Can the workers ever be wrong?

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

Communists can accept this position: we as workers argue that the 'material conditions' should be interpreted thus; if other non-Communist workers argue that the 'material conditions' should be interpreted differently, then the 'material conditions' are as they argue, even though we disagree.

We must hold to the position that our interpretation of 'material conditions' is the better one; but we have to pursuade non-Communist workers it is so. If they disagree, after a vote, their interpretation is the 'true' one. And so, capitalism continues.

Any other stance must be of necessity an elitist stance. We must argue that 'the truth' depends upon a vote. The fact that we disagree with that 'truth', and will continue to argue against that 'truth', is neither here nor there.

We have to win the battle of ideas, and the test of the winning is a vote.

Obviously, we have to win the battle of ideas before socialism/communism can be established but the above strikes me as coming close to saying that the workers can never be wrong as it appears to be saying that if the workers "vote" for capitalism (as they do) then they are right. Certainly, as the "outvoted" socialist minority, we have to no alternative but to accept that capitalism will (even should?) continue. But do we have to accept that the workers' choice is "right"? Why would it be "elitist" to say that they were mistaken?

There are also problems about how votes for various things are counted.

[Young Master Smeet]

I think this in part comes down to a correction I heard one party member make: we're not here to make socialists, we're here to catch socialists.  The Party is not about persuading workers to socialism, but finding those who al;ready have socialist consciousness.  In my own case, I joined the party because it agreed with me, not because I agreed with the party (and I am perfectly prepared to walk away should I find that the party disagrees with me).  It's more a case of if we're right then capitalism will begin to generate socialistically minded workers, and if we're wrong, at least we've done no harm.

[DJP]

amen to the above

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Why would it be "elitist" to say that they were mistaken?

I haven't said that 'it is elitist for Communist workers to say to non-Communist workers that they are mistaken'.To simply hold a minority opinion, and aim to persuade the majority to change its mind, is not elitism.Elitism is arguing that the minority should have the power to impose their minority opinion on the majority.This is what 'materialists' do. They argue that they have access to 'matter', and that 'matter' itself trumps the opinions of a majority of what 'matter' is, if the majority opinion differs from the minority 'materialist' opinion.That is, 19th century positivist scientism, which confused Engels, and then infected the Second International, and thus formed Lenin's opinions, necessarily leads to 'materialists' telling workers what the 'material conditions' actually are.There are philosophical issues at stake here, which have political consequences.Furthermore, I can't see how the SPGB can hold to a democratic political strategy, without an underlying democratic philosophical strategy.To me, this demonstrates confusion within the membership.This is why I can argue for the democratic control of science, including the production of knowledge, whilst the 'materialists' object to this stance, because they follow Engels and Lenin is assuming that a minority of humans can have an access to 'matter' that is denied to the majority.The 'materialists' are mostly hidden (uncomprehending?) elitists; and in the case of Young Master Smeet, an open elitist, who openly denies democracy in the production of 'truth', which he insists should be kept within the realm of a mathematical/scientific elite.This is no basis for Socialism/Communism (of the sort I think we all mean, or I wouldn't bother my arse to argue the point). It is the basis for Leninism.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

Elitism is arguing that the minority should have the power to impose their minority opinion on the majority.

Of course, but nobody here is arguing this. All we are arguing as democratic socialists is that the socialist majority have the right and should have the power to impose its will on the pro-capitalist minority. Which is not the same as having the right to impose its opinion on them. I think this is the issue between you and YMS (and twc). Not that you can impose opinions.We know your views on what you define rather narrowly as  "materialism" and have argued about this to a standstill. So no point in going over this again.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

We know your views on what you define rather narrowly as  "materialism" and have argued about this to a standstill. So no point in going over this again.

