I'd suggest, it is because you cannot change knowing without changing being, being in the world preceeds knowing (social being determines social consciousness, as Engels said).  We and the world can change, but that does not mean that the being wasn't there: history has happened. Put more succinctly, because there is no magic.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

 'Materialism' is the perfect ideology for elitists, like Lenin, because it posits a 'special consciousness', not available to all and so not democratic, by which the elite 'know matter'. 

Can I just quietly point out you have never substantiated this claim.

[Young Master Smeet]

On this issue, I thought the detractors of Engels were the ones who noted his adherence to Social Democrats, and Marx was the more rrrrevolutionary of the two, and that Lenin rediscovered the true Marx, past the social democrat turns of Engels.

[Young Master Smeet]

I feel my reading of Marx and Engels has benefitted, with some interesting passages thrown in here and there.

[Young Master Smeet]

'Material' is equally slippery in English, ranging from germane to cloth.  But, even absent the qualification of 'world' ". In my case the opposite is nothing other than the material which is translated and translated in man's head."  Given the opposition to ideal in the preceeding sentence, and discussion of the real, it's clear that material means of or pertaining to matter.

[Young Master Smeet]

The original german:

Quote:

Meine dialektische Methode ist der Grundlage nach von der Hegelschen nicht nur verschieden, sondern hir direktes Gegenteil. Für Hegel ist der Denkprozeß, den er sogar unter dem Namen Idee in ein selbständiges Subjekt verwandelt, der Demiurg des Wirklichen, das nur seine äußere Erscheinung bildet. Bei mir ist umgekehrt das Ideelle nichts andres als das im Menschenkopf umgesetzte und übersetzte Materielle.

And according to google translate "umgesetzte und übersetzte" seems to be the problem (google gives both as translated), but I think -um- and uber- giving the impression of over and around put.  Nonetheless, it is certainly a lot balder than anything Engels put out.Edit: Hmm, interested: after a bit of tinkering, the Internet renders that as 'unreacted/unconverted and translated', which is very different from reflected.  Think we'd need a ruling from a German speaker.

[Young Master Smeet]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Brzozowski_(writer)Let's not forget that Chucky himself published one of the most reductionistic phrases himself: "With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought."  It took the publication of the German Ideology to displace that phrasing (and note Engel's letter (above) on the same point).

[Young Master Smeet]

Clearly this debate is not social labour, I have to do it myself:

Engels wrote:

Let us now picture to ourselves, by way of change, a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community. All the characteristics of Robinson’s labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of use for himself. The total product of our community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers. We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour time. Labour time would, in that case, play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution.[…]The life-process of society, which is based on the process of material production, does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men, and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan. This, however, demands for society a certain material ground-work or set of conditions of existence which in their turn are the spontaneous product of a long and painful process of development.

That, is what social production "freely associated men,  and [it] is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan."

[Young Master Smeet]

Lbird,could you define social production?

[Young Master Smeet]

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_10_27.htmThis letter may be of interest.  But the point is, Marx and Engels wrote the German ideology together (and after the philosophical manuscripts, 1846), so that chapter on Materialism does belong to them both.This seems apposite:https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1893/letters/93_07_14.htm

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

So, who determines 'ability' and 'needs', YMS?Isolated individuals or social producers?How are these social products made?By ahistoric, asocial personal intuition, or by democratic discussion?

Concrete individual human beings entering into a conscious association.

[Young Master Smeet]

You mean he died before the German Ideology was published (1932)?

[Young Master Smeet]

Of course there are limits to what democracy can do.Democracy cannot give the decision of votes to the minority, for starters.Democracy cannot decide the result opf a vote (if we have to vote on the truth, how can we know the result of a vote?).Democracy cannot give a blow job.  It might be able to organise and authorise a blow job, but it really cannot give it.Democracy is not just voting, it is so much more than that.Now, as for social production: individuals have to come into definite relationships for there to be social production.Communism means from EACH (individual) according to the ability, to EACH (individual) acording to their needs.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

But probably of more political importance now, also to ask robbo and YMS to explain why the SPGB argues for the political concept of 'Limited democracy', and that an elite of 'Specialists' will predetermine the nature of those 'Limits'.

We don't argue for that, and you have not provided a single quote from me to prove that I have ever said any such thing: I'm afraid you construct straw men (per your birfurcation fallacy) and wnyone who doesn't agree with you automatically supports elite domination.I'll note that my attempt to engage with you, and see if I was understanding your arguments correctly has been met with yet one more example of you withdrawing from debate, rather than seaking to cl;arify your ideas.

[Young Master Smeet]

I missed the documentary about Assad's disappearances: obviously, he is wading his way through blood to stay in power, sadly, though, a lot of blood would need to be shed to be rid of him. Witness:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39383989

BBC wrote:

A senior UN official in Iraq said she was stunned by accounts of "terrible loss of life", after claims that at least 200 people had been killed in an air strike by the US-led coalition.

Iraq Body count lists:Mosul: 230 by coalition air strikes; 108 in booby-trapped houses; 3 by mortar shelling; 1 by rocket; 3 women executed; 1 by IED. That's for Thursday (probably includes the figures in the UN report).  Note the BBC concentrates on the careful investigation by the US.Airwars appears to have some data:https://airwars.org/data/Worth looking at.

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