Good article by the SPGB 1973 Brendan Mee

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

…when Marx says we make our objects, he isn't refering to the creation of the physical thing, but the relationship of subject to object…   

Although he says that we 'create' our objects.What does that mean if it doesn't mean we create our objective reality?It's only 'materialists' who insist that 'physical things' are 'out there', waiting to be 'discovered'.The 'physical' is only 'physical for a subject'. That's the whole point of Marx's social productionism.As I've said before, you're following Engels' 19th century ideas, inspired by bourgeois science, that 'physical' (or 'matter') is not 'created by a subject', and that it can be 'physical' outside of any relation to a subject (by which Marx means 'social subject', not an 'individual').The simple question is 'physical for who?'.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

the SPGB now has a pretty mainstream Leninist view about 'matter'

Why do we continue to entertain this obsessive who continues to tell lies about us despite us repeadtedly refuting them.

You're the 'obsessive', ALB, who keeps 'telling lies about the SPGB' to workers.No matter what Marx says, you're not going to have workers voting about whether 'matter exists' or not, are you?You're an 'obsessive' Engelsian Materialist, and it allows you to argue that the class cannot change 'reality'.For 'materialists', 'matter' is 'out there', and not a product of social labour. You have Faith in 'matter', as do all Religious Materialists.What's more, your constant resort to abuse, even when I try to give you the benefit of the doubt, is very telling.You could try explaining why, according to you, workers cannot be allowed to 'create their reality' – but this would be politically disastrous for a party that claims to want to help develop workers to build their world.You haven't 'refuted' this charge against 'materialism', because it can't be done.You should try reading the SPGB's '70s publications, ALB.

[LBird]

LBird wrote:

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-829-september-1973/marx-alienationSome extracts:

SPGB wrote:

…For Marx, what distinguishes man from other species is that man has the ability of self-creation…man has the ability to produce in excess of these needs and to do so consciously, thereby creating his own environment…It is in the working-over of inorganic nature and the practical creation of an objective world…Man's essence therefore lies in his conscious and creative activity in creating a world of objects…It can be seen, therefore, that Marx's ideas on the nature of man were in total contrast and opposition to the mechanical materialism whereby man is seen as an object of nature…There is a two-way relationship between man and his environment, and between his consciousness and his activity…It is man's ability to labour, to objectify his creative capacities in the world of things, which makes him human….

[my bold]

Just for ALB to read, once again.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Although he says that we 'create' our objects.What does that mean if it doesn't mean we create our objective reality?

Yes, we create our objects as objects, but not as Things, we objectify them through our relationship with them.  We create our objects, but not by thought alone, but by being in the world.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

Just for ALB to read, once again.

The obsessive refuser has just shot himself in the foot again. I read that article long before he did as I was a member of the editorial committee at the time and can assure him that it went in with the full approval of the committee. He should also read the article on the following page on "Men, Ideas and Society":http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-829-september-1973/men-ideas-and-societyHe will see that it ,too, specifically repudiates the view

Quote:

that the brain is a kind of camera photographing the world

On the other hand, some people's brains seem more like a gramophone record.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

Although he says that we 'create' our objects.What does that mean if it doesn't mean we create our objective reality?

Yes, we create our objects as objects, but not as Things, we objectify them through our relationship with them.  We create our objects, but not by thought alone, but by being in the world.

So, according to your 'theory', we workers don't create our physical world?For you, 'objects' are not 'physical', but just some philosophical mutterings from the 19th century?Wow!So all the revolutionary stuff about taking control of world production, doesn't include 'physical things'? So, it's clearly best that workers leave all this 'discovering the physical' to their betters, eh?And this is what the SPGB has descended to, from its insights of the 1970s?It makes one wonder, if the 2017 SPGB is correct, what all the fuss was about, when Marx wrote about his revolutionary ideas for a democratic movement of class conscious, self-determining, workers, who will proceed to create their world.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

Just for ALB to read, once again.

The obsessive refuser has just shot himself in the foot again. I read that article long before he did as I was a member of the editorial committee at the time and can assure him that it went in with the full approval of the committee. He should also read the article on the following page on "Men, Ideas and Society":http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-829-september-1973/men-ideas-and-societyHe will see that it ,too, specifically repudiates the view

Quote:

that the brain is a kind of camera photographing the world

On the other hand, some people's brains seem more like a gramophone record.

I see that you still can't tell workers why they can't create their reality?Clearly, either you never understood what you 'fully approved' in the '70s, or you've simply got older and more conservative.Whichever it is, it's clear that the present SPGB has nothing whatsoever to do with any revolutionary thought, in politics, philosophy or physics.Which is a real shame, since even bourgeois physics seems to be coming to Marx's conclusion about us creating our reality – they've started to consider we might be the creators of time and space, never mind 'physical stuff'.Time-for-us, space-for-us, rocks-for-us. Marx's social productionism, where we, the social subject, are in a creative relationship with our world, 'nature for us', our social product, which can we thus change.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

So, according to your 'theory', we workers don't create our physical world?For you, 'objects' are not 'physical', but just some philosophical mutterings from the 19th century?

No, I'm saying that objects are physical things, but (in the writings of Marx) objectification does not refer to the emergence of the physical entity, but the state of becoming an object, as per the example of a plant and the sun (perhaps Lbird could turn their attention to that point, it might be productive).We create our objective world by being in the world.

