Marx and Lenin’s views contrasted
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Hi L Bird
Sorry for late reply, so as you agree with my summary of your view that all socially produced theory should be subject to democratic vote, can I pose you a question.If, in a socialist society, a vote was held re Marx’s view of the social production of theories (which by definition must be a socially produced theory) was held and the vote rejected Marx’s theories, would you subsequently also reject those theories also, knowing that not to do so would be anti democratic and anti socialist?
robbo203 wrote: “I, by contrast, am saying there is simply no need for democratic control to be exercised in this case. It serves no useful purpose”
LBird wrote: Yes, I know your political position. Marx’s political position is that ‘democratic social production’ does serve a useful purpose.
But “democratic social production” of WHAT, LBird??? This is the question you keep on evading. Where did Marx talk about the need for scientific theorising to be subject to democratic control? A reference would be handy. Not that it matters that much because if Marx did say that I would say he was talking rubbish
robbo203 wrote: “…it is this interaction between them that makes this cognitive process a “social product”” [my bold]
L Bird wrote: But this ‘them’ is not ‘society’, robbo.
A further thought occurred to me LBird. If you are talking about society you presumably mean global society. Does this mean you rule out the possibility of local communities making democratic decisions that pertain only to them? By definition such local democratic control likewise precludes the rest of society (meaning global society) – in the same way that the cognitive process by which obscure scientific theory comes to be accepted is likely to involve only a minuscule number of individuals trained in the relevant scientific discipline we are referring to
How can I participate in the democratic decisions made by a local community on the other wide of the world when I know nothing about that community? In the same way how can I vote on some obscure scientific theory when I simply dont have the scientific knowledge or background anyway. You might want to argue that in principle uninformed laypeople like myself should be allowed to vote in principle anyway but then any decision I make would be pure guess work on my part.
So we are back to the original question – what is the point of democratically controlling or voting upon scientific theorising?
Socialism/Communism will eliminate the concept of nations and borders, but it will not eliminate the cultural and local practice of some peoples around the world, and they would be able to do their own communal decisions
Yes, twc, I’m a democratic communist and a follower of Marx.
If ‘TRUTHS’ aren’t to be determined democratically, who is to determine ‘TRUTHS’, in your version of a clearly non-democratic ‘socialism’?
It’s a political question, and the SPGB should be able to answer it.
Bijou Drains wrote: “If, in a socialist society, a vote was held re Marx’s view of the social production of theories (which by definition must be a socially produced theory) was held and the vote rejected Marx’s theories, would you subsequently also reject those theories also, knowing that not to do so would be anti democratic and anti socialist?”
When the time comes to reject Marx views (as it will come, as history shows, because humanity constantly changes its views), then I (if still alive, it might take generations of social development to occur) will adopt the newly democratically-produced scientific views of humanity.
I can ask you the same question – what would you do, BD, if humanity democratically pointed out that your views were out of kilter with the rest of humanity?
robbo, I’ve genuinely answered all the questions in your post, previously. You’re just ignoring what I say, so there doesn’t seem much point giving the same answers again.
The difference between us seems to be a political one – I’m a democrat, who regards society as the active subject; you regard individuals as the active subject, and so you reject democratic controls.
I can ask you the same question – what would you do, BD, if humanity democratically pointed out that your views were out of kilter with the rest of humanity?
Humanity regularly votes BD’s views out of kilter since he is a member of an organisation that places its position to the vote. And that position is frequently rejected.
But he (and i) persevere since might is not always right, nor the majority.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “Humanity regularly votes BD’s views out of kilter since he is a member of an organisation that places its position to the vote. And that position is frequently rejected.”
The same happens to me and you, too, alan. And always will. Democracy involves majorities and minorities.
If you want to move the discussion onto ‘how will socialism organise its democratic production?’, that’s fine by me. It’s both an interesting and needed discussion, IMO.
But first, we have to agree that your notion of ‘democratic socialism’ is the same as my (and I claim, Marx’s) notion of ‘democratic socialism’.
I think ‘democratic socialism’ means all social production will be democratic. To me, the clue is in the name.
If you disagree, then fine, let’s discuss that issue first.
My first question is ‘who will be in control of this (portion?) of social production that is not under democratic control? And why term it ‘democratic socialism’ if all or parts of it are not democratic?
MS wrote: “Socialism/Communism will eliminate the concept of nations and borders, but it will not eliminate the cultural and local practice of some peoples around the world, and they would be able to do their own communal decisions”
You’ve expressed a very clear political position, MS.
