Materialism, aspects and history.

[Anonymous]

 I would be greatful if you could address my question. 

Vin wrote:

Are you suggesting that 'ideas' have nothing to do with the 'production and reproduction of life'? That it is 'material' as opposed to 'ideal'?

[Young Master Smeet]

Except that the key texts are the ones they both authored, or put their names to, like the German ideology:

Quote:

The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.

and of course:

Quote:

Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting-point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness.

.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Ecept that the key texts are the ones they both authored, or put their names to, like the German ideology:

Quote:

The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.

and of course:

Quote:

Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting-point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness.

[my bold]

Yes, 'material conditions', 'life' and 'real life' are both ideal and material.That's the whole point, YMS – Engels thought Marx meant that 'material' meant simply 'matter', rather than both 'ideas' and 'material'.When Marx writes 'material', he's talking about 'human production'.When Engels writes 'material', he's (often) talking about 'matter'.This mistake of Engels', his fundamental misunderstanding of what Marx meant, has had tremendous consequences, all politically bad.If one thinks 'material conditions' means human 'ideas and practice' determining, we have no problems.Put simply, humans ideas can change the world.But, if one thinks 'material conditions' means 'matter' (specifically, something outside of human IDEAS), then one misunderstands Marx.Put simply, it's waiting for the rocks to tell us. And since 'rocks don't talk', the party arguing this has to pretend to the class that the party knows what the rocks are saying. Thus the party arguing the Engels' line has to have a 'consciousness' that the proletariat clearly doesn't have. I'm a worker, and I've never heard a rock talk.This is the disastrous political result of Engels' philosophical mistake – he seems to have realised it as a political mistake, at the end of his life, when Marx was already dead, but Engels never seemed to be able to realise that the 'bad politics' flowed from HIS philosophical misreading of Marx, and couldn't be undone by transferring its effects to the very distant 'final' cause, which never actually came.Engels had to reject 'matter' as a cause, but he didn't realise that.Whilst 'matter' determines, humans are powerless.Where parties have the special consciousness required to read the 'material conditions' for us workers, the proletariat remains powerless.

[Anonymous]

LBird, if Engels was wrong, then how would you explain the persistent failure of governments of both 'left' and 'right' to control capitalism?And their failure to recognise the reason, as can be seen in Greece And why should we bother with socialism?

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

If one thinks 'material conditions' means human 'ideas and practice' determining, we have no problems.

 

[Young Master Smeet]

It would seem that Engels agrees with you:https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_25.htm

Quote:

So it is not, as people try here and there conveniently to imagine, that the economic position produces an automatic effect. Men make their history themselves, only in given surroundings which condition it and on the basis of actual relations already existing, among which the economic relations, however much they may be influenced by the other political and ideological ones, are still ultimately the decisive ones, forming the red thread which runs through them and alone leads to understanding.

and by economic conditions:

Quote:

Thus the entire technique of production and transport is here included. According to our conception this technique also determines the method of exchange and, further, the division of products, and with it, after the dissolution of tribal society, the division into classes also and hence the relations of lordship and servitude and with them the state, politics, law, etc.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

If one thinks 'material conditions' means human 'ideas and practice' determining, we have no problems.

 

If what I'm saying has clicked, Vin, I'm very happy!The key political consequence of this, is that what 'material conditions' ARE, can be VOTED upon.Thus, 'material conditions' are within the democratic control of the proletariat.If 'material conditions' don't contain ideas/consciousness, then they just 'are', and can't be changed by voting.Marx wanted the proletariat to change 'material conditions', but Engels put the kibosh on that, because for Engels 'material conditions' were outside of consciousness, and he believed that these 'material conditions' (which he called 'economics', too) were the final determinant of our lives.So, for Engels, the 'active side' was 'matter'.For Marx, the 'active side' was human consciousness, engaged in practice, changing their world.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

It would seem that Engels agrees with you:https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_25.htm

Quote:

So it is not, as people try here and there conveniently to imagine, that the economic position produces an automatic effect. Men make their history themselves, only in given surroundings which condition it and on the basis of actual relations already existing, among which the economic relations, however much they may be influenced by the other political and ideological ones, are still ultimately the decisive ones, forming the red thread which runs through them and alone leads to understanding.

and by economic conditions:

Quote:

Thus the entire technique of production and transport is here included. According to our conception this technique also determines the method of exchange and, further, the division of products, and with it, after the dissolution of tribal society, the division into classes also and hence the relations of lordship and servitude and with them the state, politics, law, etc.

[my bold]So, why didn't Engels (and he, not Marx, is the formulator of the concept) call this the 'idealist-materialist conception of history'?As I've said before, when Engels says 'economic', he contrasts the concept with 'political and ideological', and so assumes that 'economic' is outside of 'ideas'.That's why Engels (not Marx) introduced the concept of the 'materialist conception of history'.So, not only does Engels not agree with me, YMS, but he doesn't agree with Marx, either.Marx never, ever, says that 'economic relations' (ie. outside of politics and ideology) are 'ultimately decisive'.Engels does, and the Leninists followed.

