Marx and Lenin’s views contrasted
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LBird,
What I think is, the class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.
Thanks for that, YMS.
I’m glad that you’ve acknowledged that, within a democratic socialist society, humanity will democratically control its own production.
I’m not quite sure why it took so long, though. Better late than never, eh?
If you applied your reasoning in your post to ‘education’, you’d end up defending the current bourgeois education system, with its lack of democracy, rule by ‘teachers’, an assumption of ‘mass ignorance and uninterest’ in most academic subjects, etc.
LBird
I dont think democracy has got anything to do with it. It just plain obvious that the vast majority of us are going to be less informed about (and doubtless less interested in) any particular scientific discipline than the scientists who have specialised in it. It does not matter what society we live in – capitalist or socialist – there are going to enormous differences in levels of understanding. Unless you want to get rid of specialisms, that is, which would be catastrophic for society and frankly unenforceable anyway .
Does it matter that there is bound to be these enormous differences in levels of understanding? I dont think so. For instance I dont know much about astrophysics and, to be honest, am not that interested in it. So if astrophysicist comes along with some grand theory about the origins of the universe I might just casually glance at the general summary of the theory providing it is written in suitable layperson’s language. But I’m not going to pursue the matter. There are other things I would far rather do.
But you keep on going about democracy but democracy in relation to what? You cannot surely be suggesting scientific theories – like a theory about the origin of the universe – being put to a vote. What on earth would be the point? And how would you organise such a vote? We have gone over this many times. It is utterly pointless trying to organise such a vote because scientists will still continue to disagree regardless (as they should) about how the universe began. And it is utterly impractical because the majority of the population – myself included – would not be sufficiently interested or informed – to make a “democratic decision” on this matter. A global plebiscite of 8 billion voters would probably register a return of 0.000087% of those registered to vote. If you’re lucky, that is!
HOWEVER…..
If our astrophysicist proposed that in order to demonstrate the validity or his/ her theory we need to build some super duper state-of-the-art observatory on a hill somewhere THEN we can, indeed, begin to talk about the need for democracy. This is because building such a structure has PRACTICAL implications that affect a large number of people. There are opportunity costs involved. For instance it might mean postponing some housing project in order to build this observatory. So the people need to have a say
Perhaps this is what you mean when you say
There is a need to ‘revolutionise’ our world, which will include (not the strawman, once again, of ‘no need for specialists’) the political control of all specialisms by generalists (to use previous SPGB terminology), which is democracy.
But this has always been the position of the SPGB anyway so I am really puzzled as to where precisely you think your disagreement with the SPGB lies….
The SPGB, being ‘materialist’, argues that an elite will change the world.
LBird.
Let us take your above statement, or vague remarks: “The SPGB, being ‘materialist’, argues that an elite will change the world.”
Consider this binary choice: dictatorship by the masses/or of the masses. You seem for democracy- I ‘dig it’… The people decide… Okay we agree- Society decides on socialist modes of production and the meeting of its wants and needs.
I think your problem may centre on the term ‘material’. I know you would choose the mass/ or society assume control over their lived experience. I never asked you to define your view on material, ’till now?
Can I put the question: If by material you mean rock (or even observers of rocks), do you centre the rock as expounding elitist ideas… Or.. Do you put elitism in the observer of the rock?
Do you have rock evidence of SPGB and this site claiming vanguardism/superiority over any mass or masses?
Basic idea of hydraulic power: if it is fluid, it flows to all and it distributes power to all (Society not state governance). If it is sediment[ed] power, it congeals in its form (ruling elites and their apex hegemony: their top down command dynamics). It does not coagulate in socialism- for there are no elites to dam it up!
Materialists do not give all power to the rock in its communication of meaning to us- we develop a science based on causality, cause and effect, observation, trial and error, discovery, repeatability of a test, predictability, P(x) values, and yes an ethics too.
I have only known your posts for a short while, and may have misunderstood.
… But the above statement you made does not exist in the ‘material’ I have read on SPGB: could it be some other organisation writing about it that you can shed some light on- pardon the physical and geological signifiers…
robbo203 wrote: “LBird
I dont think democracy has got anything to do with it. ”
I know, robbo.
That’s where you differ from Marx and me – we both think ‘democracy’ does have something to do with it.
Which is fair enough, it’s your personal political opinion. But why the SPGB seems to agree with you, is less clear, especially since ‘democracy’ has always been allegedly one of its fundamental concerns.
To L.B. Neill – I’m afraid this is a political and philosophical debate about ‘democracy’ within social production, and it’s been going on for years, so often my posts are very truncated, because of what’s been discussed previously. Hence, your valid opinion about ‘vague remarks’. I haven’t got the energy to go back to the start in about 2015, and repeat all the explanation again to you.
Suffice to say, the ‘material’ is a political and philosophical debate going back thousands of years to Ancient Greece, and is nothing to do with ‘rocks’.
‘Material’ is a human social product, and humans change it. The key argument is ‘who’ should have the power to ‘change’ it – an elite, or humanity as a whole employing democracy.
I, and Marx, argued for ‘democracy’.
The ruling class argue for an elite, and their ideas are widespread and widely accepted.
I dont think democracy has got anything to do with it. ”
I know, robbo.
That’s where you differ from Marx and me – we both think ‘democracy’ does have something to do with it.
No LBird
Nowhere did Marx ever suggest that scientific theories should be put to some sort of popular vote THAT is what I was referring to when I said “I dont think democracy has got anything to do with it.”
