LBird’s Theory of Communist Democracy

LBird’s Theory of Communist Democracy

1. Social Constructionism

   • Thought is social.  Its content is socially constructed.

   • Theory is systematically constructed thought.

   • Opposing theories are relatively “incommensurable” [Feyerabend, Against Method].  Each of us is conceptually trapped inside our socially constructed world view.

2. Class

   • Social-being determines a social class’s political ideology.  Except that a ruling class actively imposes its own political ideology on its ruled class.

   • A ruling class is totally incapable of comprehending the ideology of the class it rules.

   • A ruled class is capable of comprehending its own ideology [reclaiming its own ideology for itself] through discussion, persuasion, and critical reading aimed at exposing ruling-class ideology as justification for class domination.

3. Objectivity

   • Science claims to be based upon a materialist conception of objectivity.  But, from §1 and §2 (above), such objectivity is socially constructed.

   • Scientific theory employs abstractions [e.g., physical energy, marxian value, darwinian species] that are only observable/measurable indirectly through material forms that differ from the abstractions employed to comprehend them.

   • Science doesn’t even appear to be sociologically objective, as scientists disagree among themselves over theory and interpretation.

   • [If science was materially objective, shouldn’t we expect that scientists could never commit scientific fraud; if science was sociologically objective, shouldn’t we expect that scientists could never come to regret the social consequences of their scientific pursuits.]

4. Elite Thought

   • Even when scientists manage to agree among themselves, they do so only among their own socially ‘elite’ peers;  the community at large [society] has no democratic input into the scientific consensus.

   • Science is elitist;  it is anti-democratic.  From the standpoint of communist society, it is ideologically false.

5. Democratic Thought

   • Communist thought is democratic, egalitarian and social.  By contrast, bourgeois thought is anti-democratic, elitist and individual.

   • Individual thought is reactionary and socially destabilizing to communism.  Democratic communism must stamp it out.

   • Communist society democratically controls social thought, and decides what everyone thinks or can think.

   • Communist society, by controlling thought, indirectly controls what everyone does and can do.

6. Practice

   • §1–§5 (above) take the standpoint of thought as socially constructed ideology.  The social construction of ideology takes precedence because of the fundamental assertion that:
     Theory precedes practice.

   • Theory decides what is observable (Heisenberg’s student discussion with Einstein [Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy]).

   • Theory determines practice; interprets practice; refines practice.

   • Practice may refine the theory that determines it, as described in §7 (below):

7. ‘Critical Realism’

   • Communist theory of science conforms to a version of critical realism similar to, though not identical to, Adam Schaff’s [History and Truth], but is modified in accordance with §1–§5 (above):

     • Communist society [= the Schaffian subject of cognition] democratically poses scientific problems about the external world [= the Schaffian object of cognition].

     • Communist society’s Schaffian scientists “interact” practically with the external world to refine communist society’s critical-realist conceptions [= Schaffian knowledge].

     • Communist society democratically determines the scientific methodology to be used, and actively controls all aspects of research projects.

     • Unlike Schaff’s and Bashkar’s versions of critical realism, social constructionism (§1, above) cannot appeal to Engels’s “proof of the pudding” objectivity.  Instead communist society democratically interprets all scientific results and democratically pronounces on their truth.

     • Communist scientists submit to communist-society’s ideology and act in obedience to its democratic commands.

     • Like everyone else in communist society, scientists naturally submerge their individual thoughts and actions to the greater social good in accordance with §5 (above).

8. ‘Research Programs’

   • Communist society permits democratic opposition to its social ideology while protectively “sandboxing” its core science from attack.

   • Communist society sanctions the pursuit of non-core scientific theories [Lakatos, Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes] as a socially controlled mechanism for challenging its core science.

   • Research programs represent the ‘revolutionary’ non-core science that may, by democratic decree, one day overthrow the ‘conservative’ core science.

9. ‘Bourgeois’ and ‘Proletarian’ Science

   • Communist society democratically mandates ‘proletarian’ scientific methodology:

     • Bourgeois science apparently holds that conceptions are identical to the objects they conceive;  proletarian science holds that they must differ.

     • Bourgeois science apparently changes its theories whenever it gets contrary scientific results;  proletarian science ignores contrary scientific results, at least those that oppose its core theory.

     • Proletarian science is dynamic, presumably because of its non-core research programs (§8, above), without which it would remain theoretically static.

10. Communist Democracy

    Communist society enforces, by democratic decision of the whole community, under the influence of democratically agreed communist social ideology:

    • democratic social truth—society decides democratically what is true and what is false for everyone,

    • democratic social thought—society decides democratically what everyone can and must think,

    • democratic social practice—society decides democratically what everyone can and must do.

This appears to be LBird’s theory of communist democracy as the unity of theory and practice by consensus.  He offers it as being in conformance with Marx’s considered conceptions of science and socialism.