[Young Master Smeet]

Here it is again (with preceeding sentence included):

Quote:

What we understand by the economic conditions, which we regard as the determining basis of the history of society, are the methods by which human beings in a given society produce their means of subsistence and exchange the products among themselves (in so far as division of labour exists). Thus the entire technique of production and transport is here included.

(emphasis in the original), the techniques of production include ideas, and the ideational input into production.  I mean, further:

Quote:

Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development. But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base.

Clearly stating 'superstructural' ideas/notions /forms can change the economic base.  Engels is a long way from being a mechanical materialist (also, lets not forget, most of the manuscript for German Ideology was in his handwriting, significant, dontcha think?).

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

If one thinks 'material conditions' means human 'ideas and practice' determining, we have no problems.

 

If what I'm saying has clicked, Vin, I'm very happy! 

It is difficult to take you serious, Lbird. I was pointing out that 'ideas' are material conditions 2 years ago and you now finally agree.  Which made me think the penny had finally dropped. Look back. On every thread I have pointed this out to you. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are not being dihonest and put it down to confusion and a memory laps.  

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

If one thinks 'material conditions' means human 'ideas and practice' determining, we have no problems.

 

If what I'm saying has clicked, Vin, I'm very happy! 

It is difficult to take you serious, Lbird. I was pointing out that 'ideas' are material conditions 2 years ago and you now finally agree.  Which made me think the penny had finally dropped. Look back. On every thread I have pointed this out to you. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are not being dihonest and put it down to confusion and a memory laps.  

It's difficult to take serious your refusal to call Marx's views 'idealist-materialist', Vin.Why you accept the centrality of 'ideas', but call it 'materialism', is a two-year mystery, which I still haven't solved.It's not my 'dishonesty or memory lapses', Vin, but your refusal to use the English language in way that workers can understand."Marx was an 'idealist-materialist' " is so much more comprehensible than 'materialism'.Anyway, we seem to be there now!

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

   Engels then goes on to throw away, once again, Marx’s notion of human ‘production’ (theory and practice, plans and product, human social and historical creativity), and reverts to the ‘economic’ as ‘ultimately decisive’, and specifically says that ‘human minds’ do not play ‘the decisive one’.

Engels, Bloch letter, wrote:

We make our history ourselves, but, in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions. Among these the economic ones are ultimately decisive. But the political ones, etc., and indeed even the traditions which haunt human minds also play a part, although not the decisive one.

[my bold] 

 But he doesnt say what you say he is saying.  This is not a "critical" reading of the text  as you claim  but a display of your own prejudices in the pursuit of this  hobbyhorse of yoursThere is a difference between saying Engels "specifically says that ‘human minds’ do not play ‘the decisive one’"  and what Engels actually said viz But the political ones, etc., and indeed even the traditions which haunt human minds also play a part, although not the decisive one."   Can you spot the difference? It is not the human mind as such which does not play a decisive part but rather the political conditions and traditions which haunt the human mind.  There is nothing in what Engels says that the human mind per se (i.e. consciousness) is not also implicated in those conditions that do play an ultimately decisive role i.e. the economic ones Your claim that " His use of ‘economic’ excludes ‘mind’, and so he thinks that the term is equivalent to ‘material’, something to do with ‘matter’, to the exclusion of ‘mind’ is unproven.  You say:  It’s obvious to all that human ‘production’, being social, involves both ideas and materiality, in equal measure.  Assume for the sake this applies to all forms of activity not just production and that that is what Engels actually meant  Is it possible to argue that some forms of activity exhiting this fusion of what you call the ideal and  material can predominate in influencing the course of history while other forms of activity are less influential.  I think it is . Im quite persuaded by Keith Graham's (another ex SPGBer) way of looking at the matter thusRecall that synchronic materialism concerns the relations of a society frozen in snapshot, as it were.  Some of these difficulties of verification may be eased by observing societies in motion, over time.  Although relations of production cannot be observed without accompanying superstructural attributes, any pattern in successive relations of production and their accompaniments may allow inferences of subordination and domination to be drawn  (Keith Graham , 1992, Karl Marx Our contemporary  Harvester Wheatsheaf,  p54-55) Or to ram the point home here is another , and one of my favourite, quotes from Carolyn MerchantAn array of ideas exists available to a given age: some of these for unarticulated  or even unconscious reasons seem plausible to individuals or social groups; others do not.  Some ideas spread; others die out.  But the direction and accumulation of social changes begin to differentiate between  among the spectrum of possibilities so that some ideas assume a more central role in the array, while others move to the periphery.  Out of this differential appeal of ideas that seem most plausible under particular social conditions, cultural transformations develop (Carolyn Merchant, 1980, The Death of Nature: Women , Ecology and the Scientific Revolution,  Harper and Row      p.xviii)It is in this context that economic circumstances can be seen to act as a crucial part of the "sifting process" that leads to cultural transformation – not as something separate from the realm of ideas but as the expression of ideas like the idea of property rights or the idea of self interest, say