You started this new thread, with a quote from me, and accuse me of 'going over this again'?I'm forced to ask, if there's 'no point', what was your point in starting it?If you prefer your 'wider materialism', why not discuss it? If you're confident that there is something to this 'wider materialism', why not defend it?If, by being 'argued to a standstill', you mean you've been overwhelmed by evidence and yet still refuse to be convinced, that's a problem for you, not for me.What's more, my 'enforced absence' last week gave me some time to read a bit more Dietzgen (of whom I know you know a bit), and now I'm convinced that much of his ontology agrees with my views, if not his method.So, if your 'wider materialism' equates to Dietzgen's 'dialectical materialism', we could discuss that. But I warn you, I think that his term 'dialectical' could be replaced with 'ideal', and suffer no loss.That is, Dietzgen's 'dialectical materialism' is, at least in ontology, very similar to Marx's 'idealism-materialism', and both are different to Engels' 'materialist conception of history', which turns out to be good old-fashioned, mechanical, 18th century, pre-Theses, 'materialism'.The ball's in your court.

[SocialistPunk]

ALB wrote:

Obviously, we have to win the battle of ideas before socialism/communism can be established but the above strikes me as coming close to saying that the workers can never be wrong as it appears to be saying that if the workers "vote" for capitalism (as they do) then they are right. Certainly, as the "outvoted" socialist minority, we have to no alternative but to accept that capitalism will (even should?) continue. But do we have to accept that the workers' choice is "right"? Why would it be "elitist" to say that they were mistaken?There are also problems about how votes for various things are counted.

Something everyone has perhaps missed.The workers do not vote FOR capitalism. To vote for capitalism suggests the workers have an alternative that is known and presented to them. The opposite is true. The socialism/communism we talk about on this forum is something that the majority of workers worldwide have never come across before. It is an alien concept, that on the rare occasions they do come into contact with it has to break through the socialised conformity that bombards us at every level since we are born. If the word socialism means anything to the majority it is, as we know, associated with the Labour party and the former USSR.

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

The workers do not vote FOR capitalism. To vote for capitalism suggests the workers have an alternative that is known and presented to them. The opposite is true. The socialism/communism we talk about on this forum is something that the majority of workers worldwide have never come across before.

Personally, I place the the blame for lack of 'presentation' upon generations of Communists/Socialists, who have signally failed to 'present' an understandable alternative to workers, including to many who have, not only asked, but have actually got involved. Many, even millions of, workers have come across what passes for socialism, but have found that it is actually nothing to do with their democractic control of their own lives, and so have rejected it.I'm of the opinion that, since I believe that active 'ideas' (not passive 'material circumstances') are the key, that Communists/Socialists need to explain the ideas of, for example, Marx. We should be searching for ways of simplifying difficult ideas, so that workers can more easily get a handle on what's being said. From my own experience, cadre seem to prefer it the other way, and keep ideas difficult to maintain their own power. Further, and wider than 'party politics', I think that this method is followed in education and science, too, to maintain the power of academics and scientists.This restriction of 'knowledge' to an elite cannot be acceptable to any Socialists/Communists who argue for democratic workers' control of production.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

You started this new thread, with a quote from me, and accuse me of 'going over this again'?I'm forced to ask, if there's 'no point', what was your point in starting it?

Hey, stop shooting the messenger ! I only started this thread because the moderator asked one of us to move off the Piketty thread and merely selected something you had written to start the ball rolling. A new ball, that is

[Young Master Smeet]

I think we need to take workers' opinions at face value.  When asked, time and again they support capital;ist parties, and capitalist ideas.  When presented with the case for socialism, they reject it.  That's why workers vote Tory, Libreral and Labour.  Unless and until their lived experience accords with socialist understanding (and the need for socialist ideas) they will go on supporting capitalism.  All we can do is make that coming to socialist consciousness a little easier, and mean that workers' don't have to re-invent the wheel each time.

[alanjjohnstone]

I'm always right (or so all my co-workers accused me of thinking)..and I'm a worker ….so….I'm not so sure i fully agree with YMS… always thought education along with organisation and agitation were the three legs the socialist movement stood on.  If we are merely trying to persuade the already convinced, i suggest we need a totally new way of going about it because we aren't doing too well trying to catch them…perhaps we need to cast our nets a lot wider…or introduce more tempting bait.