[Young Master Smeet]

Irrespective of the facticity or soundness of the theories, it's always been noticeable that philosophies that deny the realness of the real world tend to be highly reactionary: as we're seeing with Trumpian alternative facts or post-modernism.  The idea that power structures eality (and allows it to restructure reality) tends to stem from those wishing to deny the experience of living in the world people have.  Look how much Stalin loved such thinking, the history fo Bolshevism was that by will alone we culd reshape the world, a far cry from Marx' description of his own method (discussed ad nauseum with Rosa Schleswig-Holstein, passim).https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htmThe greatest trick the devil ever invented was pursuading people they could change the world just by thinking about it hard enough.

[ALB]

Just checked and it seems that the famous article was not in fact written by Barry McNeeny. He didn't join the Party till 1974. The article was signed B.M. There was another member with these initials who wrote articles for the Socialist Standard. So BM will be Brendan Mee ( I think he was a member of our then Bolton branch).Here's another of his articles (correctly attributed):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-823-march-1973/poison-nationalismThis article on "Lenin and the State", which makes it quite clear that we have nothing to do with Leninism, is also by him (but wrongly attributed):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1972/no-820-december-1972/lenin-and-statePS These misattributions will have to be corrected on on archive site.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

…it's always been noticeable that philosophies that deny the realness of the real world tend to be highly reactionary…

Marx does not 'deny the realness of the real world'.Marx argues that we create our reality. 'Realness' is 'realness-for us'; the 'real world' is 'our real world'. The 'objective world' is the one we create, by our social theory and practice.

YMS wrote:

The idea that power structures eality (and allows it to restructure reality) tends to stem from those wishing to deny the experience of living in the world people have.

Ahah! 'Experience', the old standby of the US pragmatists and Dewey's instrumentalism. Of course, this is 'individual, biological, personal sense experience', not anything whatsoever to do with Marx's 'social production', which argues that 'individuals' in different productive societies have different 'sense experiences' (our senses are social products, too), so that 'experience' is always a 'socio-historic experience', rather than just something 'people have' [notice, YMS never refers to any socio-historical subject, just ahistoric and asocial 'people'] 

YMS wrote:

Look how much Stalin loved such thinking, the history fo Bolshevism was that by will alone we culd reshape the world, a far cry from Marx' description of his own method…

The old trick of all anti-Marxists, anti-Communists, anti-Democrats: sully those ideas by associating them with Stalin.Stalin never argued that workers could (or should) democratically control their production.I always (unlike YMS or the SPGB generally) always emphasise democratic control of production, which doesn't intend to 'reshape the world' (itself a bourgeois concept, 'in itself'), but 'reshape our world'.

YMS wrote:

The greatest trick the devil ever invented was pursuading people they could change the world just by thinking about it hard enough.

The 'devil', eh?And him 'persuading people' (all those thick workers, I presume, unlike you and your elite). Revealing turn of phrase, 'devil', for a supposed 'socialist'.And there we have it: YMS's bogeyman (garnered from Engels) – The Idealists, and their 'just by thinking'!Of course, Marx never, ever, argued that workers 'could change the world just by thinking about it hard enough'.Marx always argued for social, democratic, THEORY and PRACTICE.The 'highly reactionary' are the Religious Materialists – they will always deny democratic production of our world, and will always argue for a 'knowing elite'. That's why Lenin had faith in 'matter', too.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Just checked and it seems that the famous article was not in fact written by Barry McNeeny. He didn't join the Party till 1974. The article was signed B.M. There was another member with these initials who wrote articles for the Socialist Standard. So BM will be Brendan Mee ( I think he was a member of our then Bolton branch). ….PS These misattributions will have to be corrected on on archive site.

Can the mods change the name in the title of this thread, to correct the misattribution?

[Young Master Smeet]

Actually what Stalin said was:

Stalin wrote:

At the same time, it is self-evident that for the purpose of administering public affairs there will have to be in socialist society, in addition to local offices which will collect all sorts of information, a central statistical bureau, which will collect information about the needs of the whole of society, and then distribute the various kinds of work among the working people accordingly.  It will also be necessary to hold conferences, and particularly congresses, the decisions of which will certainly be binding upon the comrades in the minority until the next congress is held.

and

Quote:

There is another kind of dictatorship, the dictatorship of the proletarian majority, the dictatorship of the masses, which is directed against the bourgeoisie, against theminority. At the head of this dictatorship stand the masses; here there is no room either for a camarilla or for secret decisions, here everything is done openly, in the streets, at meetings—because it is the dictatorship of the street, of the masses, a dictatorship directed against all oppressors.

As previously noted, if the working class could just decide to have the theory and practice to have socialism, there is no need any more of class struggle, we could have had socialism any time we wanted, instead, for no readily apparent reason, a groupd of people took control and invented stars and planets, and cancer that kills rich people.  Indeed, why couldn't an elite with it's theory and practice come about and give socialism to us?The idea that we live in a created reality is disarming, Lbird yelps at the comparison because it hits home.Now, must dash, I have an Illuminati meeting to go to.

[LBird]

Is this what passes for political debate in the SPGB?Accusing those who argue for democratic workers' power as being Stalinists? That Stalin was a 'democrat'?This is the most effective answer to Tim Kilgallon, who asked earlier, as to why I won't be joining the SPGB in 2017.

[moderator1]

LBird wrote:

ALB wrote:

Just checked and it seems that the famous article was not in fact written by Barry McNeeny. He didn't join the Party till 1974. The article was signed B.M. There was another member with these initials who wrote articles for the Socialist Standard. So BM will be Brendan Mee ( I think he was a member of our then Bolton branch). ….PS These misattributions will have to be corrected on on archive site.

Can the mods change the name in the title of this thread, to correct the misattribution?

No the mods are unable to correct the misattribution but I know a man who can and who suspect will be working on it shortly.

[Author]

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