[LBird]

As long as you're happy with Marx's 'conception' being called, as it should be according to quotes from Marx already given, 'the idealist-materialist conception of history', I'm happy, too.If you're not, and you want to retain Engels' erroneous formulation of 'the materialist conception of history', you'll have to explain to those workers that you're trying to explain socialism to, how ideas/consciousness/thinking/theory etc. is 'matter'.I'm with Marx, who unified the truth of both.

Marx, EPM, CW3, p. 336 wrote:

Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both.

[my bold]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/hegel.htmProduction requires a social 'theory and practice', which develops historically.If we're to explain Marx's theories to other workers, we have to use terms which make sense.'Materialism' does not, and is also incorrect, according to Marx.Perhaps the real problem, robbo, is that you don't want to explain to workers, and you're quite happy with your own 'individual understanding'. That thesis would certainly fit with your refusal to democratise truth production, and your wish to retain 'elite expert' control in science. You could then pose as the 'elite expert' in philosophy and history, and prevent workers from controlling the production of history writing, too.In fact, this sequence is precisely what happens with the Leninist philosophy, of elite 'special consciousness' being embodied in a cadre party, who will 'lead' the dumb workers to socialism. No workers' democracy there, and none with you, either.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Perhaps the real problem, robbo, is that you don't want to explain to workers, and you're quite happy with your own 'individual understanding'. That thesis would certainly fit with your refusal to democratise truth production, and your wish to retain 'elite expert' control in science. You could then pose as the 'elite expert' in philosophy and history, and prevent workers from controlling the production of history writing, too.In fact, this sequence is precisely what happens with the Leninist philosophy, of elite 'special consciousness' being embodied in a cadre party, who will 'lead' the dumb workers to socialism. No workers' democracy there, and none with you, either.

  You do talk a load of tosh at times LBird, as well completely evading my central point – that your so called "critical reading" of Engels may have quite misread what the guy was saying on the first place. As your nonsense about "democraticising truth production" perhaps you might care to respond to the relevant section in my earlier post – reproduced below -something else  you completely evaded, preferring it seems to hide behind cheap and empty smears about "elite experts" and repudiating "workers democracy"  Your problem, L Bird, is that that you dont know what democracy is for, what its purpose is, and that is why you come out with kind of idiotic kneejerk comments such as the above

robbo203 wrote:

Groan.  Not this daft idea again!  It is not a question of anyone trying to stop anyone from saying what is the truth in their view.  Its just a simple fact that none of us however talented or gifted can ever acquire more than the tiniest fraction of the  sum total of human knowlege  and therefore the idea that any of us, let alone all of us , can competently pronounce on the "truth" of everything is just plain ludicrous.  Democratic control of production is a relative thing or are you seriously trying to tell us that the total global workforce (7 billion people) is going to have a say in what goes on in Factory no.156 in William Morris Avenue,  Surbiton, Surrey in the new global communist world order?  Pull another one, LBird! It does not follow from the fact that production is a socialised process that the totality of society has to be involved in literally every single decision made in the global economy.  If this is what you are saying that makes you an advocate of crackpot central planning and an opponent of any kind of decentralised or localised decisionmaking whatsoever. Ironically that would make your perspective more of a Leninist one than you perhaps care to admit

On this last point,  do tell us LBird – what is your take on central planning? Do you believe that the totality of production should be democratically controlled by the total global workforce (i.e. there should be no localised or decentralised decisionaking)  and how in practical terms are you going to achieve this?  C'mon lets hear from you on the subject. Why do you keep mum every time it is brought up?

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

You do talk a load of tosh at times LBird, as well completely evading my central point…

And talking to you is like trying to reason with a particularly dense boss, robbo.The 'central point' of a thread about so-called 'materialism' is that Marx wasn't a 'materialist', but an 'idealist-materialist', not your individualist incomprehension about workers' power, collective action, and democracy.And, by god, my 'cheap and empty smears about "elite experts" '… you won't have a bad word said about the bosses' ideologists, will you, robbo?Stop tugging your forelock, loser.It's a shame that the thread has taken the usual turn, where the so-called 'materialists', when confronted with texts written by Marx, always resort to personal abuse, about my 'idiotic, kneejerk'… errr…. evidence.And when I return to insults in kind, the dickheads come out of the sun in squadrons, complaining about my behaviour.I can feel yet another ban coming on… to keep the site safe from critical thought, and safe for the Religious Materialists, like robbo, who won't have workers' democracy in truth production.

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