My political question is ‘who determines what is a valid (in the eyes of humanity) ‘cultural and local practice’, within your ‘Socialism/Communism’?
Unless there is democratic control by humanity, then what would your society do with ‘locals’ who insist, for example, in cutting the clitorises off little girls? That is a dramatic example, but sums up the problem. It could be ‘locals’ who kill gays, ‘locals’ who are an elite and who want to maintain capitalist relations by force over their communities, etc.
Your political position, which is to leave power within ‘localities’ to the exclusion of the democratically-expressed wishes of humanity within socialism, would prevent us intervening in ‘practices’ which we democratically declare to be abhorrent.
LBird,
what do you mean by democracy?
Anyway, back to Lenin:
“It is not guerrilla actions which disorganise the movement, but the weakness of a party which is incapable of taking such actions under its control. That is why the anathemas which we Russians usually hurl against guerrilla actions go hand in hand with secret, casual, unorganised guerrilla actions which really do disorganise the Party. Being in capable of understanding what historical conditions give rise to this struggle, we are incapable of neutralising its deleterious aspects. Yet the struggle is going on. It is engendered by powerful economic and political causes. It is not in our power to eliminate these causes or to eliminate this struggle. Our complaints against guerrilla warfare are complaints against our Party weakness in the matter of an uprising.”
“It is absolutely natural and inevitable that the uprising should assume the higher and more complex form of a prolonged civil war embracing the whole country, i.e., an armed struggle between two sections of the people. Such a war cannot be conceived otherwise than as a series of a few big engagements at comparatively long intervals and a large number of small encounters during these intervals. That being so—and it is undoubtedly so—the Social-Democrats must absolutely make it their duty to create organisations best adapted to lead the masses in these big engagements and, as far as possible, in these small encounters as well. In a period when the class struggle has become accentuated to the point of civil war, Social-Democrats must make it their duty not only to participate but also to play the leading role in this civil war. The Social-Democrats must train and prepare their organisations to be really able to act as a belligerent side which does not miss a single opportunity of inflicting damage on the enemy’s forces.”
I think this (from a short note by Lenin on guerrilla warfare (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/gw/index.htm) hits on the difference in approach between Marx and him:
- The clear need to control the movement by the party is his priority.
- The idea that revolution is a long drawn out civil war, rather than a political struggle to capture state power through civil means.
Contrast with Marx’ description of the Paris commune:
“Paris, the central seat of the old governmental power, and, at the same time, the social stronghold of the French working class, had risen in arms against the attempt of Thiers and the Rurals to restore and perpetuate that old governmental power bequeathed to them by the empire. Paris could resist only because, in consequence of the siege, it had got rid of the army, and replaced it by a National Guard, the bulk of which consisted of working men. This fact was now to be transformed into an institution. The first decree of the Commune, therefore, was the suppression of the standing army, and the substitution for it of the armed people.
“The Commune was formed of the municipal councillors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town, responsible and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally working men, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time.
“Instead of continuing to be the agent of the Central Government, the police was at once stripped of its political attributes, and turned into the responsible, and at all times revocable, agent of the Commune. So were the officials of all other branches of the administration. From the members of the Commune downwards, the public service had to be done at workman’s wage. The vested interests and the representation allowances of the high dignitaries of state disappeared along with the high dignitaries themselves. Public functions ceased to be the private property of the tools of the Central Government. Not only municipal administration, but the whole initiative hitherto exercised by the state was laid into the hands of the Commune.”
A systematic decentralisation and dispersal of power. There’s no mention, really, even of party, it is working men elected to office, not a party, that carries out the tasks of the commune.
LBird “the same happens to me when I vote and lose.”
* * *
Not so.
The implications of voting for TRUTH and losing are utterly incommensurable with the implications of voting for the Labour Party — as you recommended, and no doubt have done — and losing.
If — and good things do happen under capitalism — the Labour Party should lose the election, you, as a Labour voter, just have to cop it sweet, while the Conservative Party, as majority, doesn’t (at least not yet) socially force you to switch your political allegiance to the winning side. You simply get on with your humdrum existence under a capitalism run by a different political party.
But, if I vote for the TRUTH in your ‘democratic socialist’ Utopia, and I happen to lose, I find myself socially in the WRONG relative to the expected norms of ‘democratic socialist’ Utopia.