If you think Max did say something along those lines then can you provide some evidence please?
If will not suffice to argue that all knowledge is a social construct because I fully accept that this is the case. What I wanted to know from you is whether you believe this cognitive process itself is something that has to be subject to “democratic control”.
I think that idea is frankly daft and totally unworkable. As I keep on saying democracy is about practical matters that affect our interests and our wellbeing where joint or collective decision-making is required, Its got nothing to do with the development of scientific theories as such
robbo203 wrote: “If you think Max did say something along those lines then can you provide some evidence please?”
For example, “revolutionary science“.
If you think that is equivalent to ‘science’ (what I’d call the ‘socio-historical product, bourgeois science‘), then that’s fair enough. I don’t share your political and philosophical opinion. I believe in the ideology of ‘revolutionary science’, which, because of Marx’s politics, I assume means ‘democratic science’.
If you disagree with this political interpretation of Marx’s ‘revolutionary science’, you should explain how your notion of ‘revolutionary science’ differs from mine.
robbo203 wrote: “If will not suffice to argue that all knowledge is a social construct because I fully accept that this is the case. What I wanted to know from you is whether you believe this cognitive process itself is something that has to be subject to “democratic control”.” [my bold]
I find your statements contradictory, robbo.
If ‘all knowledge is a social construct’, what is this ‘itself’ that is outside of ‘all knowledge’?
You must believe that ‘this cognitive process itself’ is outside of ‘social activity’, and that ‘itself’ means ‘inside an individual’ or ‘inside the brain’.
As you must know, that belief is an ideological belief (which has political ramifications), which I don’t share.
To democratic communists, following Marx, any ‘cognitive process’ is by definition a ‘social process’, not a simple ‘biological’ one.
robbo203 wrote “…practical…”.
I’ve already mentioned this political difference between us, robbo. I’d replace it with ‘…theoretical and practical…’, which is closer to Marx’s views, than merely ‘practical’. The use of ‘practical’ suggests that there is no ‘theory’ behind it – which is an ideological opinion itself.
Can i have a comment on the following article where this stood out for me.
“For example, the shoemaker is my representative in so far as he fulfils a social need, just as every definite social activity, because it is a species-activity, represents only the species; that is to say, it represents a determination of my own essence the way every man is the representative of the other. Here, he is representative not by virtue of something other than himself which he represents, but by virtue of what he is and does.”
Notes for a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, by Karl Marx (marxists.org)
Hegel and Marx are a mystery to me but i somehow think that the answers LBird looks for are hidden there.
I find your statements contradictory, robbo.
If ‘all knowledge is a social construct’, what is this ‘itself’ that is outside of ‘all knowledge’?
There is no contradiction at all LBird
The great majority of people , myself included, have made no contribution to the development of theoretical physics. However theoretical physicists did not derive their theories from a vacuum but from other theoretical physicists, some going back to the very distant past.
It is in this sense that theoretical physics is a “socially constructed body of knowledge” which is not the same as saying that the entirety of human society contributed to this body of knowledge. I haven’t, for example. Have you? If so what was your particular contribution?
I remember looking at a TV series “Connections” presented by James Burke . I think it is quit a good illustration of what is meant by “social” in the context of socially constructed knowledge
Connections (TV series) – Wikipedia
Also LBird I still want to know from you is whether you believe the cognitive process itself of contributing to scientific theory is something that ought to be subject to “democratic control”.
I agree that the cognitive process of contributing to a scientific theory is a form of social activity but clearly it is not one in which the vast majority of people participate as I have explained. It tends to be restricted to the specialists in the field who have had the requisite kind of training to engage in this particular form of social activity.
I’m perfectly OK with that. Providing us generalists are able to exercise democratic control over the specialists when it comes to putting their theories into practice what’s the problem? There is no leverage anyone can exercise over anyone else – even the most gifted of scientists – in a socialist world where goods and services are distributed on the basis of free access and labour is performed voluntarily
That is the material basis for the complete dissolution of political power as such
robbo203 wrote: “It is in this sense that theoretical physics is a “socially constructed body of knowledge” which is not the same as saying that the entirety of human society contributed to this body of knowledge. ” [my bold]
But it’s not your ‘this sense’ that counts, robbo.
It’s Marx’s ‘this sense’ that we’re discussing.
For your ‘this sense’, there would have to be an elite separated from ‘the entirety of human society’. Thus, your concept would, as Marx warned, divide society into two, one of which (the elite) is superior to the other (humanity).
So, for Marx, ‘the entirety of human society’ does contribute to any body of knowledge.
All you are doing, just as any ideological individualist would do, is dividing the entirety of humanity into discrete individuals, of which you are one, and claiming that because one doesn’t supposedly contribute, that this means that the entirety doesn’t.
‘Society’ is a political concept, as indeed is ‘individual’.
But Marx’s views are based upon “social production”, not on “an aggregate of individuals production”.
That’s why democracy can’t be removed from any social production.
It seems to me, robbo, that your fundamental disagreement is with Marx’s social perspective, rather than with me.
robbo203 wrote: “Also LBird I still want to know from you is whether you believe the cognitive process itself of contributing to scientific theory is something that ought to be subject to “democratic control”.” [my bold]
Well, I thought I’d answered this, but once again, yes.
‘The cognitive process itself‘ is a social product, not the product of an isolated, biological, individual.
Social production must be subject to democratic control.
If not, who is to control, and how, ‘the cognitive process itself’?
I’ve given a clear answer to your question, robbo, so I hope you give one to mine.
Who? By what political process?
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