Young Master Smeet
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LBird wrote:By 'material', Marx means 'human', as opposed to 'ideal' meaning 'divine'.So, by 'material production', Marx means 'social production'.
You're going to have to provcide textual proof of those claims: you've made them before, but if, humpty style, Marx says what you want him to say, thios conversation is pointless.Further, can I ask: what wopuld it take to dirsprove Marx? What would demonstrate that he was wrong on that subject?
Short of time:
Marx wrote:Whatever may be the social form of the products-supply, its preservation requires outlays for buildings, vessels, etc., which are facilities for storing the product; also for means of production and labour, more or less of which must be expended, according to the nature of the product, in order to combat injurious influences. The more concentrated socially the supply is, the smaller relatively are the costs. These outlays always constitute a part of the social labour, in either materialised or living form — hence in the capitalist form outlays of capital — which do not enter into the formation of the product itself and thus are deductions from the product. They are necessary, these unproductive expenses of social wealth. They are the costs of preserving the social product regardless of whether its existence as an element of the commodity-supply stems merely from the social form of production, hence from the commodity-form and its necessary change of form, or whether we regard the commodity-supply merely as a special form of the supply of products, which is common to all societies, although not in the form of a commodity-supply that form of products-supply belonging in the process of circulation.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch06.htmCabinet Ministers, like directors of Companies can be said to be pensioners of the capitalist class, and to be getting a share of the surplus value: but I think that isn't their ministerial salary, but the deferred payment in form of directorships and speaking tours. If the ministers had, as in the SU, control of productive wealth, then they would be taking a share of surplus value.
Well, it's significant and useful to be informed of how the levers of state are being applied. The potential to actually destroy the Labour party is something we need to be aware of, because of the opportunity it represents.
"Rhetoric. A figure of speech in which a pair of opposed or markedly contradictory terms are placed in conjunction for emphasis." Such as a bitter sweet. The original meaning has slipped in common usage.Elite is just old French for elect, the choice (or chosen) part of a society or group, the majority can be chosen,
Unless she has enough personal capital to live on and not work~: yes. The main point is that tehe is a clear pension now, as Private Eye has demonstrated in its coverage of erevolving doors: top flight politicians are guaranteed consultancies, directorships and the speaking circuit, ultimately, those are forms of channelling surplus value to loyal servants.
Nope, nothing in the definition of elite says it has to be a minority, it is a chosen section of society (ooh, and the point of oxymorons is they make sense, you're trying for a contradiction in terms).
OK, inorganic nature is not matter, but it is something outside our social production, isn't it? (Although, just to quote Marx: "which makes all nature his inorganic body – both inasmuch as nature is (1) his direct means of life, and (2) the material, the object, and the instrument of his life activity." does seem to suggest inorganic nature is material, i.e. composed of matter? Got a counter quote? [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htmI've already noted, you haven't proven that the existence of matter creates an elite or the need for an elite, while your voting on truth does create an elite majority who decide what the truth is, compared to the minority who are denied.
LBird wrote:and argue for 'matter' which is outside of our social production.You mean like Marx did, calling it inorganic nature?If humans are divine creators, doesn't that make humans absolute ultimate a finality?
Politicians who receive a salary are salaried workers like any other: it's just they have a slightly complex interview process. If, after they cease to be an MP, they don't have property to fall back on, they will have to get another job.
Tim,
Jordan wrote:It is a fateful error to set society and culture over against natureSound like anyone we know?Likewise
Jordan wrote:For man, who is part of nature, to doubt the existence of the external world or to consider it as in need of proof is to doubt his own existenceKind of what I just asked, really…
LBird wrote:Marx regarded humans as divine creators.JUst one question: where do humans come from, if the world is their divine creation?
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm
Quote:Bakunin wrote:Certainly, with your permission, of former workers, who however, as soon as they have become representatives or governors of the people, cease to be workers…Marx wrote:As little as a factory owner today ceases to be a capitalist if he becomes a municipal councillor…I reserve the right to change my mind, Hebridean Exophagism is sooooo last year.This article refuted its basic premisesBut what I think has been irrelevent since they discovered all Yorkshiremen are liars.
LBird wrote:If you don't share his political and ideological beliefs, then your 'understanding' will be built upon other political and ideological beliefs.So only people who agree with you already can understand you?
LBird wrote:But you are hiding yours.I revealed it earlier in this thread, I am a Marxist humanist who believes in the self emancipation of the proletariate via the the revolutionary democratic conquest of political power, the end of alienation, and abolition of the wages system, and the common and democratic ownership and control of the means and instruments of producing and distribuing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.
LBird wrote:Produce and create are pure synonyms for Marx.Citation needed. A quick scan of Marx's works found create often related to value, but produce relating to needs. For example: "In the process of production, human beings work not only upon nature, but also upon one another." A turn of phrase like "But these functions neither create value, nor produce surplus-value. Also "The difficulty as concerns mercantile wage-workers is by no means to explain how they produce direct profits for their employer without creating any direct surplus-value (of which profit is but a transmuted form)." Is interesting, value is created by humans (capital does produce surplus value) https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch17.htm seems to indicate a synonym relationshipLooking for "creator" gets: "So far therefore as labour is a creator of use value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity, without which there can be no material exchanges between man and Nature, and therefore no life." which I will leave to stand on its own as a comment on your reading of Marx.
Quote:So, I don't need to 'add meaning' – that's what you want to do. Your 'clarification' is an attempt to 'redefine' – why not admit it? You simply want to redefine Marx's revolutionary, democratic epistemology, into a conservative, elite epistemology, and then claim that 'Marx was wrong' and 'LBird is wrong'.Our whole dispute is a disagreement aboiut reading Marx, you say he said one thing, I say he said something else, I'd liek to know, given we've both read the same words, how we got here.
Quote:It's not 'ad hominem' to say you 'seem to' have cloth ears, because I keep giving explanations, and you redefine or rephrase them into your terms. I think that I'm being more than reasonable, with someone who doesn't read what I write (or Marx or Jordan), but keeps bleating about 'personal attacks'.It is ad hominem, a clear thinker does not interpolate the abilities of intentions of their audience, but merely seeks to refine the rguments in the lights of questions.