My loss immediately casts me as a ‘democratic socialist’ pariah, who must be healed — brought into line, or “toe the line”.
By democratic ballot, I have been convicted of ‘democratic socialist’ deviation. I do not hold the correct ‘democratic socialist’ TRUTH.
Your utopian society has a ‘democratic socialist’ duty to change my mind to protect itself.
And I fully recognize that I stand in urgent need of mental transformation. I must accordingly submit to ‘democratic socialist’ Utopian mind-reversal. If that fails, I must willingly undergo further social re-education and, failing that, mental castration or blissful zombiefication.
Of course I gratefully understand that all these mind-bending operations are being sympathetically imposed upon my thought processes in the name of ‘democratic socialist’ necessity. And I also agree that they must be brought about by the ‘social democratic’ theory-and-practices outlined in the lBird Levelling Manifesto of a few posts back.
* * *
But, on second thoughts, surely changing my mind against my conviction runs counter to my will.
lBird, you probably don’t appreciate how closely your own idealist theory of cognition steers towards Schopenhauer’s for he, like you, held “the world is my representation”, and he also voluntaristically saw the world as will and representation. Change Schopenhauer’s ‘my’ for ‘our’ and you are halfway there.
Now, to change my representation of the world so that it conforms to the TRUE ‘democratic socialist’ Utopian representation of the world, you must first break my will. Hence your ‘democratic socialist’ rack and pinion. We all agree now comrades, don’t we?
* * *
If Hegel and Marx know anything about human thinking, they agree that it proceeds by opposition.
Hence, for ‘democratic socialist’ Utopia to force me to think the TRUTH is, unbeknownst to its anti-dialectical self, simultaneously an unguarded invitation for me to actively explore ways to undermine it.
Heroic acts of human defiance in the teeth of torture tell us something ennobling about human integrity before thought compelled against conviction. We lesser humans stand in admiration of those whose mental spirit refuses to be broken.
But, instead, take what we know about normal, less heroic, humans — I am not referring to the imaginary humans, presumably modeled on the behaviour of your former comrades, that you a-historically plonk into your artificial ‘democratic socialist’ Utopia to function as vile exemplars of your malicious ‘democratic socialist’ humanity — normal humans are going to defy thought compelled against their inner conviction.
Normal humans rightly feel affronted and insulted by your imaginary need to run socialism by compulsion. Compulsion accords with the only way a class society can be run. But compulsion is the vile action that socialism transcends because, in a cooperative commonwealth, it is superfluous.
* * *
In your compelled society, humans will unite in defiance against your reign of terror — a terror, not of the body but, appropriate to the dyed-in-the-wool idealist you are, a far more dire reign of terror — a terrifying terror of the mind.
Thought is dynamic, and cannot be compelled.
Robbo asked ‘Where did Marx talk about the need for scientific theorising to be subject to democratic control?’
To which bird replied: ‘I’ve genuinely answered all the questions in your post, previously. You’re just ignoring what I say, so there doesn’t seem much point giving the same answers again’ (#209936)
Members of this forum shouldn’t be fooled by this bluster. I’ve asked this question before and Bird has never given an answer. Part of the problem is that he often claims to be quoting Marx but we have no way of knowing.
The nearest he has come to answering the question is in an earlier post in this thread (#209844). In answer to Robbo’s question (yet again) about where Marx said science would be put to a popular vote, Bird said:
“I believe in the ideology of ‘revolutionary science’, which, because of Marx’s politics, I assume means ‘democratic science’”.
Bird puts ‘revolutionary science’ in quotation marks as though he quoting Marx. As usual he provides no references, let alone a link. Note also that it his assumption about what Marx thought, leaving to one side the matter of whether this assumption is true.
Of all the many books on Marx, none that I’m aware of support Bird’s postmodernist notion of truth – that if enough people decide something is true, then it is true. Of course Bird may have discovered something in Marx that everybody else has missed. But until he provides that evidence we have no reason to believe what he is saying is true.
Lew, are you seriously suggesting that ‘democracy’ wasn’t at the heart of Marx’s political position?
Surely, every single thing Marx wrote, was underpinned by his democratic politics?
If you think that this view that ‘Marx is fundamentally democratic‘ is untrue, I think that the onus is on you to disprove it.
Perhaps we are now getting to the SPGB’s heart of darkness.
I do not think that he said what you are saying. The SPGB/WSM has always supported the democratic possession of the means of production by the vast majority of the working class, if that is not a democracy, what can we call it?
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