Quote:

It's more a case of if we're right then capitalism will begin to generate socialistically minded workers…

 Those who knew him and talked to him may be better qualified to comment but wasn't part of the reason John Crump studied the history of socialism of Japan was that if the above was true then it would have spawned its indigenous socialist movement with the development of capitalism. But didn't he find that there was no naturally arising socialist movement from the material conditions but that Japanese socialist thought was an import (as it may have been in Tsarist Russia too)  –  which takes us back to the importance of education and communication of ideas.   

[Young Master Smeet]

I believe the Japanese pure communists were distinctive in their actual views, they took on board ideas received from abroad, but they wouldn't have listened to them (or adapted them) if they didn't fit with their needs and their apprehensions of their cconditions.  Our ideas are part of material consitions, and can feed into the growth of socialist consciousness/culture, but they'll only take, to continue the agrarian metaphor, in the right soil.

[ALB]

Anyway, to keep the new ball in play, I don't agree that the kind of crude"materialism" you are criticising (that sees consciousness as a mere reflection of material conditions) leads to Leninism (that requires the additional premise that some can have this reflected in them more or better than others). It can equally lead to an anti-Leninist position, i.e to "spontaneism" and the view that there is no need to try to spread "socialist consciousness" as it will spread automatically anyway out of material circumstances, i.e. material conditions reflecting themselves as consciousness in the whole class not just a select part of it.One example is the iconic 1969 ani-Leninist text  The Eclipse and Re-Emergence of the Communist Movement by Gilles Dauvé and François Martin. Here's how they end the first article on "Capitalism and Communism" (their emphasis):

Quote:

Those who already feel the need for communism, and discuss it, cannot interfere in these struggles to bring the communist gospel, to propose to these limited actions that they direct themselves towards "real" communist activity. What is needed is not slogans, but an explanation of the background and mechanism of these struggles. One must only show what they will be forced to do.

and

Quote:

The communist party is the spontaneous (i.e., totally determined by social evolution) organization of the revolutionary movement created by capitalism. The party is a spontaneous offspring, born on the historical soil of modern society.

I don't agree with this and I don't suppose you do either because it denies the need for any propagation of socialist ideas or reduces the activity of socialists/communists to merely analysing what happens and is inevitably going to happen. It replaces so-called "abstract propaganda" with abstract theorising and passive waiting.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Unless and until their lived experience accords with socialist understanding…

[my bold]I know I've said this before, YMS, but this is 'induction', that 'material facts' produce 'ideas'.I'm not using this as a term of abuse, but trying to point out the very different philosophy underpinning Marx's 'theory and practice', from your 'practice and theory'.'Lived experience' will come from ideas, not ideas from 'lived experience'.That's the whole point of changing the world. The world doesn't change and produce ideas (and thus 'matter' is the 'active side'), but humans criticise what exists, and create a new world in their ideas, and then proceed to consciously change the 'material condition' / 'lived experience' in line with their new ideas.If you disagree with my viewpoint, and many here do, we should discuss this philosophical difference, because it has political implications.Who is to introduce the 'lived experience'?Workers unconsciously? A conscious minority? Or a majority of conscious workers?'Materialists' have to argue either unconscious workers (because 'matter' is the 'active side') or a conscious minority (Leninism).Otherwise, they'd be forced to agree with me and Marx, that 'critical ideas' allow the mass of workers to change their world. And thus that the task of Socialists/Communists is to stimulate critical ideas within the class, and not passively await 'lived experience', which will never achieve our goals.

[LBird]

ALB, I think my reply to YMS also covers your post about 'spontaneism'. I obviously agree with you, about its passivity regarding 'material conditions'.[edit] I've just chosen to focus on the dangers of 'Leninism', rather than 'spontaneism', because I think the former is the one being espoused by some here, with talk of elites, experts, academics, etc. in science.

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