[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

And, of course 'democracy is about more than voting', but 'voting' is at the heart of it.

I'd argue freedom of information, expression and association come well above voting, and the right for minorities to try and become majorities (and for majorities to not enforce their will unless necessary): voting is just a means to assist the discursive process.  Sometimes we need to weight the strngth as well as quantity on a question: a minority that strongly holds it's opinion compared to a lightly held majority needs to be taken into account.  The conversation never ends.

[Young Master Smeet]

Beside the poin, communists are workers too, communists are part of how the working class enlightens itself.  However, the "Communist confession of faith" does kind of destroy Lenin's idea that a government should create "socialism" in order to enlighten the working class, but that it won't happen until the working class is conscious and unified.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/06/09.htm"The development of the masses cannot he ordered by decree."

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

So, why won't you allow a vote on 'truth'?

It's not up to me, or any socialist to say how socialism will be democratically be run, I just don't see what the earthly use is, and I note that democracy is about more than voting.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

You really, really don't understand any of this, do you, YMS? This is Engels' 'Materialism', 'that day' and every day, and is nothing whatsoever to do with Marx's ideas about 'social production'.

So, according to you, if the majority of humans, at any point in history had just wanted communism, they could have had it?The quote I used was an adjunct to this section:

Quote:

Question 6: How do you wish to prepare the way for your community of property?Answer: By enlightening and uniting the proletariat.

I eman, what you are arguing for is Lenin's position, that by force of will alone humanity can reach communism.  Why do you support Stalin so?

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

'Materialism' argues that 'Truth equals Matter', and that only a minority of specialists have access to this 'matter', and that it therefore is not a political issue for workers.

But that isn't true, and doesn't follow, thorough materialism says the world is available for access to all.  And that is how we differ from Leninists, we think that each human, not an amorphous mass, has access to reality, and can freely shape their own world by interacting with it.

[Young Master Smeet]

Actually, I was wrong, it was Engels who wrote that, clearly something was wrong with his materialism that day.  He also wrote this:

Quote:

Answer: We are convinced not only of the uselessness but even of the harmfulness of all conspiracies. We are also aware that revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily but that everywhere and at all times they are the necessary consequence of circumstances which are not in any way whatever dependent either on the will or on the leadership of individual parties or of whole classes. But we also see that the development of the proletariat in almost all countries of the world is forcibly repressed by the possessing classes and that thus a revolution is being forcibly worked for by the opponents of communism. If, in the end, the oppressed proletariat is thus driven into a revolution, then we will defend the cause of the proletariat just as well by our deeds as now by our words.

[Young Master Smeet]

Wasn't it Marx who wrote:

Quote:

Today the entire German proletariat has to be placed under exceptional laws, merely in order to slow down a little the process of its development to full consciousness of its position as an oppressed class. At that time the few persons whose minds had penetrated to the realization of the historical role of the proletariat had to forgather in secret, to assemble clandestinely in small communities of 3 to 20 persons. Today the German proletariat no longer needs any official organization, either public or secret. The simple self-evident interconnection of like-minded class comrades suffices, without any rules, boards, resolutions or other tangible forms, to shake the whole German Empire to its foundations.

?

[Young Master Smeet]

If a conversation drifts that's one thing, but if someone starts totally off-topic posts, and essentially derail the discusion, that does get in the way of free debate, it's very easy for two people havng a ding-dong to kill a conversation.  Rule 11 is the best rule there, and shouldn't need conflict, just an occasional nag from the mods.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

It's probably clearer to say that Marx thought the class should be organised in a democratic way.

Considering I was discussing his specific amenments to a specific political party, no, that is not clearer.

LBird wrote:

YMS wrote:

But, it's clear that the congress of the league that retained supreme authority.

This is not 'clear' at all.Marx argued that the proletariat as a class was the 'supreme authority'.As is usual with materialists (like you), the emphasis is always upon 'party', and not 'class'. That's why you're following Lenin, and not Marx.

Well, it is clear, it's in the ruddy rules.  Considering Marx spent his life organising political parties, it's a bit rich to say we're fllowing Lonny'un in that regard.  It seems some think that comparisons to Lenin are like garlic of us Neo-endogenous Exophagist Neo-Heebredianists, but it's not, especially whent he comparissons are foolish.

[Young Master Smeet]

ALB wrote:

1. The theory of the need for a top-down, hierarchical vanguard party to lead the workers and seize power supposedly on their behalf.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/index.htmWe can see how Marx actually thought a party should be organised.  He did seek to centralise to some extent, but it's clear that that was in part a process of democratising and mofving away from the conspiratorial version of the rules:http://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/rules_draft.htmhttp://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/rules.htmBut, it's clear that the congress of the league that retained supreme authority.

[Young Master Smeet]

Sorry, my hatred of poor argumentation has kicked in.Vin owned the password to two accounts simultaneously without consulting the administrators.  That one of those accounts was under sanction dos not change the fact that his name was associated with it, and he was in control through poocessing the password. Please, please stop insulting our intelligence with your bilge and water weak sophistry.  

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Another Leninist tactic.Pretend that there is no slippery slope from 'Materialism' to 'Leninism'.

Hang on: you admit that you are employing a slippery slope argument?

[Young Master Smeet]

Oh, look, everyone, a slippery slope argument.  See it before it slides away.

[Young Master Smeet]

Just to expose my ideology, I'm coming at this as a post-neopraxian endo-phenomenological HussiteTo be fair to Lenin: in his 'What is to be done' he did propose a society of shared work, democratic production, with every cook an accountant, etc.  And in his later essays, such as "Better Fewer but Better" he suggested that the role of his government was to raise the culture of the workers: so I don't think he envisaged technical dictatorship forever, any more than Marx did.Thus

Quote:

This clearly means all members of society will have the same possibilities in education open to them, and they will control the education process itself, by democratic means. A socialist eduction will require that all those educated can explain clearly to everyone else what they propose to produce. There will be no 'priests' employing 'Latin' to 'read their own hidden bible', who then pretend to 'translate' their own elite understanding of their bible into words the illiterate peasants can comprehend.

is uncontrvoersial, and as a post-neopraxian endo-phenomenological Hussite I can endorse this, however, technical vocabulary is still needed: chemical compounds need names, even if given just a number, someone would still have to understand that H2SO4 encapsulates a certain set of properties.  I wouldn't expect every last member of the world society to memorise a complete list of chemical compounds, but I would expect that thee would be an understanding that these terms can be looked up, that any scholarly communication should be open to challenge and be mutually intelligible to anyone who had spent the time studying the subject.Back to Lenin, he believed the world could be reshaped by human will, Marx believed that lived human experience would shape the world. Post-neopraxian-endo-phenomenological Hussitism concurs on this point.

[Young Master Smeet]

I believe the IWGB were behind the Uber court case, and I know they have organised outsourced Universiy of London cleaners.

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